Landforms on Mars: Recent Melt-Water and Debris Flow Activity in Craters

According to a recent study, researchers claim that Mars had liquid water, as recent as 200,000 years ago. In southern mid latitudes of Mars, a young crater has been discovered. Researchers say that this crater has well conserved gorge and debris of sediments created by flowing liquid water. The geomorphological feature of these formations furnishes evidence that the action of flowing water had created them in recent geological time. 

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Caffeine Consumption Averts Type 2 Diabetes: Nutritional Beverage

If you are coffee addict and cannot cut down on your daily caffeine intake, there is a good news for you. According to a latest study, moderately scaling up coffee consumption can avert the risk of type 2 diabetes. As per Dr Frank Hu and Dr Shilpa Bhupathiraju from the department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, who led the research team, showed that by increasing the daily coffee intake by just one and a half cups (360 ml, approximately) over a four year span proves beneficial in cutting…

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Human Brain Simulated on Circuit Board: Mimicking Neurons and Synapses

Inspired by human brain, bioengineers at Stanford University have fabricated microchips that are relatively faster and energy-efficient where power consumption of PC is about 40k times more. Researchers envision that this would lead a novel way of understanding human brain as well as might take robotics especially prosthetics to the next level. Matching the Brain For an efficient mimicking of neurons and synapses, the team designed 16 Neurocore chips. Jointly these 16 chips were able to simulate about 1m neurons and billions of synaptic connections.

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Laughter Sets Off Waves Akin to Meditation: The Brain’s Workout

“Laughter is the best medicine” is a very well known saying and is now scientifically proven by researchers. According to a study, researchers have found that laughter in humans can set off brain waves, which are very similar to those related to meditation. The study also reveals that other kinds of incitement can generate various diverse types of brain waves. 

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Propagating Light Revealed New Fundamental Physical Features: Evanescent Electromagnetism

Dynamical properties of light have been consistent and very well accepted ‘fact’ amongst the academia of physics since more than a century. The same conviction has also helped in the understanding of electromagnetic radiation, which suggests that a quantum of light carries momentum in the direction of propagation and secondly a spinning or gyrating effect around the propagation axis. These two characteristics have become the basic tenets of daily occurrences and experimental interactions between light and matter. However, a new form of light called the evanescent waves has emerged having…

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Heatmaps Reveal Correlation Between Emotions and Body Sensations

Science has proven times and times again that emotions cannot be separated from our physical well-being. Various emotional conditions play an important role in our biology. Brain activity and hormones and examples of things that are affected by one’s various emotional states. A recent study demonstrated that different emotions are judged to correlate with different body parts. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, was conducted by a team of bio-medical engineers, with 700 participants from three countries, those being Finland, Sweden and Taiwan. The…

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Newly Discovered Neighbor of the Sun: Chilly as the Earth’s North Pole

Kevin Luhman, an astronomer at Penn State University has discovered a star, “brown dwarf” that is around 7.2 light-years away. Currently it appears to be as cold as Earth’s North Pole and positioned at fourth rank with respect to the Sun. The space scientist claims that insights from the new system might helpful in knowing the atmospheres associated with cold temperatures on similar other systems. Like stars, the brown dwarfs initiate the same life cycle but during the collapse, they lack the mass that is required to burn the nuclear…

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Selfies Linked to Mental Disorders

We all have this annoying high school facebook friend who posts selfies more regularly than we tend to check our facebook accounts. Well, this old friend is no longer labeled as just annoying, as scientists are exploring tagging this behavior as a mental disorder. Scientists interested in this subject are describing this common obsession with selfies as a compulsive behavior that could be linked to narcissism, addiction and mental illness.Narcissists chase satisfaction from vanity, or others’ recognition of their looks or mental characteristics (Wikipedia)- this definition seems to somewhat fit…

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10 Ways to Look at Linux Kernel based OS: Sneak Peek into the Android’s DNA

We are living in the smartphone era where the technology is taking giant strides and not just moving gradually. Every day there is an update making an individual choice of cellular devices all the more difficult. However, the cellular companies along with marketing of their product are not doing enough to educate the masses with respect to the embedded software.  The post is not written with an intention of defending one OS over the other however, it is aimed for sharing some information, which I gained through my experience with…

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Humanoid: EMIEW 2 Can Mimic Human Navigation Effortlessly

Hitachi has introduced its new and improved EMIEW 2 humanoid robot. The predecessor of this robot, EMIEW (Excellent Mobility and Interactive Existence as Workmate), was presented in the 2007 as a service robot aided with multiple communication functions which could safely perform services for humans in an office. The impressive looking EMIEW2 robot measures 80 centimeters in height and 14 kilograms in weight and moves at a high speed of 6km/hour. For the mobility purpose, the robot features a unique system of wheels and legs, which allows it to climb…

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Rubberized Asphalt Road Material: Recycled Roadways

Old or damaged tires are the major source of waste and concern for environmentalists. As per Environmental Protection Agency, America alone discards approximately 300 millions of waste tires annually. Such a huge volume of waste, which is extremely durable, is difficult to manage. The discarded tires are also not very suitable for landfills and often illegally dumped tires turn into breeding grounds for germ carrying mosquitoes and rodents. Piles of tires if caught fire can cause air and ground pollution. Therefore, it is required to recycle the discarded tires in…

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Fabrication of Bi-Layer Molecular Electronic Devices: Nanoscale Circuitry

Until now, it was difficult to charge particles at molecular scale and hence developing circuits at microscopic level has always presented a huge challenge. However, Alexander Shestopalov from University of Rochester has crossed the huddle making a step closer to the fabrication of microscopically small circuit. He powered an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) with a nanoscale circuitry in where he coupled the positive and negative electrodes with one-molecule thin sheet of organic material. Experimental trials and errors have proved that it’s impossible to control current passing through such a single…

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Genes Responsible for High Tolerance for Pain: Ache’s Genetic Basis

Every person is unique and is different from others. Even identical twins have different taste and behave differently. Likewise, every person has a different threshold level of bearing pain. Researchers working on the topic have found four important genes that determine the pain tolerance threshold in an individual. And therefore, it varies from person to person depending upon the key gene expression. 

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Chimpanzees Select Tree for Making Their One-Time Use Bed: The Sophisticated Primates

A new study suggests that like humans, chimpanzees are also very particular about their bed. Chimpanzees unlike humans are known to create their bed every day starting from scratch just before their bedtime. The exclusive chimpanzees beds are called nests and it require bending, breaking stems of tree, and piling leaves in an interwoven pattern, on this structure. But researchers noticed that chimpanzees do not make their nest on any random tree, rather choose branches of Ugandan ironwood trees for the purpose. These trees provided them with sturdy and stable…

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