Freezing Fat to Death

Harvard researchers found kids who sucked on popsickles lost facial fat. Plastic surgeons reasoned if they could manipulate temperature and have people lose fat in other places. And they have been successful.

The procedure uses extreme cold to kill fat white cells while energizing brown fat (fat that helps burn calories). Overtime the fat white cells enters the stage of apoptosis - cell suicide.

Don't Ask the Left Ear

In an Italian dance club a woman approached people and asked for a cigarette. When speaking into people's right ear she got 34 people to give her a smoke vs. only 17 if she spoke into the left ear. It shows that the brain processes sound differently based on which ear its coming from but scientists still can't understand why generosity increases if the request comes through the right ear.

Previous studies have shown that humans tend to prefer listening with their right ears - possibly because right ear auditory stream gets precedence in the brain's left hemisphere, where most linguistic processing occurs.

A Different Kind of Liquid Metal

A ferrofluid is a liquid which contains iron and becomes highly magnetized if near a magnetic field.

Here's a trippy video of what it looks like and how it works.

Weaklings Have Better Hearing

A study finds that weaker people, like women, tend to have better hearing than stronger male counterparts. The weaker participants perceived threatening sounds quicker than others because they thought the threatening sound was closer than it actually was. Such behavior could be a survival mechanism.

Eyes Do Math

Researchers scanned brain activity of people moving their eyes right or left and asked participants to do mental math. They found that the brain circuitry that moves the eyes right does mental addition and the circuitry moving eyes left does mental subtraction. The finding demonstrates that math's development is too recent and advanced to have a brain region solely devoted to it - we reuse preexisting systems.

eBay Lessens Looting

When eBay began, archaeologists were scared that online buying and selling antiquities would increase stealing and trafficking of archaeological treasures. Contrary to expectations, eBay's existence has lessened looting because 1) eBay created a market for cheap fakes which lowered the incentive to steal real artifacts and 2) Collectors are more wary of buying on-line.

Words of Encouragement

In a study, half of 400+ black and white students wrote about any neutral topic over the course of a year. The other half wrote about why they cherished certain values. Black kids who had written about what they cherished improved grades ~.25 of a point on 4.0 scale vs. the control group. The lowest initial black performers improved scores .4+ of a point. 2 years later, the scores continued to improve among the group. White students who engaged in the affirmation exercise showed no improvement.

Ethnic minorities may feel poor academic performance confirms negative expectations about them. The affirmations may help alleviate those fears.

Hair Allows Hearing

Scientists discovered that our hearing is because our ears have tiny tubelike motors that mechanically amplify sounds.

Hair cells in your ears have spiky hairs like molecular mohawks. When sound waves enter the ear these hairs vibrate, and your brain computes it as sound. But these hairs don't move like grass in the breeze. The electrical signals the hairs produce feed back on the system, causing the hairs to tilt even more - called the “flexoelectric effect."

Hair length in different species explains why animals like bats can detect such high frequency sounds.

Birds and Bugs Fly the Same

Scientists studied 7 different kinds of winged animals - bugs to birds - and found they all used "flapping counter-torque" to turn. When a bird or bug turns right, its left wing moves faster on the downstroke while the right is faster on the upstroke, slowing the animal’s rotation. Whatever their size, animals with a similar wingspan to body length ratio need the same number of flaps to finish a turn.

Conniving Primates

Researchers studied a zoo chimp for 10 years and found he was collecting stones to throw at visitors.

"When the chimp first got to the zoo, he didn't throw many stones. But the few times he did got quite a reaction. And his rate of stone throwing picked up. Researchers swept the chimp’s area and found caches of stones. Then a caretaker hid and watched the chimp collect stones to throw later. Eventually the chimp tapped at concrete structures to break off pieces to throw."

The behavior is different from a chimp using a stick to collect termites to eat - which would be meeting an immediate need. The stone thrower is clearly and calmly planning for future events.

Moral Disgust Skin Deep

A study suggests our reactions to immorality and physical repugnance may be more similar than we think, because both elicit the same expression of disgust.

Subjects were asked to sip awful-tasting beverages. They made similar faces when shown photos of dirty toilets, etc. Subjects were then treated unfairly - e.g. given $1 while a partner got $9 - again exhibiting the same expressions of disgust.

Scientists conclude that aversion to bad behavior and bad food may have evolved from a primitive defense mechanism that nowadays protects us from both insult and injury.

Worth The Face Time

A study suggests that we often select leaders based on appearance.

Photos of the winner and runner up from a 2002 French election were shown to people in Switzerland who didn't know either candidate. Most participants thought the winner was the most competent of the 2. Then, 600+ children played a game involving a computer-simulated boat trip and asked which said they preferred the actual winner to captain the ship.

Video Games Improve Vision

A study suggests that action video gaming can improve one's eyesight.

People who played 5+ hours/week were found to have better contrast vision than non-gamers. Contrast sensitivity is useful for driving at night or in poor visibility ... and the first aspect of vision that deteriorates with age.

Also, non-gamers, who did a daily action video gaming workout boosted their contrast vision that lasted for months. Non-action video games didn’t have the desired effect.

Werid But Cool

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't awlyas mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe