Electric Maple Trees

Research reveals that maple trees generate a small amount of electricity. Potato's can also transmit electricity but such experiments use electrodes of two different metals to set up a charge difference thereby allowing electricity to flow. In the maple tree study, electrodes of the same material generated a steady voltage of a few hundred millivolts (far less than 1.5 volt AA battery).

Pigeons Whistle for Safety

Research reveals that pigeon wing-flapping creates distinct whistles, warning flock-mates when taking off or when escaping predators. Scientists recorded the sounds crested pigeons wings made during a routine liftoff and during an emergency takeoff. The sound produced during dangerous moments includes a distinctive whistle. That noise scatters a flock of pigeons as quick as the shadow of a predator.

Champagne like Ocean

Researchers found surfactant (molecular compounds) concentrations higher at the surface of a glass of champagne than in the champagne itself.

In ocean air, surfactants are dragged along with bubbles in ocean waves. When bubbles burst, the surfactants break into aerosols that give ocean air its odor. A champagne glass is a small "ocean," but the bubbles bring more pleasing aerosols to the surface.

Science of Cheese

See short documentary.

Obama vs. Osama

UPENN linguistics professor Mark Liberman explains that the common slip between "Obama" and "Osama" is due to the "syntactic category rule" (SCR) phenomenon and "priming."

SCR occurs when two words are confused for one another and occur when nouns replace nouns, verbs replace verbs, etc. If "Obama" were an adjective, not a noun, we probably wouldn't confuse "Obama" with the noun "Osama."

"Priming" (which seems to be an evolutionary adaptation) is when your brain makes certain words more accessible when they resemble (sound, meaning) words you frequently hear. So when we've read/heard/thought about hospitals, "doctor" and "nurse" will be recognized quicker and more likely to be used in a slip of the tongue.

The Birther Beef

Research into "implicit social cognition" reveals that white Americans inherently regard white Europeans as more "American" than non-whites. This may help explain why so many believe President Obama is not a born American. In the study, white Americans actually thought white Europeans like Hugh Grant were more American than Asian-American Connie Chung. Similar research in 2008 found whites thought former British PM Tony Blair was more American than President Obama.

Phone Use Indicates Social Network

Social network researchers gave subjects cell phones that recorded call information, text messages and how physically close callers were to their contacts. Researchers inferred which contacts were friends with 95% accuracy. Sometimes, patterns revealed a friendship in the making months before people considered each other friends. The data could also predict job satisfaction: people who spend all day on the phone with friends are generally unhappy with work.

Walking in Circles

Yes, people, in a featureless environment, will walk in circles. Research found that in the absence of visible landmarks or cues from the sun, people who are lost can’t walk a straight line.

Participants plopped in a forest were asked to walk in a straight line. When cloudy, wanderers walked in circles, but veered randomly left and right, repeatedly crossing their own paths. On sunny days, they maintained an almost straight course. The same happened with volunteers in the Sahara Desert during day and night.

Planck's Law Breaks Down

In 1900 Max Planck described how energy dissipates from any nonreflective object. But Planck said if something else is really, really close to the object, the law might break down. Research reveals that heat transfer rules from a nonreflective object (Planck's blackbody radiation law) break down if the object is brought close enough to another object, but not touching.

Researchers placed flat plates a 10 billionths of a meter apart and radiation flow was 1,000 times greater than Planck’s law predicts. The findings have implications for computer storage and solar energy devices which become less efficient because of heat buildup.

Lower Teen Crashes By Sleepign In

High schools in Virginia Beach, VA start 75-80 minutes earlier than high schools in neighboring Chesapeake (w/ similar demographics). Research found Virginia Beach crash rates were significantly higher and peak crash times were one hour earlier than peak Chesapeake crash times.

A previous post highlighted the benefit of starting school late, to afford for teens sleeping needs.

Racists Don't Like Capitalism

Arthur Brooks et al have argued that conservatives give much more to charity than liberals, especially charities meant to alleviate poverty. This makes sense because liberals endorse government provisions and conservatives endorse private provisions.

In a related topic, research found that racists tend to oppose free market capitalism. Racists also favor economic redistribution. Redistributionists were found to be 2-3 times more likely to be angry or sad (and twice as likely to be more angry than their counterparts) while anti-redistributionists were 2-4 times more likely to be happy or calm. Also, both "redistributionists and anti-capitalists expressed lower overall happiness, less happy marriages and lower satisfaction with their financial situations and with their jobs or housework.” Anti-redistributionists are more likely to behave altruistically and more likely to donate to charities - except that redistributionists were more likely to give to homeless people.

Think Powerful - Be Powerful

Humans express power through open, expansive postures and express powerlessness through closed, contractive postures. Researchers asked if these postures actually create power? Studies revealed that high power nonverbal displays (vs low-power nonverbal displays) cause neuroendocrine and behavioral changes.

High-power posers elevated testosterone levels, decreased cortisol levels, and increased feelings of power and tolerance for risk (low-power posers exhibited the opposite). High-power displays caused "advantaged and adaptive psychological, physiological, and behavioral changes" suggesting "embodiment extends beyond mere thinking and feeling, to physiology and subsequent behavioral choices."

The research corroborates Mirza Ghulam Ahmad's ground breaking 1896 treatise of the relationship between body, mind and soul.

Nice People Can Be Brainy

Research shows that people view competence and warmth as inversely related - i.e. intelligent people don’t need to be nice and nice people are judged less competent than they really are. Research found that humans value warmth over competence when judging others but when judging ourselves, we value competence over warmth (we want others to see us as competent, not just nice).

The research explains why many are dismissive of elders but kind to them, why managers trust unworthy employees, why many women are denied employment upgrades.