Smartphone Games Can Train Brain

An hour a day on smartphone games can train the brain, like building muscles in the gym, researchers say.
They found that playing videogames can enhance particular cognitive skills, with better performance on tasks that use similar mental processes to the brain, Telegraph said.
This suggests, for example, that action games can boost spacial awareness while memory games enhance visual search tasks, reports journal PLoS ONE.
Dr. Michael Patterson, of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, compared it to using weight machines to build up muscles with repetitive actions. For the research, he asked participants--none of whom were gamers--to play one of five different games on their smartphone, for an hour a day.
The games, which were played for a month, included Bejeweled--where participants matched three identical objects--virtual life simulation like The Sims, action games, or hidden object games, such as Hidden Expedition.
After this ‘training’, researchers found that those who had played the action game had improved their capacity to track multiple objects in a short span of time, while hidden object, match three objects and spatial memory game players improved their performance on visual search tasks.

Automatic Wants to Make You Smarter Driver

Perhaps you’ve got a decent, several-year-old car that you’re still happy with, but that you wish had some of the helpful computerized features of today’s newer models.
According to FastcoDesign, should that be the case, don’t go trading in your ride just yet.
The Automatic system accesses your existing car’s onboard computer and displays driving and diagnostic data on your smartphone’s screen. It could potentially save you money, trips to the garage and even 911 calls.
Automatic consists of a small physical device known as the Automatic Link, and an iOS or Android app.
The Link plugs into your car’s OBD-II Data Link Connector, which mechanics routinely use to access the vehicle’s diagnostic systems. Such connectors are found in virtually every automobile made since 1996. Using Bluetooth 4.0, the Link device transmits vehicle data to the paired smartphone, which combines that information with data gathered by its own GPS, accelerometer, and other sensors.
One of the main things that the Automatic app does is to identify driving habits that cause excessive fuel use. These include rough braking, speeding, and rapid acceleration.

Iranians Develop Prostrate Surgery Laser

Researchers at Iran’s National Center for Laser Science and Technology have developed a laser for performing prostate gland surgery.
Hussein Bazyar, one of the researchers involved in the project, said, “Due to its wavelength, the system enjoys applications that other laser surgery systems don’t,” ISNA reported.
Bazyar said the basic factor in a laser is its wavelength, adding that the newly-developed laser’s wavelength enhances its absorption by the prostate tissue to its highest point, therefore the surgery is performed in the least possible time and with greater ease.
He explained that this system needs less time for prostate surgery compared to other systems.
“The patient will also need a shorter rehabilitation period; in some cases, it reduces the need for a catheter to one day only,” he said.
The project was launched in 2010 with the aim of acquiring the technology for the development of solid-state laser.
Bazyar further said the system consists of three parts: the head laser, mechanical and electronic parts.
“The design and production of the laser have been handled domestically by the team and includes the stages of overhaul, selection of parts, laser arrangement and the development of laser stable enough for the application,” he said.
“The mechanical part is focused on the case and the cooling system is modeled on parts of chiller and electric valve systems. Also, the electronic part, software and control box were made completely by the team.”

Electronic Tattoo Printed Directly Onto Skin

Taking advantage of recent advances in flexible electronics, researchers have devised a way to ‘print’ devices directly onto the skin so people can wear them for an extended period while performing normal daily activities.
Such systems could be used to track health and monitor healing near the skin’s surface, as in the case of surgical wounds, IdeaConnection reported.
So-called “epidermal electronics” were demonstrated previously in research from the lab of John Rogers, a materials scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The devices consist of ultrathin electrodes, electronics, sensors and wireless power and communication systems.
In theory, they could attach to the skin, record and transmit electrophysiological measurements for medical purposes. These early versions of the technology, which were designed to be applied to a thin, soft elastomer backing, were “fine for an office environment,” says Rogers, “but if you wanted to go swimming or take a shower they weren’t able to hold up”.
Now, Rogers and his coworkers have figured out how to print the electronics right on the skin, making the device more durable and rugged.
“What we’ve found is that you don’t even need the elastomer backing,” Rogers says. “You can use a rubber stamp to just deliver the ultrathin mesh electronics directly to the surface of the skin.”
The researchers also found that they could use commercially available “spray-on bandage” products to add a thin protective layer and bond the system to the skin.
Eliminating the elastomer backing makes the device one-thirtieth as thick, and thus “more conformal to the kind of roughness that’s present naturally on the surface of the skin,” says Rogers.
It can be worn for up to two weeks before the skin’s natural exfoliation process causes it to flake off.
During the two weeks that it’s attached, the device can measure things like temperature, strain and the hydration state of the skin, all of which are useful in tracking general health and wellness.

Binary Star System Found

In a day when we have examined astronomical objects shining forth from a time shortly after the Big Bang, one would think astronomers have a pretty good handle on what is in the immediate vicinity of the Solar System.
That’s why the recent report of a binary star lying only 6.5 light-years away came as rather a surprise to the astronomical community, Nature World News said.
The pair, called WISE J1049-5319 A and B, are brown dwarf stars and only two star systems--the triple star Alpha Centauri, and Barnard’s Star--lie closer to our Sun.
In December of 2009, NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) was launched into a polar orbit at an altitude of 525 km (326 miles) back in 2009. This small-scale space telescope was designed to perform a survey of the entire expanse of space in near--to mid-infrared wavelengths ranging from 3.4 to 22 microns.
WISE examined the skies for over a year using extremely sensitive imaging sensors, in the process discovering room temperature stars, galaxies formed just after the Big Bang, tens of thousands of asteroids, proto-planetary disks, newborn stars, and more.
Brown dwarf stars are stars that have too little mass to fuse hydrogen (although deuterium is likely to fuse for a brief period). Interestingly enough, they are all about the size of Jupiter, regardless of their mass. Brown dwarfs are heated as they slowly collapse by conversion of their gravitational potential energy into thermal energy.
The upper mass limit for a star to be a brown dwarf is about 0.07-0.08 solar masses, while the transition to being considered a large planet takes place by convention at 0.012 solar masses, where even deuterium fusion stops.
Prof. Kevin Luhman of Pennsylvania State University’s Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics took on the task of examining some of the 2.7 million photos taken by WISE for brown dwarfs (objects brighter in the mid-IR than in near-IR) that displayed large proper motion (movement relative to the more distant stars due to the relative velocity between the Sun and the object).
Large proper motion implies the object is nearby, and intensity increasing toward longer infrared wavelengths implies cool (and therefore dim) objects that are even dimmer in visible light, and hence might have been overlooked.
WISE J1049-5319 was one of the objects selected by Luhman’s search of the WISE database. It has a low galactic latitude (meaning that it appears against the bright background of the Milky Way), which may partially explain why it avoided detection until now.

Hi-Tech Shoes Nag You To Get Off Sofa

It is the perfect invention for anyone who needs a gentle reminder to get off the sofa. Google has invented a talking shoe that can sense activity--and inactivity--and tells the wearer when they need to get moving, Daily Mail wrote.
Fitted with a host of gadgets that measure movement, direction and balance, the built-in microprocessor connects to an audio speaker in the tongue of the Adidas trainer.
The gadgets are programmed to translate the pressure sensor and accelerometer readings into simple audio instructions for the wearer.
But not content simply to give someone feedback, the inventors at Google have given the shoes their own personality--that of a sarcastic, impatient personal trainer who cheers and sneers in equal measure.
When the wearer, for example, is stationary for too long, the trainers will say, “This is super boring”, or “Let’s do this”.
When someone ups their activity, the shoes will pipe up with, “That’s more like it”, and “I love the feel of the wind in my laces”.
And increasing to a sprint will prompt the speakers to call out: “Call 911, you are on fire”, or the ultimate in praise, “You have made me a very proud shoe.”
The trainers also connect to the Internet via Bluetooth and an Android phone, and work with Google’s mapping software to track and plot runs.
Mike Glaser, product marketing manager for Google, said, “The trainer has pressure sensors in the sole and all of those collect the wearer’s data in real time.
“So if I’m running, it recognizes how many times my foot hits the ground in a minute through the accelerometer and sends the information to the web to an Android app allowing us to tell a very rich story of the wearer.”
But, unfortunately for anyone who likes the sound of super-smart trainers, there are no plans to put them on sale.
Google, which unveiled the trainers at the SXSW technology festival in Austin, Texas, developed the concept to showcase the possibilities of integrating everyday objects with cutting-edge technology.

Massive Ice Balls Along Lake Michigan

Floating boulders of ice the size of basketballs lined the shores of Lake Michigan last month, and were photographed.
Weighing in at up to 50 pounds (22 kilograms) each, the ice spheres are a winter weather phenomenon resulting from wind and wave action along the shore, according to reporting by NASA’s Earth Science Picture of the Day, LiveScience said.
Small fragments of floating ice act like seeds, with layers upon layers of supercooled lake water freezing around them as the balls churn in the waves. Wind then pushes the ice concretions onshore.
The photo, snapped on the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore along northeastern Lake Michigan, shows enormous ice spheres lining the beach.
The ice balls turn up on beaches during the winter with some regularity, but they rarely reach this size, according to Tom Ulrich, deputy superintendent for the park, the NASA site reported.

Spiders Driving Evolution of Butterflies?

Butterflies are among the most vibrant insects, with colorations sometimes designed to deflect predators.
According to ScienceDaily, new University of Florida research shows some of these defenses may be driven by enemies one-tenth their size.
Since the time of Darwin 150 years ago, researchers have believed large predators like birds mainly influenced the evolution of coloration in butterflies.
In the first behavioral study to directly test the defense mechanism of hairstreak butterflies, UF lepidopterist Andrei Sourakov found that the appearance of a false head--a wing pattern found on hundreds of hairstreak butterflies worldwide--was 100 percent effective against attacks from a jumping spider.
The research published online on March 8 in the Journal of Natural History shows small arthropods, rather than large vertebrate predators, may influence butterfly evolution.
“Everything we observe out there has been blamed on birds: aposematic coloration, mimicry and various defensive patterns like eyespots,” said study author Andrei Sourakov, a collection coordinator at the Florida Museum of Natural History’s McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity on the UF campus.
“It’s a big step in general and a big leap of faith to realize that a creature as tiny as a jumping spider, whose brain and life span are really small compared to birds, can actually be partially responsible for the great diversity of patterns that evolved out there among Lepidoptera and other insects.”
Sourakov’s behavioral experiments at the McGuire Center showed the Red-banded Hairstreak butterfly, Calycopis cecrops, whose spots and tail imitate a false head, successfully escaped all 16 attacks from the jumping spider, Phidippus pulcherrimus.

Brain Function

Exercising just two or three times a month from childhood can lead to improved brain function in later life.