Smart cars that are actually, well, smart

post from Top stories on 14 June 2011 11:42:03 PM. © Top stories

Mechanical engineers work to develop intelligent onboard transportation systems that can prevent car crashes.

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Patenting DNA and genetic tests

post from Top stories on 14 June 2011 11:38:11 PM. © Top stories

In an article titled Patently Unjust in the June 2010 issue of The Progressive (not available online), Kari Lydersen describes a similar issue to the one

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The surprising connection between 2 types of
perception

post from Top stories on 14 June 2011 11:30:41 PM. © Top stories

The brain is constantly changing as it perceives the outside world, processing and learning about everything it encounters.

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Clues about why hair turns gray

post from Top stories on 14 June 2011 11:27:53 PM. © Top stories

A new study by researchers at NYU Langone Medical Center has shown that, for the first time, Wnt signaling, already known to control many biological processes, between hair follicles and melanocyte stem cells can dictate hair pigmentation.

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New insights into the 'hidden' galaxies of the
universe

post from Top stories on 14 June 2011 11:24:18 PM. © Top stories

A unique example of some of the lowest surface brightness galaxies in the universe have been found by an international team of astronomers lead by the Niels Bohr Institute. The galaxy has lower amounts of heavier elements than other known galaxies of this type.

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Mr Deity and the Days

post from Top stories on 14 June 2011 11:18:55 PM. © Top stories

Mr. Deity chats with Larry, Timmy, and John about the six days of Creation.

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I'm not going to be able to vote for anyone,
ever, am I

post from Pharyngula on 14 June 2011 07:18:02 PM. © Pharyngula

Once again, politicians are going on little, petty crusades to help the government economize, and as usual, they go for cheap shots that do nothing, other than to reveal their screwed up priorities. Here's Joe Biden, letting us know where the real problems lie.

Did you know that the government spends millions to maintain buildings that have sat vacant for years? Or that your tax dollars pay to needlessly ship copies of the Federal Register to thousands of government offices across the country even though the same information is available online?
And I bet you didn't know that your tax dollars pay for a website dedicated to the Desert Tortoise. I'm sure it's a wonderful species, but we can't afford to have a standalone site devoted to every member of the animal kingdom. It's just one of hundreds of government websites that should be consolidated or eliminated.

Hey, Joe! Did you know that the cost of maintaining that website dedicated to an entire species is about $125/year?

And the cost of the war in Afghanistan is currently at $423+ billion?

I would like our representatives to take a rational, cost/benefit analysis of major government programs and actually make changes that make a difference, instead of this penny-ante grandstanding.

The Democrats should know that if there is any liberal, ecologically minded candidate running in the primaries for the presidency, I'll vote for them without a qualm. I'm probably going to be stuck voting for Obama/Biden again in the national election, but I'll be holding my nose and only pushing that lever under protest, because the Republican candidates will be even worse.

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Episode CCXIV: The gayness is exhilarating

And is that such a bad thing? Neil Patrick Harris shows why he is awesome.

(Last edition of TET; Current totals: 12,545 entries with 1,401,056 comments.)

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NCBI ROFL: Comparison of blinking behavior
during listening to and speaking in Japanese and English.

It’s Japan week on NCBI ROFL! All week long we will be featuring the funniest research related to the Land of the Rising Sun. Enjoy!

“Blinking behavior during conversation may be different between conditions in listening and responding to questions because sifting attention from external to internal is possibly associated. The purpose of this study was to compare blinking behavior, duration, heart rates, and mental states during the tasks of listening to and responding to questions in Japanese and English. Participants were 67 (35 men and 32 women) undergraduate students. Blink rate while responding to questions in English did not differ from that while responding to questions in Japanese, but blink rate while listening to questions in English was significantly reduced compared to that while listening to Japanese. While anxiety and uneasiness were increased by the English conversation, blink rate and heart rate were decreased. Blinking behavior may be related to thinking and attention.”|