Want a more accurate estimate of waiting time to get through security at airports? 

Obviously monitoring Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is one way to go, but often people shut those off in the airport to conserve energy. Monitoring cell phones and tablets doesn't work if only 30% of people have them on. 

As many of us know, queues at airports are arranged in mazes using retractable ribbon barriers. Security personnel adjust the barriers according to the size of the queue, and analysis also 'learns' how the flow of people moves over time. This is then used to give an estimate of how long it takes for the queue to pass through security.

Researchers recently got 54 volunteers to try on free shoes. But this wasn't for fun, it was for a biomechanical study of the shoes manufactured by the Majorcan Camper brand.

The six designs of men's and women's footwear were then analyzed using optical motion capture systems, force plates, in-shoe pressure measurement devices and electromyography (EMG) sensors. The aim was to determine the parameters that affect how comfortable the shoes are.

It is estimated that one in 50 people in England have some form of learning disability such as Down’s syndrome, but when they become hospitalized they basically become 'invisible', according to a new paper. 

Hospital patients with learning disabilities face longer waits and mismanaged treatment due to a failure to understand them by nursing staff. In one case, a patient who had problems making herself understood was accused of being drunk by hard pressed hospital staff.

A young star named HD 142527 in the constellation Lupus (the Wolf) has revealed that cosmic dust, which is component material of planets, is circling around the star in a form of asymmetric ring. 

By measuring the density of dust in the densest part of the ring, astronomers imaging it with  the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) found that it is highly possible that planets are now being formed in that region.

Scholars say they are closing in on how ecstasy, 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA), produces feelings of euphoria in users and in a new paper say that it might be useful in the treatment of anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.  A small study using MDMA as an adjunct to psychotherapy reported positive preliminary results.

The limitation of the new paper; these were brain images and done for a television show a year and a half before it was in a journal.

Everyone's heard of microwave ovens by now. 

These mass-market kitchen devices were a by-product of a much more narrow application - radar. During World War II, the magnetron, a tube that produces microwaves, was invented to spot German bombers on their way to the British Isles. Later, Percy LeBaron Spencer of the Raytheon Company discovered that these radar waves melted a candy bar in his pocket and so the microwave oven - originally known as the Radar Range - was born.

Microwave ovens can do wonderful things but the quality of the cooking is not uniform. So you might be a little skeptical about milk.