When many of us go to see a live performance of some kind, like a play or a concert, we are often mostly concerned with the quality of the performers. We've gone to hear the flowing sounds of the San Francisco Symphony or the clear voices of Broadway singers. But what many people overlook, and what may be the most expensive and time-consuming aspect of any musical or theater production, is the effect of room acoustics on the sound coming from the stage. Now, with the massive increases in computing power over the last decade or so, acousticians are able to predict far more accurately how a given space will respond to sound, paving the way to more optimized concert halls and theaters.
It was Christmas Eve, 1858 when “people who in the streets, on pathways and in the fields saw a magnificent ball of fire appear, which shone with a brilliant, blinding light and all the colors of the rainbow, obscured the light of the moon and descended majestically from the sky.”
This was the description of the meteorite that fell that evening, from a report commissioned by Rafael Martínez Fortún, of the town of Molina de Segura in Murcia, whose farm was struck by what is still the largest meteorite recovered in Spain. Since 1863, it has been exhibited in the National Museum of Natural Sciences.
New research by a Rice University psychologist clearly identifies the parts of the brain involved in the process of choosing appropriate words during speech.
When speaking, a person must select one word from a competing set of words. For example, if the speaker wants to mention a specific animal, he has to single out "dog" from "cat," "horse" and other possibilities. If he wants to describe someone's temperament, he has to choose whether "happy," "sad," "ecstatic" or some other adjective is more appropriate.
Tatiana Schnur, assistant professor of psychology at Rice, wanted to determine whether one particular part of the brain, the left inferior frontal gyrus (LIFG), is necessary for resolving the competition for choosing the correct word.
Researchers at the University of Southern California (USC) have, for the first time in history, derived authentic embryonic stem (ES) cells from rats. This breakthrough finding will enable scientists to create far more effective animal models for the study of a range of human diseases.
The finding brings scientists much closer to creating "knockout" rats—animals that are genetically modified to lack one or more genes—for biomedical research. By observing what happens to animals when specific genes are removed, researchers can identify the function of the gene and whether it is linked to a specific disease.
Researchers have what they think may be a basic recipe for capturing and maintaining indefinitely the most fundamental of
embryonic stem cells from essentially any mammal, including cows, pigs and even humans. Two new studies reported in
Cell, show that a cocktail first demonstrated to work in mice earlier this year, which includes inhibitory chemicals, also can be used to successfully isolate embryonic stem cells from rats.
Authentic rat embryonic stem cells had never before been established.
A slow, chronic starvation of the brain as we age appears to be one of the major triggers of a biochemical process that causes some forms of
Alzheimer's disease.
A new study from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine has found when the brain doesn't get enough sugar glucose -- as might occur when cardiovascular disease restricts blood flow in arteries to the brain -- a process is launched that ultimately produces the sticky clumps of protein that appear to be a cause of Alzheimer's.
How electrical traffic is routed through the brain has always been of great interest to psychologists. It was once thought that electrical signals always followed set paths through the brain, much in the way the heart pushes blood through the cardiovascular system. Many signals do, in fact, follow the same paths over and over again, but what is now more generally understood is that these pathways are in no way hardwired. The plasticity of the brain, or its ability to change based on the needs of the organism, has now been verified using a number of independent experiments.
“I discovered a flaw in the model that I perceived is the critical functioning structure that defines how the world works.” This, infamously, was uttered by former chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, who admitted that his view of how economies work was deeply flawed, and yet refused to issue an apology for years of federal intervention (or lack thereof) based on his “flawed” model. Hundreds of millions of people worldwide are suffering economic hardship as a result of someone making policy decisions on the basis of a flawed assumption.
HANOVER, Germany, December 23 /PRNewswire/ -- Access specialist arcutronix introduces its high flexible 10G multiprotocol transponders FCX10G and FCX10G2. The fiber optic transponders are new members of the manageable arcutronix system products and allow data transmission via single or dual independent channels. Each channel supports data rates from 9.95 Gbit/s up to 11.32 Gbit/s for all 10G applications, such as Ethernet LAN/WAN, SDH/Sonet, Fiber Channel, Fibre Channel with FEC and OTN.
Sports drinks containing protein are better at improving athletes' performance. Research published in BioMed Central's open access Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition has shown that drinks containing a mix of carbohydrate and protein are superior to carbohydrate-only drinks in improving cyclists' recovery from exercise.
