Take a muscle cell, modify it over millions of years, and you can end up with a shocking evolutionary result: the electric fish.

Electric fish have evolved several times in varying levels of complexity. Two groups of electric fish, one in Africa (Mormyroids) and one in South America (Gymnotiforms), have independently evolved sophisticated communication systems using these cells. By emitting and sensing weak electrical signals, the fish have bypassed the usual means of communication, such as with sounds and visual signals, and go directly to electrical signals.

Do you find yourself finishing the sentences of a speaker you are watching? You are not alone.

Our brain activity is similar to speakers we are listening to when we can predict what they are going to say, according to a team of neuroscientists writing in the Journal of Neuroscience. 

Traditionally, it was thought that our brains always process the world around us from the "bottom up"—when we hear someone speak, our auditory cortex first processes the sounds, and then other areas in the brain put those sounds together into words and then sentences and larger discourse units. From here, we derive meaning and an understanding of the content of what is said to us.

It's official - females prefer courtship over competitiveness. And she may talk with her friends about the size of your mandibles, but it really doesn't matter.   

Female mate choice and male-male competition are typical mechanisms of sexual selection. However, these two mechanisms do not always favor the same males.  Researchers have investigated the complicated sexual conflict over mating in Gnatocerus cornutus, the horned flour-beetle.

Male horned beetles have enlarged lower jaws – or mandibles – used to fight rivals, and those with larger mandibles do have a mating advantage when there is direct male-male competition. But until now, it has not been clear whether the females actually prefer these highly competitive males.

In a previous article I wanted to know if I could use the recording medium from old floppy disk as an infrared (IR) filter to shoot infrared photography on an iPod. I built a simple IR detector using Snap Circuits to test how well the floppy disk would absorb visible light yet let infrared wavelengths pass through. In that circuit I used the photodiode Snap Circuits block (Infrared Receiver U24) as the infrared detector. Even though a photodiode was useful for building a simple IR detector, another electronic component that is often used to detect infrared light is the phototransistor.

Treating patients who suffer from a common condition known as arteriovenous malformation (AVM), which causes blood vessels in the brain to tangle, increases their risk of stroke, a study has found.

People rteriovenous malformation have a better outcome if doctors treat their symptoms only and not the AVM, according to the team of doctors looked at the long-term outcome of patients with the condition, which is caused by abnormal connections between the arteries and veins in the brain. 

Over the next decade, facial transplants will become more common, done at regional hospitals the way heart transplants are done now, according to a retrospective analysis of all known facial transplants worldwide.

The surgeons behind the analysis conclude that the procedure is relatively safe, increasingly feasible, and a clear life-changer that can and should be offered to far more carefully selected patients.  The review team found that the transplants are highly effective at restoring people to fully functioning lives after physically disfiguring and socially debilitating facial injuries, but are not without risks. 

The mobile using public became turned off by QR codes for mobile devices that were nothing but a coupon that they were going to find in the newspaper or on the website.

Similarly, gimmicky contest ads and flashy free-prize messages that can at least be somewhat ignored on a desktop monitor are hard to miss on a mobile, and that may be even more of a turnoff for mobile users.

Yes, you like "Frozen", everyone liked "Frozen". And Idina Menzel blew up the musical "Wicked" when she sang "Defying Gravity" so it's no surprise she blew up "Let It Go" when the catalyst in the Disney hit cartoon came to terms with her arcane gifts - but it's just a cartoon. Much as we might like to think it's permissible to do the same if the reasons are valid, there is a time and a place for such displays.

A corporate board room is likely not that place.

A rare opportunity, a look behind the curtains of "scientific peer review" corrupting science; moreover, revealing sniffs of the swamp that is the established community publishing on memristors - another case of hype in science, but the implications are general and can be only more severe with issues where more money than Hewlett Packard’s is involved, or powerful political interests such as with global warming.

A famous Grouch Marx comedy bit goes that he wouldn't want to be part of any club that would have him as a member. Elitism sells has value.

In a famous "Seinfeld" episode, customers dutifully lined up for lunch and if they deviated from protocol, the Soup Nazi banished them. Such high-falutin' behavior works, according to a new paper in the Journal of Consumer Research. At least when it comes to luxury brands, the ruder the sales staff the better the sales, say scholars from the University of British Columbia's Sauder School of Business. 

Consumers who get the brush-off at a high-end retailer can become more willing to purchase and wear pricey togs.