Tag: Scientists
Study shows that virtual worlds can influence real-world decisions
A group of scientists at Cambridge University has conducted a study that shows that associations in videogames transfer directly to the real world. A group of volunteers played a (rather basic, from the look of it) cycling game, where they would be given a slurp of fruit juice if a cyclist from their team passed them, but a slurp of salty tea if a rival cyclist passed them.
A few days later, the participants were invited back and given the choice of two chairs in the waiting room, one with the logo of their team, and one with the logo of the rival team. Three quarters of participants picked the chair with their team’s logo, despite most people claiming not to notice the design.
Scientists on Google Earth discover that cows are magnetic
There are many animals that sense their place in the world through tapping into the earth’s magnetic field. We think that bees use it to work out where the hive is, and it’s thought that birds and fish use it when they migrate. However, before now it’s never been thought that cows might tap into it too…
This time scientists give mice a live-forever liver.. so unfair.
Can someone please tell me exactly what is so very wrong with mice that Scientists are determined to spend so much time supe-ing them up?!
Last week i wrote about scientists who created exercise-in-a-pill for mice. Well, this week, different lab-coat wearing mouse-botherers from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in New York, have gone and genetically modified a lil’ mouse’s liver to stop the aging process in it. And it’s worked, apparently.
Scientists working on 1.5-metre long climbing robotic snake
Forget snakes on a plane, for soon there could be snakes in your drains – robotic snakes, that is, which can climb vertical pipes, cleaning them or looking for leaks.
Norwegian scientists are working on a one-and-a-half metre long aluminium-clad robot is constructed with multiple joints, plastic wheels, and a camera, and is programmed with algorithms that tell it how to navigate pipework, and what tasks to carry out while in there…
British scientists want your Beatles-related memories for their Magical Memory Tour website/experiment
Those crazy British psychologists! Several University of Leeds peers have embarked on what they’ve dubbed ‘the Magical Memory Tour’, to discover what the general population’s first memories are when they think about the Beatles. LSD-soaked memories not sought, sorry.
The project consists of a massive online database of memories, which will be presented at a festival in Liverpool come September. It’s not simply an outlet for old hippies to reminisce about the first time they heard I Am The Walrus whilst on acid, as according to the two psychologists, the survey will help scientists…
