10 Extinct Species of Animals That Ruled in Yester Decades: Wild Life That Was

Pragati Kashyap

Time and tide wait for none! Well, who’s not aware of this fact? Even the Earth has never been the same. Dominated by man today, the planet was ruled by some other species in yester decades. And who knows – how long are we as humans gonna make it here! Species come and go but what are left behind are their trials. The reasons for sudden disappearance of these long gone species are many, namely – catastrophic meteor collisions, ice age and of course there’s inexorable threat of one specifically…

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Predictive Power of Brain: Similar Activity Patterns are Exhibited amid Speakers and Listeners

Neha Shukla

At times, won’t we experience that while conversing with someone, the other person just say what were thinking or were about to spill out the same topic. And then we mutter, “what a coincidence” or as I say, “great minds thing alike” 🙂 well, this actually is not the case, neuroscientists have discovered new findings about the role of the brain during a communication. They say that people often predict what the speaker is about to say, because the brain activity of the listener is similar to the speaker. 

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Landforms on Mars: Recent Melt-Water and Debris Flow Activity in Craters

Neha Shukla

According to a recent study, researchers claim that Mars had liquid water, as recent as 200,000 years ago. In southern mid latitudes of Mars, a young crater has been discovered. Researchers say that this crater has well conserved gorge and debris of sediments created by flowing liquid water. The geomorphological feature of these formations furnishes evidence that the action of flowing water had created them in recent geological time. 

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Caffeine Consumption Averts Type 2 Diabetes: Nutritional Beverage

Neha Shukla

If you are coffee addict and cannot cut down on your daily caffeine intake, there is a good news for you. According to a latest study, moderately scaling up coffee consumption can avert the risk of type 2 diabetes. As per Dr Frank Hu and Dr Shilpa Bhupathiraju from the department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, who led the research team, showed that by increasing the daily coffee intake by just one and a half cups (360 ml, approximately) over a four year span proves beneficial in cutting…

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Human Brain Simulated on Circuit Board: Mimicking Neurons and Synapses

Pooja Kashyap

Inspired by human brain, bioengineers at Stanford University have fabricated microchips that are relatively faster and energy-efficient where power consumption of PC is about 40k times more. Researchers envision that this would lead a novel way of understanding human brain as well as might take robotics especially prosthetics to the next level. Matching the Brain For an efficient mimicking of neurons and synapses, the team designed 16 Neurocore chips. Jointly these 16 chips were able to simulate about 1m neurons and billions of synaptic connections.

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Laughter Sets Off Waves Akin to Meditation: The Brain’s Workout

Neha Shukla

“Laughter is the best medicine” is a very well known saying and is now scientifically proven by researchers. According to a study, researchers have found that laughter in humans can set off brain waves, which are very similar to those related to meditation. The study also reveals that other kinds of incitement can generate various diverse types of brain waves. 

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Propagating Light Revealed New Fundamental Physical Features: Evanescent Electromagnetism

Pooja Kashyap

Dynamical properties of light have been consistent and very well accepted ‘fact’ amongst the academia of physics since more than a century. The same conviction has also helped in the understanding of electromagnetic radiation, which suggests that a quantum of light carries momentum in the direction of propagation and secondly a spinning or gyrating effect around the propagation axis. These two characteristics have become the basic tenets of daily occurrences and experimental interactions between light and matter. However, a new form of light called the evanescent waves has emerged having…

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Heatmaps Reveal Correlation Between Emotions and Body Sensations

Wa'd Abuzurayk

Science has proven times and times again that emotions cannot be separated from our physical well-being. Various emotional conditions play an important role in our biology. Brain activity and hormones and examples of things that are affected by one’s various emotional states. A recent study demonstrated that different emotions are judged to correlate with different body parts. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, was conducted by a team of bio-medical engineers, with 700 participants from three countries, those being Finland, Sweden and Taiwan. The…

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Newly Discovered Neighbor of the Sun: Chilly as the Earth’s North Pole

Pooja Kashyap

Kevin Luhman, an astronomer at Penn State University has discovered a star, “brown dwarf” that is around 7.2 light-years away. Currently it appears to be as cold as Earth’s North Pole and positioned at fourth rank with respect to the Sun. The space scientist claims that insights from the new system might helpful in knowing the atmospheres associated with cold temperatures on similar other systems. Like stars, the brown dwarfs initiate the same life cycle but during the collapse, they lack the mass that is required to burn the nuclear…

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Selfies Linked to Mental Disorders

Wa'd Abuzurayk

We all have this annoying high school facebook friend who posts selfies more regularly than we tend to check our facebook accounts. Well, this old friend is no longer labeled as just annoying, as scientists are exploring tagging this behavior as a mental disorder. Scientists interested in this subject are describing this common obsession with selfies as a compulsive behavior that could be linked to narcissism, addiction and mental illness.Narcissists chase satisfaction from vanity, or others’ recognition of their looks or mental characteristics (Wikipedia)- this definition seems to somewhat fit…

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10 Ways to Look at Linux Kernel based OS: Sneak Peek into the Android’s DNA

Pooja Kashyap

We are living in the smartphone era where the technology is taking giant strides and not just moving gradually. Every day there is an update making an individual choice of cellular devices all the more difficult. However, the cellular companies along with marketing of their product are not doing enough to educate the masses with respect to the embedded software.  The post is not written with an intention of defending one OS over the other however, it is aimed for sharing some information, which I gained through my experience with…

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Humanoid: EMIEW 2 Can Mimic Human Navigation Effortlessly

Neha Shukla

Hitachi has introduced its new and improved EMIEW 2 humanoid robot. The predecessor of this robot, EMIEW (Excellent Mobility and Interactive Existence as Workmate), was presented in the 2007 as a service robot aided with multiple communication functions which could safely perform services for humans in an office. The impressive looking EMIEW2 robot measures 80 centimeters in height and 14 kilograms in weight and moves at a high speed of 6km/hour. For the mobility purpose, the robot features a unique system of wheels and legs, which allows it to climb…

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