Introduction to Virtual Reality (a.k.a. VR) Rock climbing, skydiving, extreme mountain biking, roller coasters, even tropical vacations: Thanks to VR, all these endeavors are now possible without leaving the comfort of your home. VR refers to the use of computer-generated imaging and stimuli to replicate a “real” environment. In their selected environment, users can experience sound, touch, and even 360-degree panoramic views, as [...]
If you’re a writer, you might have always thought that your mind works in a unique way. Well, science may have proved that to be true. In 2014, German scientist Martin Lotze and his team of researchers studied the brain activity of writers and non-writers as they wrote to compare their brain functions. With the help of fMRI scanners to see which parts [...]
The ability to recognize familiar faces or to learn to recognize new ones is a complex image process that we, humans, take for granted. Other mammals such as chimps have that ability, but what about sheep? A recent study revealed that scientists succeeded in training sheep to recognize the faces of four celebrities by repeatedly presenting the sheep with photographs of their faces. [...]
With the holiday season upon us, many of us will indulge in sweet treats at the office and at home, unless you are someone who does not care much for sweets, a concept that may surprise some of us candy lovers! It turns out our sweet tooth has to do with two genetic variants of a hormone known as FGF21. Published research from [...]
Most of us have, at some point, felt in sync with a friend or a family member because of a shared experience or shared perspectives. Not only can this “feeling” be measured in oscillation patterns of electrical signals—brain waves— that occur when brain cells communicate with each other, but brain-scanning studies revealed that human brain wave patterns do synchronize in an interactive group [...]
SONY DSC Before joining PSG as an editorial intern, I worked as a chemist in Cambridge, MA, in a six-story structure that once belonged to the New England Confectionary Company—famous for their colorful wafers and conversation hearts, and more commonly known as Necco. Back in 1928, the Necco candy factory embodied the “promising future of American architecture,” but in 2001, with [...]
Binoculars? Check. Protective solar glasses? Check. A clear view of the sky? Check! You’re ready to watch the total solar eclipse sweeping the nation this month. August 21, 2017, marks the first total solar eclipse to cover the entire country in 99 years. Tracing a path from Oregon to South Carolina, the eclipse will only be visible in the United States. It’s predicted [...]
When I think of the North Pole, I think of the harshest winter weather times 10, a wasteland of snow and ice, the glare on the snow so bad I probably wouldn’t even be able to open my eyes. It’s a no-man’s-land. But not for long. The North Pole might be one of the most important places to study weather patterns in the [...]
Imagine if it were your job to literally go around the world every 95 minutes. Wouldn’t you want to retire after 27 years? Well the Hubble Space Telescope, the “world’s first large, space-based optical telescope,” has reached that point. NASA is beginning its final tests on its replacement, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). JWST, costing nine billion dollars, is going into its [...]
When I was a child, I remember once accidentally letting go of a pink balloon. I was distraught that I’d lost it, but my mom told me not to worry, because the balloon would float up all the way into space! I’ve since learned this isn’t true (the air eventually escapes the balloon and it pops), but fairly soon we will be able [...]