Scientists glimpse universe before the Big Bang : science. Friends with cognitive benefits. U. MICHIGAN (US) — Chatting with others in a friendly—rather than competitive—tone boosts the part of the brain that helps us solve everyday problems. “This study shows that simply talking to other people, the way you do when you’re making friends, can provide mental benefits,” says University of Michigan psychologist Oscar Ybarra, who is lead author of the study reported in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science.
Ybarra and colleagues examined the impact of brief episodes of social contact on one key component of mental activity—executive function. This type of cognitive function includes working memory, self-monitoring, and the ability to suppress external and internal distractions—all of which are essential in solving common problems. In previous research, Ybarra has found that social interaction provides a short-term boost to executive function that’s comparable in size to playing brain games, such as solving crossword puzzles. Futurity.org. Feynman on Magnets and Why Questions. 10 Strange Things About The Universe.
Space The universe can be a very strange place. While groundbreaking ideas such as quantum theory, relativity and even the Earth going around the Sun might be commonly accepted now, science still continues to show that the universe contains things you might find it difficult to believe, and even more difficult to get your head around. Theoretically, the lowest temperature that can be achieved is absolute zero, exactly ? 273.15°C, where the motion of all particles stops completely. However, you can never actually cool something to this temperature because, in quantum mechanics, every particle has a minimum energy, called “zero-point energy,” which you cannot get below. Remarkably, this minimum energy doesn’t just apply to particles, but to any vacuum, whose energy is called “vacuum energy.” One prediction of Einstein’s theory of general relativity is that when a large object moves, it drags the space-time around it, causing nearby objects to be pulled along as well.
BBC - Earth News - Snake gives 'virgin birth' to extraordinary babies. Snakes without fathers: one of the unusual baby boas A female boa constrictor snake has given birth to two litters of extraordinary offspring. Evidence suggests the mother snake has had multiple virgin births, producing 22 baby snakes that have no father. More than that, the genetic make-up of the baby snakes is unlike any previously recorded among vertebrates, the group which includes almost all animals with a backbone. Details are published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. Virgin births do occur among animals. Many invertebrates, such as insects, can produce offspring asexually, without ever having mated. They usually do this by cloning themselves, producing genetically identical offspring. But among vertebrate animals, it remains a novelty, having been documented among less than 0.1% of vertebrate species.
Then in 2007, other scientists found that captive female hammerhead sharks (Sphyrna tiburo) could also reproduce without having sex. Novel beginnings Special babies Half clones. The McGurk Effect - Horizon Is Seeing Believing?