Sniffing for bad air The air quality in many classrooms is unhealthy, due to poor ventilation. But simple solutions such as opening a window can help get rid of bad air. i_love_zou_york/iStockphoto Chemist Jack Driscoll holds a new device he helped design that measures concentrations of carbon dioxide. PID Analyzers, LLC In the past few weeks, millions of students, teachers and staff have returned to classrooms in schools across the United States. The handheld device developed by a chemist and his colleagues is easy to use: Simply carry it into a room where you want to measure carbon dioxide levels. With every breath you take, you inhale a host of gases, including oxygen. Nitrogen makes up more than 78 percent of the air; oxygen almost 21 percent. Odorless and colorless, CO2 comes from many sources. When a large number of people spend time in an enclosed space like a classroom, CO2 concentrations can increase dramatically. Power Words
ScienceDaily: News, Videos & Articles in Science, Health, Technology & Environment Fooling the mind’s eye Magic tricks rely on gaps in our perception and endure because the vulnerabilities of the mind are so predictable. Suslik1983/shutterstock If you’ve been to a magic show, you’ve almost certainly witnessed the mesmerizing trick in which a showman saws his female assistant in half. The woman lies down, her body seeming to extend the length of the table or some box. Introduced nearly a century ago, the trick is one of the oldest in the magic business. Scientists who study the brain have been tapping into the world of magic to learn how its tricks fool our minds. Neuroscientists and psychologists study how the mind works and how emotions can affect our responses. “We study illusions to understand fundamental aspects of visual perception,” says Susana Martinez-Conde, a visual neuroscientist at the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Ariz. Martinez-Conde and her husband, Stephen Macknik, also a neuroscientist at The Barrow, are authors of a 2010 book on the subject. Dimitri Sherman
HowStuffWorks "Science" Learning in your sleep Your brain is so eager to learn that it does so even while you sleep, scientists recently found. National Institute of General Medical Sciences Sleeping and learning go hand in hand, studies have shown for years. Scientists used to believe that a sleeping brain was taking a break. “The brain is not passive while you sleep,” neuroscientist Anat Arzi told Science News. Arzi and her coworkers didn’t try to teach the sleeping volunteers any complex information, like new words or facts. When we smell something nice, like a flower, we automatically take deep breaths. Once the volunteers fell asleep in the lab, the scientists went to work. After just four repetitions, volunteers made a connection between the musical notes and their paired smells. “They learned what the tone signified,” Arzi concluded. The next day, the volunteers woke up with the sound-smell connection intact. Power Words neuroscience The scientific study of the structure or function of the nervous system and brain.