ScienceDaily: Most Popular News

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• Advanced light: Sending entangled beams through fast-light materials
• Personal judgments swayed by group opinion, but only for three days
• Nature inspires drones of the future
• Many mental illnesses reduce life expectancy more than heavy smoking
• NASA Mars weathercam helps find big new crater
• How the 'gut feeling' shapes fear
• Training brain patterns of empathy using functional brain imaging
• Functional nerve cells from skin cells
• How touch can trigger our emotions
• Chronic insufficient sleep increases obesity, overall body fat in children
• Full serving of protein at each meal helps one achieve maximum muscle health
• Stem cells as future source for eco-friendly meat
• New lithium battery created
• Intelligent people are more likely to trust others

Advanced light: Sending entangled beams through fast-light materials Posted: 25 May 2014 12:53 PM PDT Whole beams, not just particles, can be entangled. This, plus anomalous dispersion in 'fast-light' materials, allows signals be to 'advanced' over signals travelling in vacuum, at least in a limited sense.

Personal judgments swayed by group opinion, but only for three days Posted: 23 May 2014 11:54 AM PDT We all want to feel like we're free-thinking individuals, but there's nothing like the power of social pressure to sway an opinion. New research suggests that people do change their own personal judgments so that they fall in line with the group norm, but the change only seems to last about three days.

Nature inspires drones of the future Posted: 23 May 2014 06:42 AM PDT Researchers have been taking tips from nature to build the next generation of flying robots. Based on the mechanisms adopted by birds, bats, insects and snakes, scientists have developed solutions to some of the common problems that drones could be faced with when navigating through an urban environment and performing novel tasks for the benefit of society.

Many mental illnesses reduce life expectancy more than heavy smoking Posted: 23 May 2014 05:29 AM PDT Serious mental illnesses reduce life expectancy by 10-20 years, an analysis by psychiatrists has shown -- a loss of years that's equivalent to or worse than that for heavy smoking. Yet mental health has not seen the same public health priority, say the scientists, despite these stark figures and the similar prevalence of mental health problems.

NASA Mars weathercam helps find big new crater Posted: 22 May 2014 01:29 PM PDT Researchers have discovered on the Red Planet the largest fresh meteor-impact crater ever firmly documented with before-and-after images. The images were captured by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The crater spans half the length of a football field and first appeared in March 2012. The impact that created it likely was preceded by an explosion in the Martian sky caused by intense friction between an incoming asteroid and the planet's atmosphere.

How the 'gut feeling' shapes fear Posted: 22 May 2014 07:48 AM PDT We are all familiar with that uncomfortable feeling in our stomach when faced with a threatening situation. By studying rats, researchers have been able to prove for the first time that our 'gut instinct' has a significant impact on how we react to fear. An unlit, deserted car park at night, footsteps in the gloom. The heart beats faster and the stomach ties itself in knots. We often feel threatening situations in our stomachs. While the brain has long been viewed as the center of all emotions, researchers are increasingly trying to get to the bottom of this proverbial gut instinct.

Training brain patterns of empathy using functional brain imaging Posted: 21 May 2014 03:00 PM PDT An unprecedented research conducted by a group of neuroscientists has demonstrated that it is possible to train brain patterns associated with empathic feelings. Volunteers who received neurofeedback about their own brain activity patterns whilst being scanned inside a functional magnetic resonance machine were able to increase empathic brain states. These findings could open new possibilities for treatment of clinical situations, such as antisocial personality disorder and postpartum depression.

Functional nerve cells from skin cells Posted: 21 May 2014 10:37 AM PDT Research will make the study of diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's easier, and could lead to personalized therapies for a variety of neurodegenerative disorders. The nerve cells generated by this new method show the same functional characteristics as the mature cells found in the body, making them much better models for the study of age-related diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, and for the testing of new drugs.

How touch can trigger our emotions Posted: 21 May 2014 10:35 AM PDT While touch always involves awareness, it also sometimes involves emotion. Now, scientists describe a system of slowly conducting nerves in the skin that respond to gentle touch. Investigators are beginning to characterize these nerves and to describe the fundamental role they play in our lives as a social species. Their work also suggests that this soft touch wiring may go awry in disorders such as autism.

Chronic insufficient sleep increases obesity, overall body fat in children Posted: 20 May 2014 10:43 AM PDT One of the most comprehensive studies of the potential link between reduced sleep and childhood obesity finds compelling evidence that children who consistently received less than the recommended hours of sleep during infancy and early childhood had increases in both obesity and in adiposity or overall body fat at age 7.

Full serving of protein at each meal helps one achieve maximum muscle health Posted: 20 May 2014 10:32 AM PDT Most Americans eat a diet that consists of little to no protein for breakfast, a bit of protein at lunch and an overabundance of protein at dinner. As long as they get their recommended dietary allowance of about 60 grams, it's all good, right? Not according to new research from a team of scientists led by a muscle metabolism expert.

Stem cells as future source for eco-friendly meat Posted: 20 May 2014 09:34 AM PDT The scientific progress that has made it possible to dream of a future in which faulty organs could be regrown from stem cells also holds potential as an ethical and greener source for meat. So say scientists who suggest that every town or village could one day have its very own small-scale, cultured meat factory.

New lithium battery created Posted: 20 May 2014 08:55 AM PDT A team of researchers has created a new type of lithium ion conductor for future batteries that could be the basis for a whole new generation of solid-state batteries. It uses rock salt Lithium Borohydride (LiBH4), a well-known agent in organic chemistry laboratories that has been considered for batteries before, but up to now has only worked at high temperatures or pressures.

Intelligent people are more likely to trust others Posted: 16 Mar 2014 10:38 AM PDT Intelligent people are more likely to trust others, while those who score lower on measures of intelligence are less likely to do so, says a new study. Researchers based their finding on an analysis of the General Social Survey, a nationally representative public opinion survey carried out in the United States every one to two years. The authors say one explanation could be that more intelligent individuals are better at judging character and so they tend to form relationships with people who are less likely to betray them.

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