sciencetech

Tiny antennae that record how bees navigate may help perfect steering for driverless cars and drones

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They are not just cute and stripy, but devastatingly efficient when it comes to locating the best pollen-rich flowers. As a result, the humble bee is at the centre of a £4.8 million project to create drones and driverless cars. In a unusual experiment, scientists painstakingly stuck tiny radar transponders to hundreds of bumblebees and honey … Read more

Scientists say it is ‘completely baloney’ that you can read people’s emotions from their expressions

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NEVER trust a person’s face: Scientists say it is ‘completely baloney’ that you can read people’s emotions from their expressions Scientists analysed muscle movement in the face connected to specific feelings They found attempts to detect emotions based on these were usually wrong Research carried out by Prof Aleix Martinez at Ohio State University, US  … Read more

Drunk people are equally ‘diverted’ by unattractive and attractive people

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Drunk people are equally ‘diverted’ by unattractive and attractive people, according to psychologists, offering evidence that beer goggles really do exist.  British researchers carried out their study in ‘real-life drinking environments’ in bars and pubs in Lancashire. The study used more than 120 heterosexual participants, both sober and intoxicated, who were asked to perform a … Read more

Enormous PINK manta ray dubbed Inspector Clouseau is spotted off the coast of Australia

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Manta rays are believed to be some of the most intelligent creatures in the ocean and have several traits and studies to support this claim. The large fish belong to a order known as Myliobatiformes which includes stingrays and other similar species and is a group closely related to that of sharks and are characterised by … Read more

Scientists discover a ‘consciousness switch’ in the brain

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Scientists discover a ‘consciousness switch’ in the brain that triggers waking when it is zapped with electricity and ‘could even bring people out of comas’ Brain area called the central lateral thalamus found to activate consciousness Electrode with 50Hz of electricity woke monkeys from general anaesthetic  When the electricity was turned off the monkey went straight … Read more

Iron Age temple near Jerusalem challenges the Biblical claim that Solomon’s Temple stood alone

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An Iron Age temple discovered at Tel Motza, near Jerusalem, calls into question the Biblical claim that Solomon’s temple was alone in the ancient Kingdom of Judah. Solomon’s Temple — which is also known as the First Temple — stood from the 10th Century BC until its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar II in 586 BC. According to … Read more

Virgin Galactic moves spaceship VSS Unity to Spaceport America in New Mexico

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Commercial space flight company Virgin Galactic is a step closer to taking paying passengers into space as it moves its main spaceship to Spaceport America. The spaceship, also known as SpaceShip 2 Unity, was transferred to the New Mexico space launch centre on top of the carrier aircraft, VMS Eve. The flight from the development … Read more

Critical rainfall belt ‘at risk of shrinking due to global warming’ 

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Billions of people could be at risk from droughts, as global warming threatens to shrink a tropical belt providing critical summer rain, warns a new study. Researchers say droughts in Central America result from the contracting of the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ), a critical rainfall belt near the equator.  An international team of scientists looked … Read more