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Plastic Logic, a display technology company in Cambridge, U.K says it will launch the first flexible electronic books in January 2010. These e-books will be made by printing polymer transistors over a layer of bendy plastic and use first-generation black and white electronic “ink” displays. The device will have a touch screen as well as wireless internet connection, unlike the Sony Reader and Kindle devices currently on the market.
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Mental illness is often associated with disturbed sleep. The usual explanation is that the mental illness leads to the sleep problems, but there’s increasing evidence that it works the other way round – poor sleep can literally drive you mad.
Bianca Nogrady is a freelance science and medical writer and also a broadcaster for New Scientist magazine.
Listen/Download Bianca Nogrady on e-books and insomnia
Billions of years ago, the man in the moon may have performed the ultimate about-face, when an asteroid flipped the moon around. The far side of the moon never faces us, because it rotates once for every orbit it makes of the Earth. Yet an analysis of impact craters shows the far side may once have pointed our way.
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Ever daydreamed about winning the lottery? You probably imagined a life of financial comfort and good health. But research suggests that such fantasies are often just that.
Bianca Nogrady is a freelance science and medical writer and also a broadcaster for New Scientist magazine.
Listen/Download Bianca Nogrady on The Dark side of the Lottery
CAN I RECYCLE WINDOW ENVELOPES? And other dumb eco-questions
Trying to do the right thing by the planet raises some pretty silly questions. New Scientist has compiled the definitive guide to everything you wanted to know about being green, but were too embarrassed to ask.
Can I save the planet by staying slim?
Can the machines in my gym be used to generate electricity?
How environmentally damaging is barbecuing?
Will washing my clothes at 30 ºC really get them clean?
SPEED DATERS GO FOR CROWD-PLEASING LOOKS
If you’re looking for love at a big speed-dating event, be prepared to be judged solely on your looks. In primates and birds, the larger the group, the better the chance a non-dominant individual has of being chosen as a mate. However, scientists were surprised to find that humans seemed to differ from other animals. When looking at 118 speed dating sessions, a team in the UK found that as the size of the group grew offers were skewed towards just a few individuals while the least popular ended up with fewer of no offers.
WHY WE LOVE TO HATE THE HUMBLE SPIDER
People seem to have a disproportionate fear of spiders than of any other creepy-crawly. In a German study where students were asked to rate photos of spiders, bees, wasps, butterflies, beetles and moths, they found that spiders triggered far greater fear and disgust than any of the other creatures, and were also believed to be more dangerous.
Bianca Nogrady is a freelance science and medical writer and also a broadcaster for New Scientist magazine.
Listen/Download Bianca Nogrady on Silly Questions
The brain is doing very important things when stuck in neutral. Researchers have noticed that instead of lying dormant when unoccupied, the brain devours a huge amount of calories when we’re doing absolutely nothing. So what exactly is it up to? Some say there’s a major system within the brain that taps in to our memories, knitting them all together. Others believe all the evidence points to a default network that enables us to daydream.
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Spoken phrases seem to morph into song when repeated, shedding light on the difference between speech and song. In a US test, people who were played a phrase once and asked to repeat what they heard, spoke it back. But those who heard the same phrase many times sang it back.
Bianca Nogrady is a freelance science and medical writer and also a broadcaster for New Scientist magazine.
Listen/Download Bianca Nogrady on Brains and Song
Women beware. Men are better at detecting their partner’s infidelities than women. In a US study of heterosexual couples, 80 per cent of women’s inferences about fidelity or infidelity were correct, while men were accurate 94 per cent of the time. However, men were also more likely to suspect infidelity even when there was none. Researchers say the results make evolutionary sense because, unlike women, men can never be certain a baby is theirs.
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Tell stock investors that the economy is influenced by activity on the sun and they would never believe you. That doesn’t stop plenty of them responding to other equally irrelevant information, though – and this tendency may be a factor driving current market volatility. Economists in the US have demonstrated that what happens in reality has very little to do with what actually happens in a market.
Bianca Nogrady is a freelance science and medical writer and also a broadcaster for New Scientist magazine.
Listen/Download Bianca Nogrady on Suspicious minds and Sun Spots
Why do the most gifted and talented brains stand out from the crowd? Is there anything physical or psychological that sets them apart? A study of Einstein’s brain in 1998 showed it was 15 per cent wider than average, making it more spherical. And Controversial research suggests that pterosaurs were too heavy to fly. A Japanese scientist collected data from 5 large birds, including the largest in the world: the wandering albatross.
Listen/Download Bianca Nogrady on Beautiful Minds and Pterosaurs
The US air force is seeking to develop a cluster weapon that releases a swarm of bomblets that could each pursue and destroy targets many kilometres away. The US Department of Defense revealed its requirements for the weapon in an online research request. The request says the bomblets should be equipped with sensors capable of locking on to targets up to 5 kilometres away, and should have enough onboard power to chase a moving target for up to 5 minutes.
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Can you tell your friends apart just by sneaking a peek at their backsides? Perhaps not, but chimps on the other hand easily match the faces of chimps they know with photos of their rear ends. Such talent suggests chimps carry around “whole body” mental representations of each other that permit them to assign different body parts to the same individual.
Listen/Download Bianca Nogrady on freaky cluster bombs and chimp bottoms
