![theatlantic:
It’s Not Just You: ‘Old Person Smell’ Is Real
In a study published yesterday in PLoS One, researchers report that young people aged 20-30 are able to accurately guess when a scent comes from an elderly individual aged 75-95. While study participants were also able to determine when a smell was associated with someone in middle age or in their youth, they were much better at smelling old people than young people.
How did the scientists collect the smell samples in the first place? Scientific American explains, hilariously:
In their new study, Lundström and his colleagues sewed absorbent nursing pads into the armpits of T-shirts and asked volunteers of different ages to sleep in the shirts for five consecutive nights. The researchers divided the 44 volunteers into three groups: eight women and eight men between the ages of 20 and 30 (the young); the same number of men and women between 45 and 55 (middle-aged); and six women and six men between 75 and 95 (elderly). During the day, the volunteers stored the T-shirts in sealed plastic bags; avoided spicy foods, cigarettes and alcohol; and showered with odorless shampoo and soap.
Read more. [Image: Blude/Flickr]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4w46bfT2f1qcokc4o1_1280.jpg)
It’s Not Just You: ‘Old Person Smell’ Is Real
In a study published yesterday in PLoS One, researchers report that young people aged 20-30 are able to accurately guess when a scent comes from an elderly individual aged 75-95. While study participants were also able to determine when a smell was associated with someone in middle age or in their youth, they were much better at smelling old people than young people.
How did the scientists collect the smell samples in the first place? Scientific American explains, hilariously:
In their new study, Lundström and his colleagues sewed absorbent nursing pads into the armpits of T-shirts and asked volunteers of different ages to sleep in the shirts for five consecutive nights. The researchers divided the 44 volunteers into three groups: eight women and eight men between the ages of 20 and 30 (the young); the same number of men and women between 45 and 55 (middle-aged); and six women and six men between 75 and 95 (elderly). During the day, the volunteers stored the T-shirts in sealed plastic bags; avoided spicy foods, cigarettes and alcohol; and showered with odorless shampoo and soap.Read more. [Image: Blude/Flickr]
Source: The Atlantic
The centrifuge used for training cosmonauts at the Star City space center outside Moscow, on February 21, 2011. (Reuters/Sergei Remezov) (via Star City and the Baikonur Cosmodrome - In Focus - The Atlantic)
Source: The Atlantic
What is all this fuss about the Higgs boson? The physics community is abuzz that a fundamental particle expected by the largely successful Standard Model of particle physics may soon be found by the huge Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Europe. The term boson refers to a type of fundamental particle with similarities to the photon, while Higgs refers to Peter Higgs, a physicist who among others published research predicting the mechanism through which such a particle might act. The above animated cartoon explains in humorous but impressive detail why the Higgs boson is expected, and one method that the Large Hadron Collider is using to find it. Although some rumors hint that preliminary traces of the Higgs boson are already being found, even not finding this unusual particle would open the door to a new fundamental understanding of how our universe works. (via APOD: 2012 May 1 - Higgs Boson Explained by Cartoon)
Source: apod.nasa.gov
Nova Sagittarii 2012 as seen from the US NRL’s SECCHI HI-1 instrument on the NASA STEREO-B spacecraft. The movie runs from April 20 - 24, 2012, with approximately one frame per hour.
Nova Sagittarii 2012 (by SungrazerComets)
Source: youtube.com
Explanation: When does Mars act like a liquid? Although liquids freeze and evaporate quickly into the thin atmosphere of Mars, persistent winds may make large sand dunes appear to flow and even drip like a liquid. Visible on the above image right are two flat top mesas in southern Mars when the season was changing from Spring to Summer. A light dome topped hill is also visible on the far left of the image. As winds blow from right to left, flowing sand on and around the hills leaves picturesque streaks. The dark arc-shaped droplets of fine sand are called barchans, and are the interplanetary cousins of similar Earth-based sand forms. Barchans can move intact a downwind and can even appear to pass through each other. When seasons change, winds on Mars can kick up dust and are monitored to see if they escalate into another of Mars’ famous planet-scale sand storms. (via APOD: 2012 April 22 - Flowing Barchan Sand Dunes on Mars)
Source: apod.nasa.gov
In New Quantum Experiment, Effect Happens Before Cause | Popular Science
A real-world demonstration of a thought experiment conducted at the University of Vienna, has produced a result that is somewhat befuddling to people with what the lead researcher calls a “naïve classical world view.” Two pairs of particles are either quantum-entangled or not. One person makes the decision as to whether to entangle them or not, and another pair of people measure the particles to see whether they’re entangled or not. The head-scratcher is: the measurement is made before the decision is made, and it is accurate. “Classical correlations can be decided after they are measured,” says Xiao-song Ma, the writer of the study. Entanglement can be created “after the entangled particles have been measured and may no longer exist.” The finding can be integrated into potential quantum computers, one hopes. Causality, clearly, is a quaint, irrelevant concept. [Nature]
Distance of Voyager 2 by time of year, relative to Earth, and relative to the Sun.
Source: ow.ly
The military won’t say what it has been doing with its experimental miniature space shuttle, but the pilotless spaceship, known as the X-37B, has been in orbit for a year now. The 29-foot robotic spacecraft, also known as the Orbital Test Vehicle, or OTV, was launched on March 5, 2011, on a follow-up flight to extend capabilities demonstrated by a sistership during a 244-day debut mission in 2010. (via Secret Military Mini-Shuttle Marks One Year in Orbit : Discovery News)
Source: news.discovery.com
Gregory Gage of Backyardbrains.com showed us how to measure the electrical activity of a neuron in a cockroach leg. At around the 12:00 minute mark, Gregory pumps the electrical signal from music on his iPhone into the cockroach’s leg, causing it to twitch in time with the beat. (The cockroach’s leg will grow back.)
Backyard Brains (by boingboingvideo)
Source: youtube.com
