Doodling isn’t the distraction it’s commonly thought to be, researchers say–in fact, it aids concentration, and memory. A new study suggests that doodling takes up just enough attention to keep the brain from wandering further afield, explains lead researcher Jackie Andrade.
“If someone is doing a boring task, like listening to a dull telephone conversation, they may start to daydream. Daydreaming distracts them from the task, resulting in poor performance. A simple task, like doodling, may be sufficient to stop daydreaming without affecting performance on the main task” [BBC News], Andrade says.
The new budget proposed by President Barack Obama boosts funding for NASA and shows the new president’s commitment to exploration of the moon and our solar system’s planets. Under the proposed budget, the agency would receive $18.7 billion in 2010. Combined with $1 billion in funding provided in an economic stimulus package signed into law last week, NASA would get $2.4 billion more than it did in 2008 [New Scientist].
Like his predecessor George W. Bush, Obama wants to return people to the moon and send robots further into space [Reuters]. But while the proposed funding boost pleases many in the space community, the budget disappoints “shuttle-huggers” who hoped that Obama would keep the space shuttle flying past the 2010 retirement date set by the Bush administration. Instead, the proposal instructs NASA to stick to that deadline, although it does offer one concession.
A bizarre fish discovered off the coast of an Indonesian island has officially been declared a new species, and given a name that researchers say celebrates its oddity: Histiophryne psychedelica. The creature, a type of frogfish, has beige and pink stripes swirling away from its eyes, and has leg-like fins on both sides of its body. But researchers writing in the journal Copeia say the psychedelic fish uses those fins in a form of locomotion never before seen in fish.
When the fish was first spotted by scuba divers off the coast of Ambon island last year, the divers described it moving away from them in a series of short hops, its pelvic fins pushing it off the sea bed with each bounce. “The overall impression” says the Copeia research paper, was of “an inflated rubber ball bouncing along the bottom” [BBC News].
Being treated unfairly in a game triggers the same facial expression as stomach-turning tastes and images, a new study has found, suggesting that the brain mechanism of disgust evolved to help humans avoid not just rotten food, but also immoral behavior.
“Our idea is that morality builds upon an old mental reflex, said study co-author Adam Anderson…. “The brain had already discovered a system for rejecting things that are bad for it. Then it co-opted this and attached it to conditions much removed from something tasting or smelling bad” [Wired News].
The ancestors to modern humans really hit their stride 1.5 million years ago. Fossilized footprints found in Kenya were made by hominids that share a common foot anatomy and walking stride with modern humans, researchers say.
Scientists are almost certain that the 1.5-million-year-old prints belong to Homo erectus and that the individuals had heels, insteps and toes almost identical to those in humans, and they walked with a long stride similar to human locomotion…. The prints helped explain fossil and archaeological evidence that erectus had adapted the ability for long-distance walking and running [The New York Times]. There is evidence of a heavy landing on the heel with weight transferred along the outer edge of the foot, progressing to the ball of the foot and lifting off with the toes [BBC].
While astronomers have found more than 300 planets beyond our solar system in the last 15 years, none of those “exoplanets” has been a likely candidate for extraterrestrial life. The exoplanets discovered thus far are all either too close to the hot sun or too far away and therefore too frigid to host life as we know it. But Alan Boss says it’s just a matter of time before we find Earth-like planets in the “Goldilocks zone”: he calculates that 100 billion of them may exist within our own Milky Way galaxy. And NASA’s Kepler satellite, which is expected to launch on March 5, may be the key to finding them, he says.
Boss, an astrophysicist and author of the new book “The Crowded Universe: The Search for Living Planets,” says that if any of the billions of Earth-like worlds he believes exist in the Milky Way have liquid water, they are likely to be home to some type of life. “Now that’s not saying that they’re all going to be crawling with intelligent human beings or even dinosaurs,” he said. “But I would suspect that the great majority of them at least will have some sort of primitive life, like bacteria or some of the multicellular creatures that populated our Earth for the first 3 billion years of its existence” [CNN].
If aphids could recite Shakespeare, they might favor this rousing cry: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the wall up with our [aphid] dead.” Researchers have discovered that the social insects send soldiers to repair holes in the plant tissue where they make their homes, and that some of the soldiers never return from these “suicide missions.”
Some aphids cause their plant hosts to form hollow swellings called galls within which the larvae mature. A hole in the gall’s wall threatens the larvae’s cozy and protected home, and causes soldier aphids to rush to the spot. There they excrete body fluids that represent about two-thirds of their body mass, and mix the fluids with their legs to form a scab that patches the hole. Many of the soldier aphids, of the species Nipponaphis monzeni, die from the significant loss of body mass. Many others get stuck in the viscous fluid and fail to escape. Like workers on the Great Wall of China, they simply become a physical part of the building work [BBC News].
The distinctive belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter may have been shaped during a game of planetary pinball almost 4 billion years ago. A new study suggests that the migration of the mighty gas giant planets tugged some asteroids into a ringed formation, and sent others spinning off. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, are thought to have been born close together before gravitational interactions with numerous pieces of rocky debris changed their trajectories. Their movement then caused the rocky debris to scatter like bowling pins, potentially explaining what battered the Earth, Moon, and Mars with so many craters some 3.8 billion years ago [New Scientist].
Astronomers have long wondered about the uneven distribution of debris within the asteroid belt, which has zones where there are far fewer asteroids than expected…. Some of those gaps, called Kirkwood gaps, are in zones where Jupiter or Saturn’s gravitational influence destabilises the asteroids so much that they are ejected from the belt, but many are in areas that are currently stable [Cosmos]. Researchers decided to test the theory that planetary migrations caused the gaps in the solar system‘s early days.
The tools found in Colorado resident Patrick Mahaffy’s backyard weren’t the typical collection of weed whackers and shovels. Instead Mahaffy’s yard hosted a collection of chipped stone knives and axes that date from the time of the Clovis people, who are believed to have been among the first inhabitants of America around 13,000 years ago. “The idea that these Clovis-age tools essentially fell out of someone’s yard in Boulder is astonishing,” [anthropologist Douglas Bamforth] said. “But the evidence I’ve seen gives me no reason to believe the cache has been disturbed since the items were placed there for storage about 13,000 years ago” [LiveScience].
The prehistoric tool cache was turned up when landscapers were digging a hole for a fishpond in Mahaffy’s backyard, and struck stone. The collection contains 83 knives, axes, and smaller pieces of flint, and a chemical analysis of blood residue left on the blades revealed that the tools had been used to butcher extinct types of North American camels and horses, and well as bears and sheep.
Prehistoric fish had sexual reproduction figured out 380 million years ago, a new fossil study has confirmed. Researchers examined the fossil of one species of armored placoderm fish and realized that the fossil showed a 2-inch-long embryo within the fish’s body cavity, indicating internal fertilization, or sex as we know it. Palaeontologist Zerina Johanson says: “We expected that these early fishes would show a more primitive type of reproduction, where sperm and eggs combine in the water and embryos develop outside the fish. This discovery is incredibly important because evidence of reproductive biology is extremely rare in the fossil record” [Telegraph].
Researchers originally thought the tiny bones within the fossil were the remains of the fish’s final meal, but they decided to reexamine the 380-million-year-old fossil after discovering embryos in the fossilized remains of another species of ancient fish last year. A closer look revealed that the placoderm also had a bun in the oven, says lead researcher John Long. “We could see that the new specimens had the same bone structure as the previous embryos, were the same species as the adult, they did not have any broken or stomach-etched features (from digestive acids or from being chomped) and that they were at the same stage of growth as the previous embryos,” Long wrote in an email. “All of these facts proved they were embryos, not prey items” [LiveScience].
Energy and environmental issues took center stage in President Barack Obama‘s first speech to a joint session of Congress last night. He asked Congress to send him legislation that would confront global warming by capping carbon dioxide emissions, and emphasized that clean energy technology can help the United States emerge from the recession.
Obama said: “It begins with energy. We know the country that harnesses the power of clean, renewable energy will lead the 21st century…. Well I do not accept a future where the jobs and industries of tomorrow take root beyond our borders—and I know you don’t either. It is time for America to lead again” [The New Republic]. He noted that the stimulus package includes significant investments in alternative energy research and development, as well as money for making buildings more energy efficient and upgrading the electrical grid. He also pledged to double the use of renewable energy and invest $15 billion dollars in the development of new technologies each year – including wind, solar, advanced biofuels, more fuel-efficient automobiles, and “clean coal” [Grist].
The U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to ban interstate trade of primates, following last week’s attack of a woman in Connecticut by a chimpanzee who’d been used in commercials and kept as a household pet. The Captive Primate Safety Act would not outlaw owning chimpanzees and other [primates] [MSNBC], but acquiring them would become more difficult. The legislation, which passed 323 to 95, would prohibit interstate sale or purchase of monkeys and apes, which include chimpanzees and orangutans, as well as marmosets and lemurs [Reuters].
The legislation applies only to the sale of primates as pets, and would have no impact on zoos or researchers. There may be as many as 15,000 primate pets in the United States. Only 20 states prohibit keeping them as pets, and there is no federal law against it [The New York Times]. The Humane Society of the United States has said that over the past four years there were more than 40 incidents involving primates escaping and injuring humans [Reuters].
People fighting off winter colds and bouts of the flu typically reach for a glass vitamin C-packed orange juice, but new research suggests that vitamin D may be a better protector. People with low levels of the vitamin, which is often called the sunshine vitamin because sun exposure triggers its production in the body, are more likely to catch colds, the flu, and even pneumonia, a broad new study reports. The effect was magnified in people with asthma or other lung diseases.
Vitamin D deficiency is quite common in the United States — particularly in winter…. “People think that if they have a good, balanced diet that they will get enough vitamin D, and that’s actually not true,” said Dr. Michal Melamed…. “Unless you eat a lot of fish and drink a lot of milk, you can’t get enough vitamin D from diet” [CNN].
The North Korean government announced yesterday that it’s preparing to launch a communications satellite on a North Korean-made rocket, a move that has been widely interpreted as a test firing of its long-range missile. South Korea and the United States say any test-firing, whether a purported satellite launch or a missile test, would be provocative since the technology is dual-use, and would breach UN resolutions [AFP]. Experts say that the long-range Taepodong-2 rocket has a range of about 4,200 miles, which gives it the theoretical capacity to hit Alaska. But in the only previous test of the long-range rocket, in 2006, it exploded 40 seconds after launch.
North Korea has insisted that the launch is a purely scientific endeavor. “The preparations for launching an experimental communications satellite … are now making brisk headway,” North Korea’s KCNA news agency said. “When this satellite launch proves successful, the nation’s space science and technology will make another giant stride forward in building an economic power” [Reuters]. South Korean news sources have reported that the rocket has not yet been moved to the launch pad, but that there is a great deal of activity around the site.
A miniature plasma thruster could one day power satellites, and could potentially increase their maneuverability and prevent them from crashing into each other, researchers say. The shoebox-sized prototype, called the Mini-Helicon Plasma Thruster, is much smaller than other rockets of its kind and runs on gases that are much less expensive than conventional propellants. As a result, it could slash fuel consumption by 10 times that of conventional systems used for the same applications [Science Daily].
The system doesn’t use a chemical reaction to provide power, as most rockets do, but instead uses electrical power to accelerate a propellant. The thruster uses nitrogen gas, which is pumped through a quartz tube wrapped in a coiled antenna and surrounded by magnets. Radio frequency power, transmitted to the nitrogen from the antenna, turns the gas into plasma, or electrically charged gas. The magnets help produce the plasma, and guide and accelerate it through the system [Wired News].
80beats is DISCOVER's news aggregator, weaving together the choicest tidbits from the best articles on the day's most compelling topics.
80beats is written by Veronique Greenwood and Valerie Ross. This team darts through each day's science news faster than the ruby-throated hummingbird that beats its wings 80 times per second. Send ideas, tips, suggestions, and complaints to [azeeberg at discovermagazine dot com].
Doodling isn’t the distraction it’s commonly thought to be, researchers say–in fact, it aids concentration, and memory. A new study suggests that doodling takes up just enough attention to keep the brain from wandering further afield, explains lead researcher Jackie Andrade.
The new budget proposed by 
A bizarre 
Being treated unfairly in a game triggers the same facial expression as stomach-turning 
The ancestors to modern humans really hit their stride 1.5 million years ago. Fossilized footprints found in Kenya were made by 
While astronomers have found more than 300 planets beyond our solar system in the last 15 years, none of those “
If aphids could recite Shakespeare, they might favor this rousing cry: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; or close the wall up with our [aphid] dead.” Researchers have discovered that the social 
The distinctive belt of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter may have been shaped during a game of planetary pinball almost 4 billion years ago. A new study suggests that the migration of the mighty gas giant planets tugged some 
The tools found in Colorado resident
Prehistoric fish had 
Energy and environmental issues took center stage in 
The U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to ban interstate trade of 
People fighting off winter colds and bouts of the 
The North Korean government announced yesterday that it’s preparing to launch a communications 
