If you’ve seen Still Alice, you know how important a smartphone can be for an Alzheimer’s patient — it helps jog memories that might otherwise be lost. Samsung is clearly aware of this, as it just released a dedicated Backup Memory app to stimulate the memories of early-onset patients. The Android tool uses Bluetooth to detect when friends and family running the app are nearby. If they are, it’ll both identify the … Read More → "Samsung app helps Alzheimer’s patients remember their families"

Terror birds, one of South America’s most feared prehistoric predators, didn’t use super sharp eyesight to catch prey, as do eagles, hawks, and other modern day raptors. Using sophisticated computed tomography X-ray scans and 3-D modelling software, researchers were able to show that these flightless giants actually hunted by listening to their quarry’s footsteps.
via Read More → "Computer models show terror birds hunted by sound"

NASA knows that it can’t rely solely on astronomers and robotic rovers to find life on other worlds, so it’s recruiting some help. The space agency has formed the Nexus for Exoplanet System Science (NExSS), a coalition of scientists who study astrophysics, Earth, other planets and the Sun. The group will use its collective knowledge to search for alien lifeforms using perspectives that NASA wouldn’t always have — how does the loss of atmospheric … Read More → "NASA forms a coalition to look for life on other planets"

Amazon’s “Home Services” offers a variety of different services, and while most of the options are pretty standard—plumbers, repairmen—there is one peculiar offering that stands out: In some cities, you can pay to rent a goat. 

If you’re interested in getting rid of unwanted vegetation, but hate weed-whackers, Amazon will send a professional to scope out your yard. If it’s deemed OK for the goats … Read More → "Clean up your unsightly yard with a rentable goat"

Recently, Canadian researchers decided to find out once and for all what causes the sound when people crack their knuckles. In a study called Real-Time Visualization of Joint Cavitation, they aimed to challenge the long-held assumption of many that sounds emitted during knuckle cracking were from the collapse of a bubble formed in synovial fluid when the bones of the joint separated. Yet from the result of … Read More → "Here’s what a knuckle being cracked looks like on an MRI"

The easiest (and probably best) way to deal with the space junk problem is to stop producing space junk in the first place. We’re trying to do that, which is great. But even if space agencies and commercial launch companies all commit, tomorrow, to rockets and satellites that will deorbit themselves after no more than 25 years, … Read More → "Proposal would put laser cannon on ISS to blast space junk"

In Southern China, 43 dinosaur eggs were discovered by construction workers as a road was being upgraded, state media reported.

The fossils were discovered in recent weeks in Heyuan in Guangdong province, the website Chinanews.com reported. From South China Morning Post:

The fossilised eggs were large with one 13cm in diameter, Du Yanli, the director of the city’s Dinosaur Museum, was quoted as saying. Nineteen were completely intact.

< … Read More → "43 fossilized dinosaur eggs unearthed during road construction work in China"

Butterflies have proven to be a surprising source of inspiration for technology, and that trend isn’t about to slow down any time soon. German researchers have discovered that irregular, nanoscopic structures on the glasswing butterfly’s namesake transparent wings eliminate most reflections at any angle — perfect for phones, camera lenses and most any other device where display glare is a problem. The scientists have yet to completely recreate this surface in the lab, … Read More → "Butterfly wings are the key to glare-free phone displays"

These are the brain specimen drink coasters available from ThinkGeek ($20 for set of 10). Each coaster looks like a different cross section cut from a brain, and stacked resemble a whole brain.
via Geekologie

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Anyone who has had an MRI knows that when you get in the machine, you have to remain pretty still or risk messing up the scan, which captures about 10 frames per second. But to study how the approximately 100 muscles in the human head, neck, jaw, tongue, and lips work together to create speech and song, the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the … Read More → "Watch high-speed MRI images of someone singing “If I Only Had a Brain”"