The simple act of donating blood could actually help save someone’s life one day. And to help drive that point home, ad agencies Publicis Sao Paulo and Fundação Pró-Sangue in Brazil created a poster with a built-in charging cable that also helps save a dying smartphone.
via Gizmodo

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For starters, rock steady drummers can actually be smarter than their less rhythmically-focused bandmates. A study from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm found a link between intelligence, good timing and the part of the brain used for problem-solving. Researchers had drummers play a variety of different beats and then tasked them with a simple 60-problem intelligence test. The drummers who scored the highest were also better able to keep a steady beat. Apparently figuring out how … Read More → "Science shows how drummers’ brains are actually different from everybody elses’"

Getting a needle into a patient’s vein can sometimes be a complicated process, especially if the veins aren’t visible. Vein-spotting spectacles that see through a patient’s skin could help avoid the damage caused by repeated needle pricks, and that’s exactly what researchers at the University Teknologi Petronas (UTP), Malaysia, are developing. Their Smart Veins Locator is a wearable head-mounted display that allows nurses to see the patient’s veins in real-time, by … Read More → "Wearable smart veins locator could help nurses see below the skin"

PancakeBot is a machine by designer Miguel Valenzuela that draws intricately designed pancakes. The current design of the device consists of an acrylic body, an Arduino Mega, and two Adafruit Motor Shields as well as a few odds and ends like a vacuum pump for batter control. The initial version of the device was made out of LEGO blocks.
via < … Read More → "PancakeBot, a machine that draws intricately designed pancakes"

Around 12,000 years ago, a short teenage girl was wandering a system of caves, likely searching out water, when she fell into a deep pit and cracked her pelvis. She likely died almost instantly, and her body remained there untouched until researchers discovered it in 2007, submerged under water that had filled the cave when glaciers began melting 2,000 or so years after her death. Those researchers have … Read More → "Skeleton of 12,000-year-old girl could show where first Americans came from"

A multinational group of scientists has developed implantable shape-changing transistors that can grip nerves, blood vessels and tissues. According to the researchers, these soft electronic devices can change shape within the body, while still maintaining their electronic properties, allowing them to be used in a variety of applications and treatments.

The result of a collaboration between scientists at the University of Tokyo, Japan and The University of Texas, Dallas, the soft transistors are … Read More → "Shape-changing implantable transistors grip living tissue"

Scientists have noticed something dramatic happening in the Solar System: Jupiter’s famous Great Red Spot, the crimson monster storm that once was so large that it could eat three Earths, is mysteriously shrinking at high speed. Now it’s only the width of one Earth. Would it disappear in a few decades?

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Starting in October, biomedical researchers will have to counterbalance their use of male animals and cells with the equivalent in female biological tissues and test subjects. At least that’s what they’ll have to do if they want to get funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), the largest source of medical-research funding in the world. This change, … Read More → "New federal rules will force scientists to use more female lab animals"

When 3D printing and nanotechnology get together for a party the results are actually goodfor your liver, according to researchers at the UC San Diego. They’ve managed to create a device that uses nanoparticles to trap toxins that can damage cells in the body, helping victims of animal stings, bacterial infections and other toxic horrors. Though nanoparticles are already used to … Read More → "3D printed ‘nano-liver’ could help poisoning and infection victims"

Ben Ho is a behavioral economist who studies apologies. He presents an economic theory of apologies that predicts when apologies will change the outcome of disputes, and proposes policies to increase the frequency and sincerity of apologies. The best evidence for economics-driven apology policies are the laws that make doctors’ apologies inadmissible in court; Ho cites research that claims that this leads to more physicians’ apologies, which reduces patient grief and anger, and cuts … Read More → "Economics of apologies"