Where birds go during the winter, and how they get there, has baffled people in the northern regions of the world for centuries. Aristotle suggested that birds changed species with the seasons; that redstarts turned into robins and garden warblers into blackcaps as the weather cooled. As late as the 19th century, some naturalists thought birds hibernated.

The reality seems almost as crazy as birds morphing species throughout the year. … Read More → "How to birds know how to migrate?"

The first humanoid robot in space needs your help. NASA is offering $10,000 in prizes to coders who create algorithms that improve the “vision” of Robonaut 2, the robot currently being tested on the International Space Station.

Robonaut 2, or R2, serves as an extra hand aboard the ISS, taking care of repetitive, time-consuming jobs like fastening bolts with a drill and … Read More → "NASA announces $10,000 contest to improve Robonaut’s vision"

Moodbox is a wireless, capsule-shaped speaker designed to monitor your mood and then use learning software to select music to suit it. Through a built-in microphone, Moodbox interacts with the user by asking them questions, and then draws on certain attributes of a user’s speech such as pitch, energy and speed to inform a learning algorithm.

By doing this day after day, the thinking is that Moodbox … Read More → "Intelligent speaker tunes in to your emotions"

We’ve all seen printers use ink, and if you’ve been to a Maker Faire you may have been lucky enough to see a machine printing with chocolate or pancake batter. RIT Assistant Professor Ted Kinsman decided that he wanted to print with coffee. “For many years I have thought about building a machine that could paint for me,” he says. “Since I always have leftover … Read More → "This machine prints portraits with 8,000 drops of coffee"

Some animals are capable of magnetoreception—an added sense that helps them detect magnetic fields. European scientists have now learned that the molecule responsible for this trait is also found in the eyes of dogs and some primates, which suggests they too might be capable of seeing magnetic fields. 

Cryptochromes are a common group of light-sensitive molecules that … Read More → "Dogs and certain primates may be able to see magnetic fields"

In the late 1930s, the United States Playing Card Company was one of several manufacturers to introduce a 65-card deck. In addition to the four established suits, the packages contained a fifth: the eagle. (In England, companies sometimes used a royal symbol of crowns depicted in blue.) The cards were green instead of red or black and were intended for use in bridge games. Hoyle’s Modern … Read More → "This was once the fifth playing card suit"

While the body can fix small bone breaks with relative ease, more significant injuries such as large bone defects or fractures are a little more tricky, often requiring some extra help to mend. Now, scientists from KU Leuven in Germany are improving the effectiveness of treatments to deal with those more serious situations, preconditioning cells before implantation, allowing them to better deal with the often inhospitable environments at wound sites.
via < … Read More → "Preconditioned cells may help heal major bone fractures"

Materials scientists typically rely on their eyes to analyze data, but soon they could employ their ears as well. Setting the motions of molecules to music can help scientists identify hidden patterns in their data that might otherwise be too small, or occur over such short time scales that they’re easily missed by the human eye.

That’ … Read More → "This scientist is turning every element in the periodic table into music"

Artificial intelligence won’t be truly convincing until it can understand emotions. What good is a robot that can’t understand the nuances of what you’re really saying? IBM thinks it can help, though. It just gave Watson an upgrade that includes a much-improved Tone Analyzer. The AI now detects a wide range of emotions in your writing, including joy or sadness. If you tell everyone that you’re fine when you’re really down … Read More → "IBM’s Watson can sense sadness in your writing"

Astronomers have discovered a record-breaking stellar eclipse in a binary star system far, far away. Every 69 years the newly discovered system, known only as TYC 2505-672-1, is shrouded in darkness for nearly 3.5 years. According to a study forthcoming in Astronomical Journal, it is both the longest eclipse duration and the longest period between eclipses ever recorded.

The researchers say that … Read More → "Astronomers discover an eclipse that lasts more than 3 years"