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Categories: Engineering: Biometric, Offbeat: General

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Dreams have been considered a hallmark of human sleep for a long time. Latest findings, however, suggest that when pigeons sleep, they might experience visions of flight. Researchers studied brain activation patterns in sleeping pigeons, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The study revealed that similar to mammals, most of the brain is highly active during REM sleep. However, this wake-like state might come at a cost of reduced waste removal from the brain.

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A research team recently invented a novel, wireless, skin-interfaced olfactory feedback system that can release various odours with miniaturized odor generators (OGs). The new technology integrates odors into virtual reality (VR)/augmented reality (AR) to provide a more immersive experience, with broad applications ranging from 4D movie watching and medical treatment to online teaching.

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Researchers have trained a robotic 'chef' to watch and learn from cooking videos, and recreate the dish itself.

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Researchers have demonstrated the principle of using spatial correlations in quantum entangled beams of light to encode information and enable its secure transmission.

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Researchers have detected complex organic molecules in a galaxy more than 12 billion light-years away from Earth -- the most distant galaxy in which these molecules are now known to exist. Thanks to the capabilities of the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope and careful analyses from the research team, a new study lends critical insight into the complex chemical interactions that occur in the first galaxies in the early universe.

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Although astrophysicists theoretically should be able to detect gravitational waves from a single, non-binary source, they have yet to uncover these elusive signals. Now researchers suggest looking at a new, unexpected and entirely unexplored place: The turbulent, energetic cocoons of debris that surround dying massive stars.

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Among the most fundamental questions in astronomy is: How did the first stars and galaxies form? NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is already providing new insights into this question. One of the largest programs in Webb's first year of science is the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES, which will devote about 32 days of telescope time to uncover and characterize faint, distant galaxies. While the data is still coming in, JADES already has discovered hundreds of galaxies that existed when the universe was less than 600 million years old. The team also has identified galaxies sparkling with a multitude of young, hot stars.

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Would you rather run into a brick wall or into a mattress? For most people, the choice is not difficult. A brick wall is stiff and does not absorb shocks or vibrations well; a mattress is soft and is a good shock absorber. Sometimes, in designing materials, both of these properties are needed. Materials should be good at absorbing vibrations, but should be stiff enough to not collapse under pressure. A team of researchers from the UvA Institute of Physics has now found a way to design materials that manage to do both these things.

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Architects have designed a prototype home constructed with flexible wooden partition walls which can be shifted to meet the changing needs of residents. The invention aims to reduce waste and carbon while also improving living conditions for those who cannot afford expensive refurbishments.

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New theoretical research has shown that Stephen Hawking was likely right about black holes, although not completely. Due to Hawking radiation, black holes will eventually evaporate, but the event horizon is not as crucial as had been believed. Gravity and the curvature of spacetime cause this radiation too. This means that all large objects in the universe, like the remnants of stars, will eventually evaporate.

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In the early 1980s, astronomers discovered gigantic, one-dimensional filaments dangling vertically near Sagittarius A*, our galaxy's central supermassive black hole. Now, astronomers have discovered a new population of filaments -- but these threads are much shorter and lie horizontally or radially, spreading out like spokes on a wheel from the black hole.

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Scientists have identified the neurons that are activated when perceiving others, as well as the neurons that represent value information associated with others in the CA1 region of the hippocampus using a novel social recognition experiment.

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Researchers have discovered they can detect atomic 'breathing,' or the mechanical vibration between two layers of atoms, by observing the type of light those atoms emitted when stimulated by a laser. The sound of this atomic 'breath' could help researchers encode and transmit quantum information.

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After the Big Bang, the universe expanded and cooled sufficiently for hydrogen atoms to form. In the absence of light from the first stars and galaxies, the universe entered a period known as the cosmic dark ages. The first stars and galaxies appeared several hundred million years later and began burning away the hydrogen fog left over from the Big Bang, rendering the universe transparent, like it is today. Researchers have now confirmed the existence of a distant, faint galaxy typical of those whose light burned through the hydrogen atoms; the finding should help them understand how the cosmic dark ages ended.

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Researchers report that in the absence of visible landmarks, desert ants increase the likelihood that foraging nest mates will find their way home quickly and safely by elevating their nest entrance. Ant colonies whose nests are found deep in the Tunisian saltpan are particularly reliant on the self-made landmarks. If the mound at the nest entrance was removed, they immediately began building a new hill, unless the researchers provided artificial landmarks. This phenomenon adds yet another fascinating facet to the amazing navigation skills of these tiny desert animals.

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For over a century, researchers have thought that the patterns of brain activity that define our experiences, hopes and dreams are determined by how different brain regions communicate with each other through a complex web of trillions of cellular connections. Now, a study has examined more than 10,000 different maps of human brain activity and found that the overall shape of a person's brain exerts a far greater influence on how we think, feel and behave than its intricate neuronal connectivity.

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Rare earth elements, like neodymium and dysprosium, are a critical component to almost all modern technologies, from smartphones to hard drives, but they are notoriously hard to separate from the Earth's crust and from one another. Scientists have discovered a new mechanism by which bacteria can select between different rare earth elements, using the ability of a bacterial protein to bind to another unit of itself, or 'dimerize,' when it is bound to certain rare earths, but prefer to remain a single unit, or 'monomer,' when bound to others.

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There's an intriguing exoplanet out there -- 400 light-years out there -- that is so tantalizing that astronomers have been studying it since its discovery in 2009. One orbit for WASP-18 b around its star that is slightly larger than our Sun takes just 23 hours. There is nothing like it in our Solar System. A new study about this exoplanet, an ultra-hot gas giant 10 times more massive than Jupiter.

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Geneticists have unearthed a major event in the ancient history of sturgeons and paddlefish that has significant implications for the way we understand evolution. They have pinpointed a previously hidden 'whole genome duplication' (WGD) in the common ancestor of these species, which seemingly opened the door to genetic variations that may have conferred an advantage around the time of a major mass extinction some 200 million years ago.

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Even without nerves, plants can sense when something touches them and when it lets go, a study has found. In a set of experiments, individual plant cells responded to the touch of a very fine glass rod by sending slow waves of calcium signals to other plant cells, and when that pressure was released, they sent much more rapid waves. While scientists have known that plants can respond to touch, this study shows that plant cells send different signals when touch is initiated and ended.