Have you ever felt awkward staring into a person's eyes while holding up a conversation? It turns out that there is a good scientific reason why some of us struggle with this. Research tells us that staring while trying to come up with the right words actually uses the same mental resources as sustaining eye contact.

Scientists from Kyoto University in Japan put this to the test in 2016 by having 26 volunteers play word association games while staring at computer-generated faces. When making eye contact, the participants found it harder to come up with links between words, suggesting that there is interference between these processes.

The volunteers were tested while looking at both animations of faces making eye contact and animations of fac ...

A cognitive neuroscientist explains that the biological reason the image 'moves' is because the V5 (middle temporal visual area) part of your brain – devoted to motion processing – activates or fires due to the V4 part of your brain – devoted to colour and shape – becomes overstimulated.

In fact, V4 neurons are saturated so much that the resting firing frequency of middle temporal neurons is interpreted as an actual sensory signal. The effect of this illusion strictly depends on several factors, namely on the receptive field sizes (the illusion changes as a function of viewing distance), V4 preference for spirals and spheres, and the middle temporal involvement in 3D and stereopsis. It is a very complex interaction, that rarely lead to suc ...

Scientists have often questioned the necessity for organic foods (those not produced with pesticides). In a pioneering study titled "Organic diets significantly lower children's dietary exposure to organophosphorus pesticide," conducted in 2006, researchers delved into this very question. By monitoring and analyzing the urine of children exposed to both organic and conventionally produced foods, the study aimed to shed light on the potential advantages of choosing organic options. Some of the results are summarized in the table below:


The study's findings provided intriguing insights into the effects of organic and conventional diets on children's health. The key takeaways were as follows:

Lower Levels of Metabolites: During the phase when th ...

In our modern world, noise surrounds us constantly, whether it's the roar of traffic, the hum of machinery, or the cacophony of city life. While we've grown accustomed to these sounds, noise pollution can definitely take its toll on our long-term health.

In 2005, R. Chepesiuk wrote an article called the "Decibel Hell: The Effects of Living in a Noisy World", where he shed light on the lasting impact of noise exposure on our hearing. The article focused on the hearing of three participants: a 25-year-old carpenter, a 50-year-old with no on-the-job noise exposure, and a 50-year-old carpenter. It kicked off by examining how different frequencies of sound are perceived by these individuals. It was discovered that a sound frequency of approximat ...

Any animal capable of seeing in 3D, such as humans, have the ability to visually perceive depth. No other insect but the Praying mantis is capable of this. Because of this, this predatory insect excels at detecting prey that comes within striking distance, but unlike us, their depth perception only works when the prey is moving.

In a new study, scientists glued the world’s tiniest 3D glasses (above, left) on 20 praying mantises (Sphodromantis lineola) and showed them a series of movies depicting patches of moving dots that were camouflaged against a matching background, and which are perceived as potential prey items to the insect.

The insects tried to catch these dots that appeared to be within 2.5 centimeters of their perch. And they coul ...

Seeing through objects may seem like something straight out of a comic book, but researchers have found a way to make entire animals transparent – from their brains to their bones. The method lets fluorescent proteins visibly shine through bodies, lighting up entire vascular systems (above) and other structures.

To produce such light shows, researchers treat euthanized rodents with several organic solvents to remove the water and lipids that made them opaque. The technique is dubbed uDISCO because it’s a variant of the original DISCO technique, which stands for 3D imaging of solvent-cleared organs. This technique allows the highest resolution images yet for a whole body, its creators report online today in Nature Methods, and it can create ...

Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin necessary mainly for the formation of blood clots. Without this vitamin, bleeding would not stop. 

Vitamin K is given as an injection to newborns to prevent vitamin K deficiency bleeding, since the level of blood clotting factors of newborn babies are roughly 30–60% that of adult values. The reason for this discrepancy is due to poor transfer of the vitamin across the placenta, and thus low fetal plasma vitamin K.

Occurrence of vitamin K deficiency bleeding in the first week of the infant's life is estimated at 0.25–1.7%, with a prevalence of 2–10 cases per 100,000 births. Since the vitamin is found in human milk and supplemented in infant formula, the concentration of vitamin K naturally rises within th ...

Here's what Venus would look with water, and without its thick CO2 atmosphere

When we think of Venus, we envision a planet that'd make a great place for hell - fiery red, extremely hot, and toxic. However, a new study makes an argument that Venus may have once been able to support life, until a mysterious resurfacing event took all that away about 700 million years ago.

According to planetary scientist Michael Way from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, Venus may have had a stable climate for billions of years.

"It is possible that the near-global resurfacing event is responsible for its transformation from an Earth-like climate to the hellish hot-house we see today."

The research – presented last week at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 201 ...