More Than One Blow For A Concussion In Football
2012-02-04 22:00:08
As you watch the Patriots and Giants smash into each other Sunday, consider this. [More]

Science Explainer: The Physics of Football [Video]
2012-02-04 15:00:00
Slow-motion replays of deep passes have mesmerized fans of American football for decades. The impossibly long, steady arc of a well-thrown ball is a thing of beauty.  In contrast, players sometimes refer to wobbly passes as ugly ducks, although just why isn't entirely clear, since ducks fly pretty well. [More]

Brain Injury Rate 7 Times Greater among U.S. Prisoners
2012-02-04 08:00:00
A car accident, a rough tackle, an unexpected tumble. The number of ways to bang up the brain are almost as numerous as the people who sustain these injuries. And only recently has it become clear just how damaging a seemingly minor knock can be. Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is no longer just a condition acknowledged in military personnel or football players and other professional athletes. Each year some 1.7 million civilians will suffer an injury that disrupts the function of their brains, qualifying it as a TBI. [More]

Lies We Tell Ourselves (preview)
2012-02-04 08:00:00
In Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1970 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar , a skeptical Judas Iscariot questions with faux innocence (“Don’t you get me wrong/I only want to know”) the messiah’s deific nature: “Jesus Christ Superstar/Do you think you’re what they say you are?” [More]

Lies We Tell Ourselves: How Deception Leads to Self-Deception (preview)
2012-02-04 08:00:00
In Andrew Lloyd Webber’s 1970 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar , a skeptical Judas Iscariot questions with faux innocence (“Don’t you get me wrong/I only want to know”) the messiah’s deific nature: “Jesus Christ Superstar/Do you think you’re what they say you are?” [More]

Close Super Bowl Boosts Ad At End
2012-02-03 14:43:08
Advertisers will drop .5 million for a 30-second spot during Sunday’s Super Bowl. But to get the most bang for their buck, they might want to play their ad right after the game ends--not during it. Because if it's a close one, the time slot right after the final gun should have the most sway with viewers. So says a study in the Journal of Advertising . [ Colleen C. Bee and Robert Madrigal, It’s Not Whether You Win Or Lose, It’s How The Game Is Played: The Influence of Suspenseful Sports Programming on Advertising (forthcoming, no link yet)] [More]

Social Clicks: Sounds Associated with African Languages Are Common in English
2012-02-03 08:00:00
Some Africans click, but English speakers don’t. That’s been the conventional wisdom about click sounds, which serve as regular consonants in Zulu and Xhosa and a few other African languages but which were presumed to just be used in English for encouraging a horse, imitating a kiss, or expressing emotions such as disapproval or amazement. But researchers have recently found that clicks are far more prevalent in the world’s lingua franca than had been thought. [More]

MIND Reviews: The Righteous Mind
2012-02-03 08:00:00
The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion [More]

More With Maryn: McKenna on Antibiotic Resistance
2012-02-02 22:10:08
Journalist and author Maryn McKenna talks about antibiotic resistance in agriculture and human health, MRSA and a brief return to the subject of fecal transplants. [More]

Virtual Reality Contact Lenses Could Be Available by 2014
2012-02-02 19:00:00
Contact lenses that help enhance normal vision with megapixel 3D panoramic images are being designed by scientists using military funding. [More]

Could an Infection Cause Tourette's-Like Symptoms in Teenage Girls?
2012-02-02 18:05:00
Over the weekend Erin Brockovich made the news yet again as she and her nonprofit team descended on the village of Le Roy, N.Y., determined to test for environmental toxins that might be giving the town's teenagers symptoms of Tourette's syndrome. She has reportedly been stonewalled thus far by local officials, who have already ruled out toxins as the cause of last October's sudden outbreak of tics and involuntary movements in 12 girls who attend Le Roy Junior–Senior High School. An environmental testing company surveyed the air and water and found nothing amiss, and a local neurologist concluded upon examining the girls that they had "conversion disorder," a catchall moniker for physical symptoms that originate in the mind because of stress, trauma or even mass hysteria. [More]

Temperatures--Not Acid--Could Cook Coral to Death
2012-02-02 17:01:00
One of the biggest natural tragedies of recent years is the deterioration of Australia's Great Barrier Reef , a vast structure of coral off the continent's east coast that supports a profusion of wildlife. In addition to overfishing and nutrient pollution, the world's largest natural structure has suffered from rising ocean temperatures. But, perhaps less well known, Australia's west coast has some massive reefs of its own, offshore in the southeastern Indian Ocean. Massive stony corals of the genus Porites swell to the surface, and new research published February 2 in Science suggests those located in the colder waters farthest south are growing better than ever --thanks to warming ocean temperatures. [More]

Signs Boost Stair Climbing
2012-02-02 16:15:08
There’s an easy way to encourage people to take the stairs instead of an elevator: put up a sign reminding them to. [More]

Earthquake-Proof Engineering for Skyscrapers
2012-02-02 10:00:00
Key concepts [More]

Inside Story: What Happens When Brain Hits Skull
2012-02-02 07:00:00
Concussion, the most common among traumatic brain injuries, which occurs 1.7 million times a year in the U.S., represents a major public-health problem. It occurs when there is a sudden acceleration or deceleration of the head, a process depicted here in this animation. [More]