The human brain combines motion and shape information to recognize faces and facial expressions, a new study suggests.

That new finding, part of an engineer’s quest to design computers that “see” faces the way humans do, provides more evidence concerning a controversy in cognitive psychology.

Were computers to become adept at recognizing faces and moods, they would be more user-friendly, said Aleix Martinez, assistant professor of electrical engineering at Ohio State University. T

Police should hand out more traffic tickets. While Robert Tibshirani, PhD, won’t win any popularity contests with that sentiment, the Stanford School of Medicine researcher and his colleagues at the University of Toronto report in a paper being published in the June 28 issue of The Lancet that vigilant traffic law enforcement may reduce fatal car crashes.

The team examined the records of drivers in Ontario, Canada, and found that receiving a traffic ticket reduces a driver’s risk of dying i

Biodiversity in urban/suburban yards correlates with household income

Biodiversity in urban and suburban yards directly correlates with household income, scientists have found.

Researchers at the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) site found higher plant diversity in “upscale” neighborhoods. “The line flattens out, however, at about the $50,000 per year salary mark,” said scientist Charles Redman. “When inves

A team of scientists from the USA in collaboration with staff at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (Schotte et al) have managed to film a protein at work in unprecedented detail. The protein is the oxygen-storing molecule myoglobin, which plays a central role in the production of energy in muscles. The motion of the protein was recorded using ultra-short flashes of X-ray light from the synchrotron. The new insight in the functionality of myoglobin has led to a deeper understanding of the m

Policies like the London Plan, which are designed to shape the cities of the future, are based on outdated assumptions about the way people live and work, according to research funded by the Economic & Social Research Council.

“There is a great deal of talk about ‘joined-up thinking’’ about transport, housing and other policies,” says project leader Dr Helen Jarvis, “but in practice householders are having to fire-fight in a climate where planners and policymakers are not up to date.”

MGH imaging study finds differences in brain area responsible for vigilance

A key area in the brains of people who displayed an inhibited temperament as toddlers shows a greater response to new faces than does the same brain area in adults who were uninhibited early in life, according to a study by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). The imaging studies of the amygdala – a part of the brain that responds to events requiring extra vigilance – appear in the June 20 i

New study presented today at Image-guided Therapies media briefing

Radiofrequency ablation (RFA) combined with chemotherapy is currently being used to treat malignant liver tumors at a Boston hospital on the basis of results from a new study appearing in the July issue of the journal Radiology. The minimally invasive, outpatient procedure is performed on primary liver cancer or colon cancer tumors that have spread to the liver of patients at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

People facing economic hard times are more likely to vote when they believe government is at fault

Contrary to previous research indicating that people who are enduring financial hardship are less likely to vote, a study at Rice University suggests this is not always the case.
“Data from the American National Election Studies demonstrate that those facing economic adversity are more likely to vote when they blame the government for economic outcomes,” said Kevin Arceneaux, a poli

Biodegradable scaffold significantly increases the rate of bone healing

University of Toronto scientists have developed a biodegradable scaffold, similar in structure to a dish sponge, that significantly speeds the rate of bone healing.

The material, developed by an interdisciplinary team with expertise in engineering, biology, chemistry and dentistry, provides a building scaffold for bone growth. The scaffold, which eventually dissolves, increases healing rates and offers

Three decades of research on men’s sexual arousal show patterns that clearly track sexual orientation — gay men overwhelmingly become sexually aroused by images of men and heterosexual men by images of women. In other words, men’s sexual arousal patterns seem obvious.

But a new Northwestern University study boosts the relatively limited research on women’s sexuality with a surprisingly different finding regarding women’s sexual arousal.

In contrast to men, both heterosexual and

UC Riverside Sociologists Say Men Likely to Have Better Behaved Children and Wives Who Find Them More Sexually Attractive

Dads deserve a day off on Sunday, June 15. But on every other day they should know that when they do housework with their children, their kids turn out to be better adjusted and more socially aware. And, their wives find them more attractive.

Sociologists Scott Coltrane and Michele Adams of the University of California, Riverside, looked at national surv

The German health and fitness market is the second largest in Europe and it ’s still growing – but what does the future hold?

There are many different facets of the German health and fitness market. It has four different trade associations and generated total sales of just € 3.16bn in 2002 (Source: DSSV), which is less than Porsche AG’s annual turnover.

Until now, there hasn’t been any accurate data of the total size of this market. However, since 1999, Deloitte & Touche

National Insitute of Standards and Technology (NIST) scientists are taking their knowledge of mechanical tensile strength tests in metals and composites and applying it to medical research problems. Doctors long have known that babies born with congenital heart defects at higher altitudes have an increased risk of developing complications, such as pulmonary hypertension. Could there be some way to trick the arterial walls so that they wouldn’t stiffen under increased blood pressure?

Wo

In experiments conducted at the University of California, Berkeley, researchers have found a way to tap into the telltale electrical signals that mark cell death, opening the door to the creation of a “canary on a chip” that can be used to sound the alarm of a biochemical attack or test drug toxicity on human tissue.

In a study appearing in the June 15 issue of Sensors and Actuators, researchers used a microchip to electrically determine cell viability by detecting changes in the electrica

In recent years, the solution to the problem of diseased or damaged organs has been to replace the old with the new. By taking tissue from either a patient or a donor, surgeons have transplanted this to the damaged area and given many people a new lease of life.

The method is not without limitations, however. Issues such as the availability of donor organs and the need to use drugs to prevent the immune system rejecting the “foreign” tissue have prompted research into alternative ways to d

Oxford scientists are using the latest virtual reality technology to study how we perceive the world in 3D. The “immersive virtual reality” used by the Virtual Reality Research Group at Oxford University allows subjects to walk around or look up and down while what they see through a headset changes accordingly – they can explore the virtual environment by literally walking around. Meanwhile, the scientists monitor how they are perceiving the dimensions of their ‘Matrix’-style world.

The res