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Zombies and texting.

A new study presented by researchers from the Tech3Lab at HEC Montreal, along with the University of Montreal’s Department of Psychology and the Centre hospitalier Notre-Dame has found that “Texting while walking is a widespread and dangerous behaviour.”

In a research presentation called “Mobile Multitasking Distraction: A Pilot Study with Intracranial Electroencephalography”, researchers attempted to determine which neural circuitry is implicated in the act of texting while walking, with the aim of helping to develop future methods of mitigating “this dangerous habit” and perhaps to “assist the development of mobile applications aiming directly at the neural circuitry”.

While online marketers search for ways to increase user “engagement” with smartphones, it’s precisely this engagement that puts people who walk and text at the same time at greatest risk.

Continue reading “Texting pedestrians exhibit “zombie-like” behaviour, say Montreal researchers” | >

Apple’s new app to help you do deep breathing to improve your mind, intelligence, and over all health.

APPLE is set to launch a new app that aims to make you healthier through just a few minutes a day of deep breathing.

It is based on the growing field of research proving the biological benefits, including genetic changes, of mind-body medicine.

The Breathe app will be released for the Apple Watch later this year and it will prompt people to take a few minutes every day to stop and focus on their breathing, using the heart-rate sensor in the Watch to monitor the reaction.

Continue reading “Now there’s an app to help you breathe” | >

Abstract: Scientists have looked for different ways to force hydrogen into a metallic state for decades. A metallic state of hydrogen is a holy grail for materials science because it could be used for superconductors, materials that have no resistance to the flow of electrons, which increases electricity transfer efficiency many times over. For the first time researchers, led by Carnegie’s Viktor Struzhkin, have experimentally produced a new class of materials blending hydrogen with sodium that could alter the superconductivity landscape and could be used for hydrogen-fuel cell storage. The research is published in Nature Communications.

It had been predicted that certain hydrogen-rich compounds consisting of multiple atoms of hydrogen with so-called alkali metals like lithium, potassium or sodium, could provide a new chemical means to alter the compound’s electronic structure. This, in turn, may lead the way to metallic high-temperature superconductors.

“The challenge is temperature,” explained Struzhkin. “The only superconductors that have been produced can only exist at impractically cold temperatures. In recent years, there have been predictions of compounds with several atoms of hydrogen coupled with alkali metals that could exist at more practical temperatures. They are theorized to have unique properties useful to superconductivity.”

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To me, maps always conjure up a sense of exploration.

Back in the Age of Discovery, rudimentary maps allowed European explorers to sail into the vast unknown. They began charting new worlds, and in turn, made newer maps that helped future generations better understand the lands and seas that cover our world.

Now, thanks to a new — if slightly different — type of map, we may be approaching a new age of discovery. One that takes us into the uncharted territories of the mysterious three-pound organ that underlies our thoughts, emotions, hopes and dreams: the human brain.

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We spend our lives surrounded by hi-tech materials and chemicals that make our batteries, solar cells and mobile phones work. But developing new technologies requires time-consuming, expensive and even dangerous experiments.

Luckily we now have a secret weapon that allows us to save time, money and risk by avoiding some of these experiments: computers.

Thanks to Moore’s law and a number of developments in physics, chemistry, computer science and mathematics over the past 50 years (leading to Nobel Prizes in Chemistry in 1998 and 2013) we can now carry out many experiments entirely on computers using modelling.

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Quantum physics is the new physics that is pointing to something far greater than the materialistic world that we once believed to be the basis of our existence. Not only is it disproving our original perception of space and time, but it is opening the doors to the possibility of time travel, telepathy, and consciousness creating our reality.

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Honda said in a press release that the AI will use conversations with the driver and other data it gathers ‘both to perceive the emotions of the driver and to engage in dialogue with the driver based on the vehicle’s own emotions.’ The just-announced partnership works toward application of the ‘emotion engine,’ which is ‘a set of AI technologies developed by cocoro SB Corp., which enable machines to artificially generate their own emotions.’

Image source: Getty Images.

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Driverless cars are already being developed by nearly every automaker. And despite the recent Tesla Model S crash in which a driver was killed while using the car’s semi-autonomous Autopilot feature, they’re typically much safer than human drivers, and they’re getting better all of the time.

Continue reading “Artificial Intelligence May Soon Drive Your Car — And Keep You Company at the Same Time” | >