Lifeboat Foundation

The House of Representatives has approved a bill (Wednesday) that would create an earthquake earthquake early warning system off the west coast.

Researchers posted more preprints to the bioRxiv server in 2018 alone than in the four previous years, according to an analysis of the 37,648 preprints posted on the site in its first 5 years.

More than 1 million studies are now downloaded from the site every month, mostly in neuroscience, bioinformatics and genomics.

Hundreds of people in Florida and Cuba witnessed the phenomenon.

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope doesn’t usually get much assistance from its celestial subjects — but to take this image, the telescope opted for teamwork and made good use of a fascinating cosmic phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. See the result of this teamwork: https://go.nasa.gov/2SF31sW

Two information-processing systems determine the human emotional response: the affect ive and cognitive processing systems. The affect ive system operates outside of conscious thought and is reactive, in that a series of psychophysiological events are initiated automatically following the receipt of sensory information. In contrast, the cognitive processing system is conscious and involves analysis of sensory information to influence and even counteract the affect ive system. Affects (i.e. things that induce some change to the affect ive system) are divided into positive and negative groups. Positive affect has the potential to improve creative thinking, while negative affect narrows thinking and has the potential to adversely affect performance on simple tasks. Emotions are the product of changes in the affect ive system brought about by sensory information stimulation. Research suggests positive emotions—such as happiness, comfort, contentedness, and pleasure—help us make decisions, allow us to consider a larger set of options, decide quicker, and develop more creative problem-solving strategies. These findings suggest attractive things really do work better (Norman 2005), even if this is only the case because they make us feel better when we are using them.

Much of the work into how users and customers behave focuses on the emotional responses elicited by a product. However, emotions are the product of complex processing systems, which essentially convert sensory information into the psychophysiological and behavioral changes that we refer to as emotional responses. According to Don Norman, cognition and affect are in charge of these emotional responses. Cognition and affect are information-processing systems, which help us convert information from our environment into accurate representations of the world and make value judgments that determine how we respond and behave.

Norman distinguishes the cognitive and affect ive systems, and defines emotion, thusly: “The cognitive system interprets and makes sense of the world. Affect is the general term for the judgemental system, whether conscious or subconscious. Emotion is the conscious experience of affect, complete with attribution of its cause and identification of its object”. The affect ive and cognitive systems are thought to work independently, but they influence one another, with the former operating unconsciously while the latter operates at the conscious level. For example, imagine you are about to make a speech in front of a room full of people; the affect ive system is immediately called into action, with chemicals released in your body in response to the situation automatically and without your ability to control this physiological response.

Continue reading “How Emotions Impact Cognition” »

Microalgae are showing huge potential as a sustainable source of biofuels.

Producing biofuels from renewable sources.

Due to concerns about peak oil, energy security, fuel diversity and sustainability, there is great interest around the world in renewable sources of biofuels.

Continue reading “Producing biofuels from algae” »

Scientists from ITMO in collaboration with international colleagues have proposed new DNA-based nanomachines that can be used for gene therapy for cancer. This new invention can greatly contribute to more effective and selective treatment of oncological diseases. The results were published in Angewandte Chemie.

“If you’re under 40 reading this article, you’re probably not going to die unless you get a nasty disease.”

Those are the words of esteemed futurologist Dr. Ian Pearson, who told The Sun he believes humans are very close to achieving “immortality” – the ability to never die.

Humans have been trying to find a way to dodge death for years.

Continue reading “Want to live forever? You just have to make it to 2050” »

Ever seen GIFs of metal parts fitting together so precisely that the boundaries between them seem to disappear? That’s the joy of EDM. (Um, the other EDM.)