Scientists plan an ultrapowerful laser to tear apart the fabric of spacetime to see what is inside. Everyone knows when you cause a rip in the spacetime continuum, bad things happen from Star Trek. Know science wants to destroy the universe. Freakin’ laser beams! Actually one of the most awesome lasers coming from of science…
Why do we like an original painting better than a forgery? Psychologist Paul Bloom argues that human beings are essentialists — that our beliefs about the history of an object change how we experience it, not simply as an illusion, but as a deep feature of what pleasure (and pain) is. One interesting thing is…
How do we find planets — even habitable planets — around other stars? By looking for tiny dimming as a planet passes in front of its sun, TED Fellow Lucianne Walkowicz and the Kepler mission have found some 1,200 potential new planetary systems. With new techniques, they may even find ones with the right conditions…
Something really cool from Georgia Tech. … a small liquid drop is placed on a thin metal diaphragm that is forced to vibrate by an attached piezoelectric transducer. The vibration induces capillary waves on the free surface of the drop that, upon attaining the critical conditions, begin to eject small droplets from the wave crests.…
Almost forgot about my How to tell when your boss is lying post. This attracted me to this TED Talk: “Koko once blamed her pet kitten for ripping a sink of the wall.” On any given day we’re lied to from 10 to 200 times, and the clues to detect those lie can be subtle…
From the TED’s About This Talk: Behavioral economist Dan Ariely studies the bugs in our moral code: the hidden reasons we think it’s OK to cheat or steal (sometimes). Clever studies help make his point that we’re predictably irrational — and can be influenced in ways we can’t grasp. When I ran across Dan Ariely’s…
Hm. Maybe no longer doodling in meetings is why they seem hard to remember? Studies show that sketching and doodling improve our comprehension — and our creative thinking. So why do we still feel embarrassed when we’re caught doodling in a meeting? Sunni Brown says: Doodlers, unite! She makes the case for unlocking your brain…
Language is our genes talking; getting things that it wants. … Social learning is visual theft.