We all have moments of distraction and we sometimes don’t see something that is well ahead. Researchers at the University of Washington, USA, did a test to determine exactly how much of human perception is impaired when talking on a cell phone.

They did an experiment documenting examples of real people who were so distracted while talking on a cell phone that did not see a clown walking on a unicycle.

When compared with individuals walking alone, in pairs or listening to an mp3 player, people talking on cell phones were the group most distracted. Only 25% of this group saw the clown. People who were not using the phone saw the clown in more than 50% of the time.

Furthermore, research has shown that people who used mobile phones are difficult to perform simple tasks, like walking. They walk more slowly, change direction more often, cannot walk straight and do not realize the other people around you.

For Ira Hyman, main author of the study, the results show clearly the reasons why people should not drive talking on the phone. “If people find it so difficult to do simple tasks like walking while talking on the phone, think about what it means to put them driving safely,” says the researcher.

Via: Telegraph.

Are you an empathic person? If so, you probably have a flair for sensing people’s feelings, reading their facial emotions and perhaps recognizing their smell as well rather easily. A recent collaborative study conducted by Wen Zhou and Denise Chen shows the evidence of the behavioral connection between a sensory system and emotional possessing.

They conducted an experiment for their study on forty four female university students. They were asked to smell three t-shirts and choose the one that belonged to their room-mate. The t-shirts were carefully prepared, worn an overnight for an average of 8 hours. The students were further divided into three groups based on their performance.

The results showed that 21 of them failed both times to choose the correct t-shirt; 10 of them chose the correct t-shirt once; while 13 of them picked the correct one each time. The experiment also showed that the students who correctly identified their room mates’ t-shirt each time did so by its smell. Besides, they could also identify facial emotional expressions better than the other.

On the contrary, further analysis proved that ‘empathy’ was not linked in any way to recognize the smell. It was the students’ skill at using smell for “social” purposes that was linked to empathy. The big question is if this is true, will a social person be able to equally recognize others’ smell better than the rest? How about the altruistic people who naturally feel for others?

Via: Blogspot

Photosynthesis, the process which energizes plants by breakdown of water using sunlight got artificial. Nocera and his colleagues conducted an experiment in which solar panels were used to power an electrolyzer with cobalt and phosphate catalysts to break down water into its elemental constituents, hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen thus produced was fed into a fuel cell to produce electricity.

While the sun generates electricity during the day, nights and cloudy days would be lighted up by these hydrogen fuel cells. When Nocera declared this idea to the world, it triggered criticism. Nocera’s mentor, Thomas Meyer feels that it is too quick to call it an answer for artificial photosynthesis, because, though the catalysts are technologically important, they may not be put to practical use until they have been improved further. Another researcher from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, CO says that when compared to the catalysts available in the market which run at about 1,000 milliamps per square centimeter, Nocera’s electrolyzer has jus 1-10 milliamp per square centimeter of energy density which is about 800-2000 times less.

Apart from these, critics also highlight the loss of energy that would occur during the conversion process and the cost factor which is very important for putting any innovation into public use. Now, we have to wait and watch if the new technique would rise or just lay in peace.

Source: TechnologyReview