Tag: being

  • The front door… Mind the front door…

    The front door… Mind the front door…

    Engineers have developed a navigation method that doesn’t require mapping an area in advance. Instead, their approach enables a robot to use clues in its environment to plan out a route to its destination, which can be described in general semantic terms, such as ‘front door’ or ‘garage,’ rather than as coordinates on a map. […]

  • Harsh sounds…

    Harsh sounds…

    Neuroscientists have analyzed how people react when they listen to a range of different sounds, the aim being to establish the extent to which repetitive sound frequencies are considered unpleasant. Their results showed that the conventional sound-processing circuit is activated but that the cortical and sub-cortical areas involved in the processing of salience and aversion […]

  • Mountains!

    Mountains!

    Life on Earth is amazingly diverse, and exhibits striking geographical global patterns in biodiversity. A pair of companion papers reveal that mountain regions — especially those in the tropics — are hotspots of extraordinary and baffling richness. Although mountain regions cover only 25% of Earth’s land area, they are home to more than 85% of […]

  • Self-reference. Beauty.

    Self-reference. Beauty.

    When something pleases us visually – whether it’s a fine piece of artwork, a beautiful feat of architecture, or an untouched natural landscape – new research demonstrates there is a pattern of activity in what’s known as the default mode network (DMN). The DMN is a large-scale system of interacting regions in the brain that […]

  • Touching the untouched.

    Touching the untouched.

    Jellyfish are about 95% water, which makes them very difficult to study because most of the underwater tools available to marine biologists are clunky, heavy, and often shred jellyfish and other delicate creatures to pieces. A new ultra-soft gripper uses fettuccini-like ‘fingers’ inflated with water to gently grasp jellyfish and release them without harm, allowing […]