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Twitter Updates for 2009-11-06

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Bad Driving, A Gene May Have Caused It

Bad driving has something to blame for, says a study at UC Irvine Neuroscientists
Bad driving has something to blame for, says a study at UC Irvine Neuroscientists

Every driver is not born a racer! Don’t get me wrong, I am not against racers. There just many kinds of drivers that we observe everyday. There’s the cautious-careful driver, the cautious-careless, the responsible one, if there’s a good, then there’s a bad driver, and there’s also the worst drivers. I don’t say, that racers are the worst drivers. Worst driving means driving irresponsibly and recklessly.

Bad drivers may have in part something to blame for their behavior, says a neurologist at UC Irvine neuroscientists.

A particular gene variant is currently the subject of their study on driving behaviors. This particular variant limits the availability of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) during activity. When a person is engaged in a particular task, which in this case is driving, BDNF is secreted in the brain area connected with that activity to help the body respond.

A simulated driving test for two days was given to 29 people, 22 without the variant and 7 with the gene variant. Results showed that the 7 subjects with that particular variant did worse than those 22 other.

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Or, you can watch this video to know why many fail their driving tests.

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Twitter Updates for 2009-11-05

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Wireless Devices Overwhelm Nature’s Signals

passive instruments situated at a quieter locations like the desert, to capture radio signals from outer space
passive instruments situated at a quieter locations like the desert, to capture radio signals from outer space

Wireless devices such as our cellphones and laptops have become indispensable members of our essential kits. Since its advent, these gadgets have helped us a lot in accomplishing and automating some of our daily tasks.

But do you know that as more and more people use this technology, it created what scientists call an “electronic fog”? This so called ‘fog’ interfere with scientific observations and routine tasks of finding and locating outer space radio emissions.

This electronic fog disrupts and/or disturbs passive monitoring systems vital to agriculture, transportation and national defense. These passive instruments listen and capture faint radio emissions from water, soil and atmospheric gases, as well as emissions related to atmospheric changes in temperature and humidity necessary for human and animal existence.

In response to this problem, the U.S. National Research Council (NRC) called for ‘new rules and technologies that could strike a balance between active and passive users of the electromagnetic spectrum‘. There were many proposed solutions handed in, but the real solution will only take effect if these million cellphone users will agree to coexist with continued scientific discovery.

Click here to read more about this story..