This week on radio, Tim Thwaites is talking about why pierced ears became inflamed; how the physics of skipping stones can improve flying; boosting your brain; using your home computer to find heavenly bodies; and more…
1. Mystery of allergies and costume jewellery solved—Nickel allergy—which affects people with pierced ears (and other places) who wear costume jewellery—is the most common contact allergic reaction in the Western world. Now, thanks to German research, we know what the problem is: nickel seems to imitate some of the chemical characteristics of bacteria.—Nature Immunology
A Nature story on this topic can be found at http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100815/full/news.2010.407.html
2. Lessons from skipping stones could improve aircraft safety—Skipping stones across still water not only involves good coordination, but some tricky physics as well. A couple of UK mathematicians have developed a model which explains much of it. And the results could help engineers design more efficient wing surfaces and hulls.—Proceedings of the Royal Society A
A Science story on this topic can be found at http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/08/lessons-from-skipping-stones-cou.html
3. African dust keeps Amazon blooming—Dust from one of the world’s most desolate places is providing fertiliser for one of its most lush, a British-led research team has found. The group discovered mineral dust from a basin in Chad in sub-Saharan Africa is blowing across the Atlantic Ocean and settling on the Amazon where it compensates for the poor rainforest soils.—Geophysical Research Letters
A Nature story on this topic can be found at http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100809/full/news.2010.396.html
4. Skull electrodes give memory a boost—Weak electric currents applied to the scalp in a non-invasive way can boost visual memory, a Sydney doctoral student has shown. The method alters activity in specific brain regions, and has already been demonstrated to increase verbal and motor skills.—Brain Research
A New Scientist story on this topic can be found at http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727733.900-skull-electrodes-give-memory-a-boost.html
5. Home computer finds rare pulsar—Three citizen scientists in the US, who allowed their home computers to be used for number-crunching in down time, have contributed to finding a rare, dense, rapidly rotating star known as a pulsar. This is the first time an astronomical object has been discovered in this way, by distributed computing.—Science
A Science story on this topic can be found at http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/08/astronomical-find-by-three-avera.html
6. Elephants fear humans more than dynamite—Elephants appear not to be fazed by dynamite explosions, but will change their behaviour significantly to avoid humans. That’s the finding of a major US study of how forest elephants deal with oil exploration in Central Africa.—Conservation Biology
A New Scientist story on this topic can be found at http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727734.100-elephants-fear-humans-more-than-dynamite.html