Must try harder.
Update: Bonus points if you press the space bar as you play!
[Thanks Giuliop!]
Via: Joystiq
Source: Drop, @Notch (Twitter)
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Monday, April 29, 2013
How Long Should You Spend on Making Tasks More Efficient?
These days everyone wants you to hack your life in order to make your day-to-day existence more efficient. But there are times when the effort's not really worth it?and this chart should help you work out what to spend time on, and what to ignore.
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Cat and mouse: One gene is necessary for mice to avoid predators
Apr. 29, 2013 ? When a mouse smells a cat, it instinctively avoids the feline or risks becoming dinner. How? A Northwestern University study involving olfactory receptors, which underlie the sense of smell, provides evidence that a single gene is necessary for the behavior.
A research team led by neurobiologist Thomas Bozza has shown that removing one olfactory receptor from mice can have a profound effect on their behavior. The gene, called TAAR4, encodes a receptor that responds to a chemical that is enriched in the urine of carnivores. While normal mice innately avoid the scent marks of predators, mice lacking the TAAR4 receptor do not.
The study, published April 28 in the journal Nature, reveals something new about our sense of smell: individual genes matter.
Unlike our sense of vision, much less is known about how sensory receptors contribute to the perception of smells. Color vision is generated by the cooperative action of three light-sensitive receptors found in sensory neurons in the eye. People with mutations in even one of these receptors experience color blindness.
"It is easy to understand how each of the three color receptors is important and maintained during evolution," said Bozza, an author of the paper, "but the olfactory system is much more complex."
In contrast to the three color receptors, humans have 380 olfactory receptor genes, while mice have more than 1,000. Common smells like the fragrance of coffee and perfumes typically activate many receptors.
"The general consensus in the field is that removing a single olfactory receptor gene would not have a significant effect on odor perception," said Bozza, an assistant professor of neurobiology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences.
Bozza and his colleagues tested this assumption by genetically removing a specific subset of olfactory receptors called trace amine-associated receptors, or TAARs, in mice. Mice have 15 TAARs. One is expressed in the brain and responds to amine neurotransmitters and common drugs of abuse such as amphetamine. The other 14 are found in the nose and have been coopted to detect odors.
Bozza's group has shown that the TAARs are extremely sensitive to amines -- a class of chemicals that is ubiquitous in biological systems and is enriched in decaying materials and rotting flesh. Mice and humans typically avoid amines since they have a strongly unpleasant, fishy quality.
Bozza's team, including the paper's lead authors, postdoctoral fellow Adam Dewan and graduate student Rodrigo Pacifico, generated mice that lack all 14 olfactory TAAR genes. These mice showed no aversion to amines. In a second experiment, the researchers removed only the TAAR4 gene. TAAR4 responds selectively to phenylethylamine (PEA), an amine that is concentrated in carnivore urine. They found that mice lacking TAAR4 fail to avoid PEA, or the smell of predator cat urine, but still avoid other amines.
"It is amazing to see such a selective effect," Dewan said. "If you remove just one olfactory receptor in mice, you can affect behavior."
The TAAR genes are found in all mammals studied so far, including humans. "The fact that TAARs are highly conserved means they are likely important for survival," Bozza said.
One idea is that the TAARs may make animals very sensitive to the smell of amines. Humans may have TAAR genes to avoid rotting foods, which become enriched in amines during the decomposition process. In fact, the TAARs may relay information to a specific part of the brain that elicits innately aversive behavior in animals.
Bozza's lab has recently shown that neurons in the nose that express the TAARs connect to with a specific region of the olfactory bulb -- the part of the brain that first receives olfactory information. This suggests that the TAARs may elicit hardwired responses to amines in mice, and perhaps humans.
"We hope this work will reveal specific brain circuits that underlie instinctive behaviors in mammals," Bozza said. "Doing so will help us understand how neural circuits contribute to behavior."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Northwestern University, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Adam Dewan, Rodrigo Pacifico, Ross Zhan, Dmitry Rinberg, Thomas Bozza. Non-redundant coding of aversive odours in the main olfactory pathway. Nature, 2013; DOI: 10.1038/nature12114
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/most_popular/~3/LHj98X5KInQ/130429154115.htm
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Friday, April 26, 2013
ATD: Gates, Ballmer and Sean Parker join Zuckerberg's FWD.us lobby group
Mark Zuckerberg showed he's more than just a social butterfly earlier this month, forming the tech-focused political lobby group FWD.us alongside some other big names in the industry. Now, according to AllThingsD, a few more heavy-hitters have signed up to offer their expertise, including Microsoft's Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Sean Parker and Intuit CEO Brad Smith. Not a bad crew to have on your side when technology issues are up for discussion, especially Ballmer -- he's notoriously good at getting his point across.
Filed under: Internet
Via: The Verge
Source: AllThingsD
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With wave of the hand, researchers create touch-based interfaces
Apr. 25, 2013 ? Researchers previously have shown that a depth camera system, such as Kinect, can be combined with a projector to turn almost any surface into a touchscreen. But now researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have demonstrated how these touch-based interfaces can be created almost at will, with the wave of a hand.
CMU's WorldKit system enables someone to rub the arm of a sofa to "paint" a remote control for her TV or swipe a hand across an office door to post his calendar from which subsequent users can "pull down" an extended version. These ad hoc interfaces can be moved, modified or deleted with similar gestures, making them highly personalized.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) used a ceiling-mounted camera and projector to record room geometries, sense hand gestures and project images on desired surfaces.
But Robert Xiao, an HCII doctoral student, said WorldKit does not require such an elaborate installation. "Depth sensors are getting better and projectors just keep getting smaller," he said. "We envision an interactive 'light bulb' -- a miniaturized device that could be screwed into an ordinary light fixture and pointed or moved to wherever an interface is needed."
The system does not require prior calibration, automatically adjusting its sensing and image projection to the orientation of the chosen surface. Users can summon switches, message boards, indicator lights and a variety of other interface designs from a menu. Ultimately, the WorldKit team anticipates that users will be able to custom design interfaces with gestures.
Xiao developed WorldKit with Scott Hudson, an HCII professor, and Chris Harrison, a Ph.D. student. They will present their findings April 30 at CHI 2013, the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, in Paris.
"People have talked about creating smart environments, where sensors, displays and computers are interwoven," said Harrison, who will join the HCII faculty this summer. "But usually, that doesn't amount to much besides mounting a camera up on the ceiling. The room may be smart, but it has no outlet for that smartness. With WorldKit, we say forget touchscreens and go straight to projectors, which can make the room truly interactive."
Though WorldKit now focuses on interacting with surfaces, the researchers anticipate future work may enable users to interact with the system in free space. Likewise, higher resolution depth cameras may someday enable the system to sense detailed finger gestures. In addition to gestures, the system also could be designed to respond to voice commands.
"We're only just getting to the point where we're considering the larger questions," Harrison said, noting a multitude of applications in the home, office, hospitals, nursing homes and schools have yet to be explored.
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Carnegie Mellon University.
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Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
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The 1 Chart That Could Sever Obama's Coalition
What could dissolve the powerful electoral coalition that powered both of President Obama?s victories? The latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll points to the greatest risk: continuing economic dissatisfaction.
The survey shows some clear continuing signs of strength for Obama with the key elements of the ?coalition of the ascendant? that reelected him. African-Americans, Hispanics, members of the millennial generation ages 18-29, and college-educated white women?the growing groups that provided Obama his critical support last November?all said in the poll they trusted Obama more than congressional Republicans to develop solutions to the country?s economic problems. All four groups are also more likely than the public overall to reject the Reaganesque argument that government is more the problem than the solution to the country?s challenges. Moreover, the first three groups are also more likely than the public overall to say Obama?s agenda will increase opportunity for people like them.
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But the survey also highlights two potential fissures in the coalition. One is that college-educated white women?who generally lean toward liberal social positions that align them with Obama and most Democrats?tend to hold a dim view of his economic performance. Just 28 percent of them say Obama?s agenda will increase opportunity for people like them; 42 percent say it will decrease it. Obama also scores no better than a roughly even split among the college white women on the question of whether his agenda ?helped to avoid an even worse economic crisis? or ran ?up a record federal deficit while failing to significantly improve the economy.?
The bigger risk for Obama: The millennial generation and minorities are much more likely than the public overall to describe their current economic situation as only fair or poor. While 54 percent of the public overall (and just 39 percent of the college white women) put that negative designation on their current economic standing, 63 percent of millennials, 67 percent of African-Americans, and 69 percent of Hispanics say they are struggling. On issues like guns, gay marriage, and potentially immigration, congressional Republicans continue to take positions that make it difficult for all of these voters, as well as the college white women, to connect with the GOP. But if minorities and millennials remain this dissatisfied with their economic condition, Democrats will face a growing challenge to maintain through 2016 the lopsided advantages they enjoyed among them in 2012.
The latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll, conducted by FTI Consulting?s strategic communications practice, surveyed 1,000 adults from April 5 to 9, via landline and cell phone. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/1-chart-could-sever-obamas-coalition-130003917--politics.html
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