Curious monkeys share our thirst for knowledge
Monkeys are notoriously curious, and new research has quantified just how eager they are to gain new information, even if there are not immediate benefits.
A picture is worth 1000 words, but how many emotions?
During a political campaign voters will often share their views through pictures posted on social media. A human could recognize one as being a positive portrait of the candidate and the other one negative. Professor Jiebo Luo and his collaborators are training computers to make the same assessments.
An extra protein gives naked mole rats more power to stop cancer
Naked mole rats are small, hairless, subterranean rodents that have never been known to get cancer despite having a 30-year lifespan. A new protein discovered by biologist Vera Gorbunova may help explain why.
Generating Möbius strips of light
A collaboration between researchers from Canada, Europe, and Rochester has experimentally produced Möbius strips from the polarization of light, confirming a theoretical prediction that it is possible for light’s electromagnetic field to assume this peculiar shape.
New app would monitor mental health through “selfie” videos, social media
In a paper to be presented this week at the American Association for Artificial Intelligence conference in Austin, Texas, computer science professor Jiebo Luo and his colleagues describe a computer program that can analyze “selfie” videos recorded by a webcam as the person engages with social media.
Gigantic ring system around J1407b much larger, heavier than Saturn’s
Rochester astronomers, along with colleagues at the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands have discovered that the ring system that they see eclipse the very young Sun-like star J1407 is of enormous proportions, much larger and heavier than the ring system of Saturn.
Laser-generated surface structures create extremely water-repellent metals
Scientists at the Institute of Optics have used lasers to transform metals into extremely water repellent, or super-hydrophobic, materials without the need for temporary coatings.
Researchers show neutrinos can deliver not only full-on hits but also ‘glancing blows’
In what they call a “weird little corner” of the already weird world of neutrinos, physicists have found evidence that these tiny particles might be involved in a surprising reaction. In an experiment conducted with the international MINERvA collaboration at Fermilab, physics professor Kevin McFarland and his students and colleagues provide evidence that neutrinos can sometimes interact with a nucleus but leave it basically untouched, resulting in a new particle being created out of a vacuum.
Researchers explain how our minds make sense through order
Rochester scientists say they have an alternative to the standard explanation for why order matters when the human mind processes information. Ting Qian and Richard Aslin explain that our tendency to detect patterns is built into our cognitive processes, even when it’s at the risk of overestimating the importance of such patterns. (photo by Flickr user redwoodphotography made available under CC BY-ND 2.0)
New imaging technique helps predict how vision recovers after brain tumor removal
An interdisciplinary team of University neuroscientists and neurosurgeons has used a new imaging technique to show how the human brain heals itself in just a few weeks following surgical removal of a brain tumor.