The males of two bipedal hominid species that roamed the South African savannah more than a million years ago were stay-at-home kind of guys when compared to the gadabout gals, says a new high-tech study led by the University of Colorado Boulder.
The team, which studied teeth from a group of extinct Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus individuals from two adjacent cave systems in South Africa, found more than half of the female teeth were from outside the local area, said CU-Boulder adjunct professor and lead study author Sandi Copeland. In contrast, only about 10 percent of the male hominid teeth were from elsewhere, suggesting they likely grew up and died in the same area. (more…)
*Males Nearly Twice as Likely as Females to Use Mobile Banking*
LONDON, UK, May 27, 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore MobiLens service which showed that 20 million mobile users across the five leading European markets (UK, France, Spain, Germany and Italy), representing 8.5 percent of mobile subscribers in these markets, accessed their bank account via a mobile phone in March 2011. Since August 2010, the first month this activity has been measured in MobiLens, there has been a 15.4 percent rise in mobile bankers which has been largely driven by smartphone users who accounted for 70 percent of the mobile banking market in March 2011. Among Smartphone owners the number of banking users has risen by 40 percent since August 2010. (more…)
Such highly coveted technical capabilities as the observation of single catalytic processes in nanoreactors, or the optical detection of low concentrations of biochemical agents and gases are an important step closer to fruition. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), in collaboration with researchers at the University of Stuttgart in Germany, report the first experimental demonstration of antenna-enhanced gas sensing at the single particle level. By placing a palladium nanoparticle on the focusing tip of a gold nanoantenna, they were able to clearly detect changes in the palladium’s optical properties upon exposure to hydrogen. (more…)
Scientists seeking to understand the origin of the human mind may want to look to honeybees — not ancestral apes — for at least some of the answers, according to a University of Colorado Boulder archaeologist.
CU-Boulder Research Associate John Hoffecker said there is abundant fossil and archaeological evidence for the evolution of the human mind, including its unique power to create a potentially infinite variety of thoughts expressed in the form of sentences, art and technologies. He attributes the evolving power of the mind to the formation of what he calls the “super-brain,” or collective mind, an event that took place in Africa no later than 75,000 years ago. (more…)
*comScore Releases First European Data on Media Tablet Users from MobiLens Service*
London, UK, 21 April, 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the results of an EU5 (UK, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy) study of media tablet owners, based on data from the comScore MobiLens service. The report includes comScore’s first publicly available data showing demographics and other characteristics of users of connected media devices, such as the iPad, iPod Touch and devices running on Google’s Android software. Initial research indicates that Apple’s iOS platform, which resides on iPhones, iPads and iPod Touches, has a combined platform reach of 28.9 million users in the five European markets, outreaching the Android platform by 116 percent.
“comScore is excited to offer insights about the comprehensive mobile ecosystem, including connected media devices, such as the iPad,” said Jeremy Copp, comScore vice president of mobile in Europe. “This new data set is part of our MobiLens service and enables our clients to understand the detailed demographic and behavioural attributes of connected media device users. This of course has significant implications for the media and developer communities as they consider how best to reach their audience on all types of connected devices.” (more…)
*Amazon’s Free “Buy Once, Read Everywhere” Kindle Apps Now Available in German*
*Thousands of Free German Classics Available on Kindle*
LUXEMBOURG, Apr 21, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon.de today launched the Kindle Store (www.amazon.de/kindlebuecher), the biggest e-bookstore in Germany, with the largest selection of ebooks including more than 650,000 titles, 71 of 100 Spiegel bestsellers, and over 25,000 German-language titles with thousands of German classics downloadable for free only on Kindle. Amazon also announced that its series of free “Buy Once, Read Everywhere” apps for the most popular devices, including iPad, iPod touch, iPhone, PC, Mac and Android-based devices, are now available in German-language versions. In addition, in response to customer demand, Amazon is now offering the latest-generation Kindle and Kindle 3G with an English user interface directly from Amazon.de. (more…)
*Collaboration reveals results from 100-day experiment*
Today, scientists from the XENON collaboration announced the result from their search for the elusive component of our universe known as dark matter. After analyzing one hundred days of data taken with the XENON100 experiment, they see no evidence for the existence of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), the leading candidates for the mysterious dark matter. The XENON100 experiment is operated deep underground at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of the Italian National Institute for Physics (INFN). (more…)
AUSTIN, Texas — Good-looking people are generally happier than their plain looking or unattractive counterparts, largely because of the higher salaries, other economic benefits and more successful spouses that come with beauty, according to new research from economists at The University of Texas at Austin.
This holds true for both men and women and across different cultures, authors Daniel Hamermesh and Jason Abrevaya report in their paper “‘Beauty is the Promise of Happiness’?,” [PDF] which they are releasing to economists this week. The paper is posted at https://ftp.iza.org/dp5600.pdf [PDF], the Web site for the German-based Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).(more…)
