Tag Archives: magnetic

Why Older Adults Become Fraud Victims More Often

Brain shows diminished response to untrustworthiness, UCLA scientists report

Why are older people especially vulnerable to becoming victims of fraud? A new UCLA study indicates that an important clue may lie in a particular region of the brain that influences the ability to discern who is honest and who is trying to deceive us.

Older people, more than younger adults, may fail to interpret an untrustworthy face as potentially dishonest, the study shows. The reason for this, the UCLA life scientists found, seems to be that a brain region called the anterior insula, which is linked to disgust and is important for discerning untrustworthy faces, is less active in older adults. (more…)

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UMD Study Shows Exercise May Protect Against Future Emotional Stress

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – Moderate exercise may help people cope with anxiety and stress for an extended period of time post-workout, according to a study by kinesiology researchers in the University of Maryland School of Public Health published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.

“While it is well-known that exercise improves mood, among other benefits, not as much is known about the potency of exercise’s impact on emotional state and whether these positive effects endure when we’re faced with everyday stressors once we leave the gym,” explains J. Carson Smith, assistant professor in the Department of Kinesiology. “We found that exercise helps to buffer the effects of emotional exposure. If you exercise, you’ll not only reduce your anxiety, but you’ll be better able to maintain that reduced anxiety when confronted with emotional events.” (more…)

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The First Spectroscopic Measurement of an Anti-Atom

*Berkeley Lab scientists helped build and operate the ALPHA antimatter trap at CERN, which has now probed the internal structure of the antihydrogen atom for the first time, taking the first step toward possible new insights into the difference between matter and antimatter*

The ALPHA collaboration at CERN in Geneva has scored another coup on the antimatter front by performing the first-ever spectroscopic measurements of the internal state of the antihydrogen atom. Their results are reported in a forthcoming issue of Nature and are now online.

Ordinary hydrogen atoms are the most plentiful in the universe, and also the simplest – so simple, in fact, that some of the most fundamental physical constants have been discovered by measuring the tiny energy shifts resulting from the magnetic and electric interactions of hydrogen’s proton nucleus with its single orbiting electron. (more…)

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Look Ma, No Hands: Yale Engineers Invent a Magnetic Fluid Pump with No Moving Parts

Used in Hollywood and the advertising industry to create exotic special effects, ferrofluids are seemingly magical materials that are both liquid and magnetic at once. In a study published today in Physical Review B, Yale electrical engineering professor Hur Koser and colleagues from the University of Georgia and Massachusetts Institute of Technology demonstrate for the first time an approach that allows ferrofluids to be pumped by magnetic fields alone. The invention could lead to new applications for this mysterious material.

Developed in the 1960s by NASA scientists seeking a non-mechanical method for moving liquid fuels in outer space, ferrofluids are made up of magnetic nanoparticles suspended in liquids such as oil, water, or alcohol. Though numerous industrial, commercial, and biomedical applications for ferrofluids have since been created, the original goal-to pump liquids with no machinery-remained elusive, until now. (more…)

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