SCIENCE BEHIND     FALLING IN LOVE:

When do you know if you fancy someone? What does love do to your brain chemicals, and is falling in love just nature's way to keep our species alive?

We call it love. It feels like love. But the most exhilarating of all human emotions is probably nature’s beautiful way of keeping the human species alive and reproducing.

With an irresistible cocktail of chemicals, our brain entices us to fall in love. We believe we’re choosing a partner. But we may merely be the happy victims of nature’s lovely plan.

t’s not what you say...

Psychologists have shown it takes between 90 seconds and 4 minutes to decide if you fancy someone.

Research has shown this has little to do with what is said, rather

• 55% is through body language
• 38% is the tone and speed of their voice
• Only 7% is through what they say
  The 3 stages of love
  Helen Fisher of Rutgers University in the States has proposed 3 stages of love – lust, attraction and attachment. Each stage might be driven by different hormones and chemicals.
  Stage 1: Lust:
  
  
  DONT MEAN IT WRONG .This is the first stage of love and is driven by the sex hormones testosterone and oestrogen – in both men and women.
  
  
  
  
  
  

  Stage 2: Attraction:     This is the amazing time when you are truly love-struck and can think of little else. Scientists think that three main neurotransmitters are involved in this stage; adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin. Adrenaline The initial stages of falling for someone activates your stress response, increasing your blood levels of adrenalin and cortisol. This has the charming effect that when you unexpectedly bump into your new love, you start to sweat, your heart races and your mouth goes dry.

  
  

  Dopamine               “couples often show the signs of surging dopamine: increased energy, less need for sleep or food, focused attention and exquisite delight in smallest details of this novel relationship” .

  
  
  Serotonin
  And finally, serotonin. One of love's most important chemicals that may explain why when you’re falling in love, your new lover keeps popping into your thoughts.
  
  
  Stage 3: Attachment
  Attachment is the bond that keeps couples together long enough for them to have and raise children. Scientists think there might be two major hormones involved in this feeling of attachment; oxytocin and vasopressin.
  
  
  
  

The Role of Genes in Political Behavior

Politics and genetics have traditionally been considered non-overlapping fields, but over the past decade it has become clear that genes can influence political behavior, according to a review published online in Trends in Genetics. This paradigm shift has led to novel insights into why people vary in their political preferences and could have important implications for public policy.

"We're seeing an awakening in the social sciences, and the wall that divided politics and 

genetics is really starting to fall apart," says review author Peter Hatemi of the University of 

Sydney. "This is a big advance, because the two fields could inform each other to answer 

some very complex questions about individual differences in political views."

In the past, social scientists had assumed that political preferences were shaped by social learning and environmental factors, but recent studies suggest that genes also strongly influence political traits. Twin studies show that genes have some influence on why people differ on political issues such as the death penalty, unemployment and abortion. Because this field of research is relatively new, only a handful of genes have been implicated in political ideology and partisanship, voter turnout, and political violence.

Future research, including gene-expression and sequencing studies, may lead to deeper insights into genetic influences on political views and have a greater impact on public policy. "Making the public aware of how their mind works and affects their political behavior is critically important," Hatemi says. "This has real implications for the reduction of discrimination, foreign policy, public health, attitude change and many other political issues."

Laser Beam as a '3-D Painter' to Grow Biological Tissue or to Create Micro Sensors

With laser beams, molecules can be fixed at exactly the right position in a three dimensional material. The new method developed at the Vienna University of Technology can be used to grow biological tissue or to create micro sensors.

There are many ways to create three dimensional objects on a micrometer scale. But how can the chemical properties of a material be tuned at micrometer precision? Scientists at the Vienna University of Technology developed a method to attach molecules at exactly the right place. When biological tissue is grown, this method can allow the positioning of chemical signals, telling living cells where to attach. The new technique also holds promise for sensor technology: A tiny three dimensional "lab on a chip" could be created, in which accurately positioned molecules react with substances from the environment.

 PALM VEIN PATTERN TECHNOLOGY:

On heavy turn days, a fast, accurate staff clock-in process can make the difference as 4:00 rolls around.  New palm vein recognition technology helps do all that and more.  At clock in, a near-infrared light sensor captures the employee’s unique palm vein pattern, generating a biometric template that is matched against the pre-registered patterns of the staff.  Unlike other readers, the device does not come into contact with the skin, making the process hygienic and unaffected by abrasions or damages to the skin.

With a simple palm vein scan, the employee is instantly authenticated as someone who has access to the property, and the exact time of the scan is recorded to ensure the accuracy of work hours.  The paperless system does not require any oversight, which frees housekeeping managers to focus more on the guest experience. 

Recently, MasterCorp began installing palm vein authentication technology at their sites nationwide, along with large touch-screen computers for greater speed and ease of use.  “We found the technology provides a more reliable and secure authentication solution that is easier to use and maintain,” relates MasterCorp CIO Jonathan Loveday.  “The contactless technology leaves no biometric trace behind, and we have experienced virtually no enrollment failure while gaining speed, accuracy and ease of maintenance.”

X-51A Hyper-sonic Flight Test a Failure

Flight test of the unmanned X-51A apparently ended in failure, another setback in the Air Force and NASA’s attempt to build a hyper sonic jet.

Technology needed to achieve a decades-old dream: rocket-speed flight with an air-breathing engine. But  test by the Air Force of the X-51A unmanned hyper sonic test vehicle resulted in a crash before it could start its engine. 

The X-51A program is a joint project of the Air Force, DARPA, and NASA, with Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne supplying the scramjet engine and Boeing providing the airframe. According to a statement released today by the Air Force, it was this airframe—specifically, a control fin—that failed soon after the vehicle separated as planned from beneath the wing of a B-52 over the Pacific Ocean. A rocket booster attached to the X-51A blasted the vehicle up to speed, but the faulty control fin sent the vehicle spinning out of control before the scramjet engine could be ignited. “All our data showed we had created the right conditions for engine ignition, and we were very hopeful to meet our test objectives,” said Charlie Brink, the Air Force Research Laboratory program manager in charge of the project, in the statement

 

Mars Rock-Zapping Laser Explained

Image from NASA

A rock-zapping laser and telescopic combination called ChemCam is getting a lot of attention with NASA's rover Curiosity landing on Mars.

But what is it?

Here's an explainer, as well as more details about the mission.

ChemCam can look at rocks and soils from a distance, fire a laser to vaporize the materials and analyze them with an on-board spectrograph that measures the composition of the resulting plasma. NASA says ChemCam can also use the laser to do less destructive things, such as clear away dust from Martian rocks as well as use a remote camera to acquire extremely detailed images.

Roger Wiens, ChemCam principal investigator at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, gave a tutorial on how the instrument works at a recent news conference.

"Curiosity's remote sensing instrument [is] designed to make a large number of rapid measurements in some sense to help guide the rover to the most interesting samples," he said.

He also talked about ChemCam's imaging capability and said in routine operation the team plans to take images either before or after the laser operation or both, but not during the laser operation.

"The camera is very high resolution. It's sensitive enough to image a human hair quite easily by seven feet away," he said.

After nearly two weeks on the dusty red planet, Curiosity is doing warm-up exercises and getting ready to take off for its first drilling for a rock sample -- to a place 1300 feet away scientists have named Glenelg, a spot where three kinds of terrain intersect.

In the next few days, the one-ton, six-wheeled mobile Mars laboratory will exercise each of its four steerable wheels, turning each of them side-to-side before ending up with each wheel pointing straight ahead. Curiosity will continue warming up by driving forward about 10 feet, turning 90 degrees and then reversing about sevn feet.

Artist's Concept of Curiosity. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechArtist's concept of landing.Tonight the rover will zap its first rock -- one which scientists have dubbed "Rock N165," a three-inch wide Mars rock that sits about 10 feet away from Curiosity.

"It is not only going to be an excellent test of our system, it should be pretty cool too," Wiens said.

Want to hear the rest of the news conference for yourself? Visit NASA's USTREAM site, where it's all yours.

NASA has dedicated an entire section of its website to its Mars mission and really everything you'd want to know about it is right there.

Memristor:

  - "The Fourth fundamental electronic element"

The Name itself effects predating the capacitor,resistor and inductor.The memristor definition was  generalized by leon chua to cover all forms of 2-terminal non volatile memory devices based on resistance switching effects. 

When current flows in one direction the resistance increases,when the current flows in opposite direction the resistance decreases

when the current is stopped,the memristor retains the last resistance it had,and when the flow of charge starts again the resistance of the circuit will be what it was when it was last time.

The memristor is currently under development by various teams including Hewlett-packard, SK hynix, and HRL laboratories.