A Blog Around The Clock

Go at it! These are sooooo....bloggable ;-)

Computer Taught To Recognize Attractiveness In Women:

"Beauty," goes the old saying, "is in the eye of the beholder." But does the beholder have to be human? Not necessarily, say scientists at Tel Aviv University. Amit Kagian, an M.Sc. graduate from the TAU School of Computer Sciences, has successfully "taught" a computer how to interpret attractiveness in women. But there's a more serious dimension to this issue that reaches beyond mere vanity. The discovery is a step towards developing artificial intelligence in computers. Other applications for the software could be in plastic and reconstructive surgery and computer visualization programs such as face recognition technologies.

Irrelevant Image Of Attractive Woman Can Make A Man More Willing To Take Big Financial Risks:

Attractive women plus cool cars equal brisk sales for auto dealers as men snap up those cars, prompted--or so advertising theory goes--by the association. But is the human male really so easily swayed? Can the irrelevant image of an alluring female posing by the merchandise actually encourage a heterosexual man to purchase it?

People Accept Anger In Men, But Women Who Lose Their Temper Are Seen As Less Competent, Study Shows:

Whether you are running for president or looking for a clerical job, you cannot afford to get angry if you are a woman, Yale University psychologist Victoria Brescoll has found. Brescoll and Eric Uhlmann at Northwestern University recently completed three separate studies to explore a phenomenon that may be all-too-familiar to women like New York Senator Hillary Clinton: People accept and even reward men who get angry but view women who lose their temper as less competent.

Why Do Rats Die Younger Than Humans? Newly Discovered Biological Clock Provides Tantalizing Clues:

A New York University dental professor has discovered a biological clock linking tooth growth to other metabolic processes. This clock, or biological rhythm, controls many metabolic functions and is based on the circadian rhythm, which is a roughly 24-hour cycle that is important in determining sleeping and feeding patterns, cell regeneration, and other biological processes in mammals. The newly discovered rhythm, like the circadian rhythm, originates in the hypothalamus, a region of the brain that functions as the main control center for the autonomic nervous system. But unlike the circadian rhythm, this clock varies from one organism to another, operating on shorter time intervals for small mammals, and longer ones for larger animals. For example, rats have a one-day interval, chimpanzees six, and humans eight.

Coral Reefs And Climate Change: Microbes Could Be The Key To Coral Death:

Coral reefs could be dying out because of changes to the microbes that live in them just as much as from the direct rise in temperature caused by global warming, according to scientists speaking April 2, 2008 at the Society for General Microbiology's 162nd meeting.