My picks from ScienceDaily

How You Feel The World Impacts How You See It:

In the classic waterfall illusion, if you stare at the downward motion of a waterfall for some period of time, stationary objects -- such as rocks -- appear to drift upward. MIT neuroscientists have found that this phenomenon, called motion aftereffect, occurs not only in our visual perception but also in our tactile perception, and that these senses actually influence one another. Put another way, how you feel the world can actually change how you see it -- and vice versa.

Dogs And 2-year-olds Share A Limited Ability To Understand Adult Pointing Gestures:

Dogs and small children who share similar social environments appear to understand human gestures in comparable ways, according to Gabriella Lakatos from Eötvös University in Budapest, Hungary, and her team. Looking at how dogs and young children respond to adult pointing actions, Lakatos shows that 3-year-olds rely on the direction of the index finger to locate a hidden object, whereas 2-year-olds and dogs respond instead to the protruding body part, even if the index finger is pointing in the opposite direction.

Amalgam Fillings Are Safe, But Skeptics Still Claim Controversy, Researcher Says:

Dental amalgam has been proven safe and effective for years, yet unfounded controversy still surrounds it, a Medical College of Georgia researcher says.

Biologists Discover How 'Silent' Mutations Influence Protein Production:

Biologists at the University of Pennsylvania have revealed a hidden code that determines the expression level of a gene, providing a way to distinguish efficient genes from inefficient ones. The new research, which involved creating hundreds of synthetic green-glowing genes, provides an explanation for how a cell "knows" how much of each protein to make, providing just the right amount of protein to maintain homeostasis yet not too much to cause cell toxicity.

More like this

If you look at a waterfall for about 30 seconds, and then shift your gaze to a nearby stationary object, such as a rock or a tree, that object will seem to drift slowly upwards. This well known optical illusion demonstrates a phenomenon called the motion after-effect, which is thought to occur as a…
I really do love illusions of all sorts, in large part because they fit nicely into my narrative about the fallibility of human thought, but illusions are also great as windows into the ordinary working of our brains. For example, color afterimages provide direct evidence for opponent-processing…
Dogs Copy Other Dogs' Actions Selectively, The Way Humans Do: A distinguishing feature of human intelligence is our ability to understand the goals and intentions of others. This ability develops gradually during infancy, and the extent to which it is present in other animals is an intriguing…
Most of you have probably seen this before, but if you haven't, look at the flag for 30 seconds (if it doesn't work with 30, try 60), and then look at the white space underneath it. You should see a red, white, and blue flag when you look at the white space. That is a color afterimage. Again,…