If you’re old enough to read this, you probably don’t remember a lot of your early childhood. The average age of earliest memory for adults is around three years, and the number of memories increases only slowly until it reaches a normal level around age seven. But there’s a way to help your own children remember more.
The word “meme” was originally coined by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins to draw an analogy between the way ideas and genes proliferate and evolve. Dawkins had loftier ideas in mind, but there’s evidence now that Facebook memes—those variants of “like/repost this statement if you agree” deals that seem impossible to banish from the newsfeed—evolve in much the same way.
Can’t stop wheezing? Eat some fruit. According to a study published in Nature Medicine (paywall), an increase in dietary fiber could make you less susceptible to allergic asthma attacks.
Hold on tight to that office-subsidized gym membership: According to a recent study, workplace wellness programs might not actually be saving your company much money. But does that mean companies shouldn’t have them?
This morning we told you that 2014 would be the year of the smartwatch. Now Pebble has basically guaranteed it.
It turns out that you’re less likely to recycle a dented soda can than an un-dented one. A recent study by Boston University and University of Alberta researchers found that recycling behavior is affected by perception of an object, and that those that have been distorted from their original form are more likely to be considered “waste” and thrown away. In other words, if you get the sense that a soda can is too beaten up to function as a soda can any longer, you’ll probably throw it away instead of recycling it. While 75% of US waste is recyclable, only about 30% is actually recycled—so we’re clearly doing something wrong.
Fuel cells could break into mainstream use very soon, and that means big cuts in energy consumption. The US navy is reportedly ready to deploy generators powered by fuel cells. Meanwhile, a startup in Maryland claims it can offer a cheaper, longer lasting fuel cell than any on the market by next year.
Want to control the electronics around you without having to type, point, gesture or speak?
Shopping on Amazon may actually end up costing more than at a brick-and-mortar store. A comparison of 30 items from Bed Bath & Beyond with ones from Amazon showed a 6.5% price hike on average for items bought online. But if it’s any consolation, online retailers are still ahead of physical stores when it comes to energy efficiency.
The first all-in-one desktop 3D printer, scanner, copier, and fax machine is (supposedly, almost) upon us, hitting Kickstarter on September 4th. AIO Robotics hasn’t released anything more than a digital rendering, but from the company’s post on RepRap.org, a 3D printing enthusiasts’ site, here’s what we know about the proposed product:
When should kids start branding themselves for getting into college and, by extension, a job? At 14, apparently. LinkedIn announced yesterday that its new University Pages feature—which allows colleges some of the same networking and recruiting powers that employers hold on the site—will usher in the age of LinkedIn for kids. With profiles now available for ages 14 and up (13 in some countries, and 16 and 18 in the Netherlands and China, respectively) LinkedIn looks to be honing in on the college admissions process.
On August 3rd, Twitter broke its previous tweets-per-second record by over 100,000. Castle in the Sky, a 1986 Hayao Miyazaki film, was the cause of all the ruckus—to the tune of 143,199 tweets in one second, most of them coming from Japanese viewers broadcasting a single word. Sharknado, a campy TV movie that dominated US Twitter traffic during the evening of its broadcast last month, reached only about 5,000 tweets per minute at its peak.
Doing puzzles and listening to classical music might improve your concentration momentarily, but they don’t actually make you any smarter. That is, they don’t improve your long-term brain function, according to The Economist’s interview of Nicholas Spitzer, a professor of neuroscience at the University of California and editor-in-chief of BrainFacts.org.
Just two weeks ago we wrote about the Fuel3D, a device for scanning 3D objects so you can replicate them on a 3D printer, with a proposed price tag of around $1,000. Now MakerBot, the leading maker of desktop 3D printers, is launching its own 3D scanner next week, and Signe Brewster at GigaOM is betting it will cost just $500.
Soon, your favorite shopping website might ask you if you’d like to pay through Facebook. In a move that pits the social media site against the online payment giant PayPal, AllThingsD reports that Facebook is rolling out out a pilot for a new payment system of its own.
Soon, corporate meetings could take place at a table surrounded by rice paddies. At the offices of Pasona, a Tokyo recruitment agency, they already do. The company’s 215,000 square foot building dedicates 20% of its space to growing fresh vegetables, with over 200 species represented.
More than half of the top 50 highest-grossing films in 2012 featured a low humming noise in their audio tracks—on purpose. Anti-piracy company Verance Corp. is being hired by more and more Hollywood studios to place audio watermarks in their big films, The Wall Street Journal reports.
When Chris Robinson’s father started collecting Beanie Babies, he thought he could use the eventual profits to pay for five college tuitions. Instead, he ended up spending upwards of $100,000 (Robinson’s estimate, based on average cost for each) for a collection of 20,000 stuffed animals that still sit in his garage.
Is it time to move to a more challenging job? Ask LinkedIn. Specifically, keep an eye on the site’s recommendations for jobs you might be interested in.
A solar-powered chair is allowing the wheelchair-bound a chance to swim, unaided, in the Greek sea. But without additional government assistance to promote the device’s upkeep and accessibility, it has suffered from vandalism and proven difficult for wheelchair-goers to get to.
If you want your kid to grow up to be the next Bill Gates, you should make sure he sneaks out after curfew every once in awhile. A new study shows that rebellious adolescent behavior is a positive indicator for success as an entrepreneur—as long as you’re a man, and you don’t get caught.
If you’ve ever stood in the aisle of a grocery store trying to remember the last ingredient you need for dinner, you know that trying too hard to retrieve a memory can make it seem all the more impossible. A new study confirms that being distracted can actually improve your memory, suggesting that conscious effort can backfire on you, especially when you’re under pressure to do well.
A combination urinal and sink isn’t as weird as it sounds—it’s actually kind of genius. Latvian designer Kaspars Jursons’ newest creation, Stand, was inspired by concerns over both water waste and poor male hand washing practices. A sink nestled above the urinal provides a bold hygiene reminder, and the water used is then recycled to clean the unit.
New evidence shows that, while we may not see severe climate change in our lifetimes, global warming could snowball into catastrophe in the distant future—and once the climate has shifted, it might not go back to normal for a very, very long time.
