Glass Holders Body Language

This article in the BBC reports provides a summary of how to identify personality traits based on how people hold their drinks when socialising. Body language says everything and is often one of the few cues people have for taking an interest in a prospective mate. I found the blokes descriptions the funniest, and I´ve certainly known a few ¨Jack the Lads¨ and ¨Browbeaters¨ in my time.

Drug Resistant Malaria

The BBC reports on the appearance of drug resistant malaria in Cambodia, in which the most effective drug for clearing parasites took almost twice as long to work. Cambodia have apparently a practice of selling cheap drugs that are only partially contain effective elements in order to pass drug tests. This means that drug resistant strains have more chance of developing. Malaria control is also less strict. The worry is that if such a strain should spread uncontrolled from from Asia to Africa that millions would be at risk.

Rooks Use And Construct Tools

Bird brains. There used to be a series years ago where they´d set up a simple mechanism that had to be operated before wild birds could get to nuts or the cream from milk bottles. This article from the BBC reports on rooks, who in the lab are not only able to logically reason that an action has consequence but who seem to go one step further and demonstrate that they are capable of both using and constructing tools in order to get to food, even using two methods in succession to do so. This behaviour is of course common in apes, but rarely in birds. Furthermore this is not seen in the wild, suggesting that the birds may have evolved an innate ability to use tools the past.

Wolfram Alpha - Part Two

Following my previous blog post about Wolfram Alpha, the statistical search engine that uses natural language processing, this article from Ars Technica agrees with my point about the reliability of search results and accuracy of sources as well as the importance of context in understanding questions. Although useful as a general tool, I don´t think it can be trusted for accurate results and probably of less value than Wikipedia as a corroborated information source.

Password Reminders Open To Hacks

Ars Technica reports on a study by Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft that shows that the amount of personal information people put on line means that typical password reminder services are open to hacking. Friends, family and coworkers were able to guess the right answer to the questions in 20-25 percent of cases. Obviously the more personal information is available online, the easier it is to guess the answer.

Cola Drains Muscle Power

Caffeine is supposed to pick you up, but this article on the BBC reports that too much cola (we´re talking three litres or more here) can lead to tiredness and even muscle paralysis. This is due to a drop in potassium levels in the blood, probably as a result of too much sugars and caffeine. Even caffeine free variants of soft-drinks can cause diarrhoea, so drink in moderation.

Flu Boosts Karaoke

As Japan sees more cases of the Mexican swine flu, some schools and colleges have been closed to prevent further spread. According to the BBC this has meant that students with time on their hands have been packing out the karaoke bars. Talk about a silver lining!