Your Skin Can Hear – Recent Study Suggests

Ha? What? Really? This was my expression when I read the title of the study on the New York Timest website. Isn’t that weird and strange?

We normally designate the ears as our primary part for listening and hearing right? This is not completely accurate, according to a new study conducted by Bryan Gick and Donald Derrick of the University of British Columbia, people can also heart with their skin.

I believe this is the first study to examine the skin ability to hear. Researchers in the 1976 found that people integrated both auditory cues and visual ones, meaning that people can hear with their eyes also.

The researchers had subjects listen to spoken syllables while hooked up to a device that would simultaneously blow a tiny puff of air onto the skin of their hand or neck. The syllables included “ba” and “pa,” which produce a brief puff from the mouth when spoken, and “da” and “ta,” which don’t produce puffs. They found that when listeners heard “da” or “ta” while a puff of air was blown onto their skin, they perceived the sound as “ba” or “pa.”

The researchers found that when the puff of air was paired with the aspirated word, people got better at identifying the sound. When the puff of air was paired with “ba” or “da,” accuracy declined.

If further research can show the same effect is observed when listening to everyday conversation in the ‘real’ world, then it could help improve hearing aids. Dr Ralph Holme said.

Via – NYT

The Fastest Animals On Earth In Slow Motion

After the balloon scene you are going to see a kind of salamander that lives in Sierras mountain in California, and has the fastest tongue to catch a prey on earth. Also, the segment after it, you will see the mantis shrimp, that has the fastest punch on earth (almost the same as the speed of bullet). Just watch this.

Watch A Drop Of Water At 2000 Frames Per Second

This video was aired on the discovery channels few months ago, and shows how a drop of water would look like at 2000 frames/second. This is a phenomenon you have never seen before, absolutely amazing.

There is thin layer of air separating the drop from the water, but when the air pushed aside most of the droplet connect with the water below but this happens so fast that the connection pinched off and smaller droplet is formed. This happen again and again until the entire droplet is completely absorbed.

Watch The Video:

Converting Air To Power For Cars and Planes

A group of researchers at the City College of New York are working on a system that generate electricity for cars and planes based on materials known as piezoelectrics.

Piezoelectrics basically convert the kinetic energy of motion into electricity, but it doesn’t completely replace the car’s battery, it will be used as a supplement for the car. Meaning, the dashboard, radio, mobile phones, and any other small batteries used for small devices.

The device is about a half-inch by one inch in size, and could be placed on the roof of the car or on an airplane fuselage where they would vibrate inside a flow, producing an output voltage.

professor Yiannis Andreopoulos, the research leader said that they are currently testing what is the best position for the device, roof of the car or on the back of a truck.

“These devices open the possibility to continuously scavenge otherwise wasted energy from the environment,” says Andreopoulos.

hey will present their concept later this month at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society’s (APS) Division of Fluid Dynamics will take place from November 22-24 at the Minneapolis Convention Center.

Via – EurekAlert

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