Women use their sense of smell to make new friends
A new study has found that females can tell if they are going to be friends with another woman within just four minutes of meeting them and that scent plays a vital role in influencing their decision.
The research, conducted by experts at New York’s Cornell University, adds to the knowledge of the complicated process that goes on when two people meet for the first time.
In the study, women were asked to judge each other’s friendship potential based on smell alone, before they met in person for a four-minute ‘speed-friending’ chat.
It was found that the scent-only evaluations were parallel to the in-person evaluations as participants were well received in both aspects.
Professor Vivian Zayas, the co-author of the study, said, “People take a lot in when they’re meeting face to face. But scent, which people are registering at some level, though probably not consciously, forecasts whether you end up liking this person.”
Steak and mashed potatoes could soon be grown in space
The European Space Agency (ESA) is assessing the viability of growing lab-grown food in orbit and on other planets.
ESA is conducting the research in an attempt to reduce the financial burden of feeding an astronaut, which currently costs up to £20,000 per day.
The experts say that the experiment is a first step to developing a pilot food production plant on the International Space Station (ISS) in two years from now.
Dr. Aqeel Shamsul – the CEO and founder of Frontier Space, the company developing the concept with boffins at Imperial College London – said that lab-grown food is imperative if NASA’s ambition to make humans a multi-planetary species is to be achieved.
He told BBC News, “Our dream is to have factories in orbit and on the Moon.
“We need to build manufacturing facilities off world if we are to provide the infrastructure to enable humans to live and work in space.”
Lowering blood pressure can reduce the risk of dementia
A new study was published in Nature Medicine and shows that people with high blood pressure – who took medication and lowered it – reduced their risk of the brain disease by 15 per cent, according to scientists.
Professor Jiang He, co-author of the study from University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, said, “Antihypertensive treatment can prevent dementia in patients with uncontrolled hypertension.
“Given the high prevalence of uncontrolled hypertension worldwide, this effective intervention should be widely adopted and scaled up to reduce the global burden of dementia.”
High blood pressure can increase the risk of dementia by damaging blood vessels in the brain, which reduces blood flow and can lead to strokes or brain damage.
Dr. Julia Dudley, from Alzheimer’s Research UK, added, “Looking after our heart and blood vessel health is something we can all do to improve our overall wellbeing and reduce our risk of dementia.
“With no current treatments available on the NHS to slow or stop the diseases that cause dementia, there has never been a more pressing need to promote good brain health and to gain a deeper understanding of how we can reduce our risk of developing dementia.”
Dogs might be able to “listen in” on human speech
A new study has shown that canines have the neurological ability to pick out information that is relevant to them when humans are talking.
Pooches can do this when keywords, like their name, are contained within wider conversation and when a person is not directly engaging with them.
The study involved about 50 dogs from numerous breeds and challenges the idea that the animals are only responsive to familiar words spoken in “baby talk” tones.
The experts suggest that this could be a result of human domestication, but recommend conducting similar tests on wolves and other wild species to see if they have the same abilities.
David Reby, lead author of the study at the University of Sussex, said, “Our research shows that dogs are able to pick out and recognise words relevant to them in a monotonous stream of otherwise irrelevant speech, even in the absence of the intonation cues we usually use to engage them.”
Chicken nuggets have been grown in a lab for the first time
Japanese scientists have invented a process that mimics blood vessels to allow cells to grow in layers of muscle tissue and the breakthrough could finally lead to meat being realistically engineered.
Lab-grown chicken is currently made using sheets of cells less than 1mm thick that need to be processed into something that resembles meat, leading to an unrealistic texture.
The engineers in Tokyo produced a bite-sized piece of chicken weighing over 10g and are hopeful of building larger pieces in the future.
Dr. Shoji Takeuchi, of the University of Tokyo, said: “Cultured meat offers a sustainable, ethical alternative to conventional meat.
“However, replicating the texture and taste of whole-cut meat remains difficult.
“Our technology enables the production of structured meat with improved texture and flavour, potentially accelerating its commercial viability.
“We’re using semipermeable hollow fibres, which mimic blood vessels in their ability to deliver nutrients to the tissues.
“Our study presents a scalable, top-down strategy for producing whole-cut cultured meat.”
