Technology

Older adults find it more difficult to remember names when some background music is on, finds a new study.

The findings could have implications for senior living centres and people who prefer to hold meetings away from the office.

“Older adults have trouble ignoring irrelevant noises and concentrating,” explained Audrey Duarte from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The researchers challenged younger and older adults to listen to music while trying to remember names.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has captured a giant dark line snaked across the lower half of the Sun – longer than 67 Earths lined up in a row.

The line is, in fact, an enormous swatch of colder material hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, the US space agency said in statement.

SDO shows colder material as dark and hotter material as light.

Stretched out, that line – or solar filament as scientists call it – would be more than 533,000 miles long.

Filaments can float sedately for days before disappearing.

The US space agency has launched a new mission called the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) to monitor solar activity in deep space.

Launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, DSCOVR will provide space weather forecasters from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) more reliable measurements of solar wind conditions, improving their ability to monitor potentially harmful solar activity.

A new research has revealed that a protein found in tilapia, which has become a staple dinnertime fish for many Americans, can promote skin repair in rats without an immune reaction, suggesting possible future use for human patients.

Researchers at American Chemical Society explained that applying collagen, a major structural protein in animals, to wounds can help encourage skin to heal faster, but when the protein dressing comes from mammals such as cows and pigs, it has the potential to transmit conditions such as foot-and-mouth disease.

Snails have inspired scientists to develop new high performance Li-ion battery electrodes.

A new study has recently revealed that carbon dioxide released from the Deep Ocean helped in ending the last Ice Age.

The study showed that carbon stored in an isolated reservoir deep in the Southern Ocean re-connected with the atmosphere, driving a rise in atmospheric CO2 and an increase in global temperatures.

The finding gave scientists an insight into how the ocean affects the carbon cycle and climate change.

A new research has revealed that humans aren’t the only species to be influenced by marketing spin, closest primate relatives, like apes and chimpanzees, are susceptible, too.

A Duke University study has found that positive and negative framing make a big difference for chimpanzees and bonobos too.

In experiments conducted at Tchimpounga Chimpanzee Sanctuary in the Republic of Congo and Lola ya Bonobo Sanctuary in the Democratic Republic of Congo, researchers presented 23 chimpanzees and 17 bonobos with a choice between two snacks, a handful of nuts and some fruit.

A new research, part of the largest genome-wide study to date, has strengthened the genetic link to obesity.

By analyzing genetic samples from more than 300,000 individuals to study obesity and body fat distribution, researchers in the international Genetic Investigation of Anthropometric Traits (GIANT) Consortium completed the largest study of genetic variation to date, and found over 140 locations across the genome that play roles in various obesity traits.

A new research has revealed that it’s very unlikely that malaria parasites that infect other animals, such as apes, birds and reptiles, would cross over easily to humans.

In recent years, public health experts have increasingly explored the idea of eliminating the most dangerous malaria-causing parasite, but they have questioned whether getting rid of this species, called Plasmodium falciparum, would allow other species of the parasite to simply jump into the gap and start infecting humans with malaria.

Scientists have made a breakthrough in stroke treatment worldwide.

EXTEND-IA, an Australian and New Zealand randomised clinical research study, led by The Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH), looked at the effectiveness of a new treatment for stroke. The study involved adding a minimally invasive clot removal procedure called stent thrombectomy to standard clot-dissolving therapy, known as tissue plasminogen activator (tPA).

Students in classrooms with more depressed teachers may perform worse, particularly in maths, suggests a new research.

Teachers who reported more symptoms of depression than their fellow teachers had classrooms that were of lesser quality across many areas, the findings showed.

In the matters of the heart, the brain reigns supreme, it has been revealed.

Larry Young, a psychologist who studies love at the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, said that brain releases a cocktail of three chemicals, oxytocin, dopamine and opiates, which makes people fall in love, ABC News reported.

All of those acts together in the brain’s reward system, which becomes wired to be especially tuned to the partner; the space, the sound, maybe the smell of the partner, he further added.

Onions are known for making you cry, however, you might be in for a good luck now as a U.K. supermarket chain has introduced a red onion that promises to be tear- and bad breath-free.

The onion, developed by British farmer Alastair Findlay of agricultural co-operative Bedfordshire Growers, has been 20 years in the making, Fox News reported.

A new research has revealed that a protein linked to longevity and enhanced cognition can protect against Alzheimer’s symptoms.

Scientists from the Gladstone Institutes and the University of California, San Francisco reported that raising levels of the life-extending protein klotho can protect against learning and memory deficits in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease and this boost in cognition occurred despite the accumulation of Alzheimer-related toxins in the brain, such as amyloid-beta and tau.

A new study has revealed that antibiotics have an impact, which is broader and more complex than previously known, on the microorganisms that live in an animal’s gut.

The research at Oregon State University helps explain in much more detail why antibiotics can have unwanted side effects, especially in disrupting the natural and beneficial microbiota of the gastrointestinal system, and also suggests that powerful, long-term antibiotic use can have even more far-reaching effects.