You've got a glow on
"Like all living things, humans are bioluminescent: We glow," Discover magazine reports. "We are brightest during the afternoon, around our lips and cheeks. The cause may be chemical reactions involving molecular fragments known as free radicals."
Electrosensitive?
"The explosive spread of electromagnetic fields across the world has undeniably spawned at least one disorder: electrosensitivity syndrome," Chris Woolston writes for the Los Angeles Times. "Millions of people - most of them in Europe - says they suffer headaches, depression, nausea, rashes and other problems when they're too close to cellphones or other sources of EMFs. They've formed their own support groups, started their own newsletters and taken drastic steps to avoid EMFs, with some even wearing metallic clothing. A band of EMF 'refugees' has moved to a valley in southern France to avoid radiation. The list of victims includes Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former director-general of the World Health Organization. … A 2009 article in the journal PLoS ONE speculated that people who believe they're electrosensitive may have overactive distress signals in the brain. The researchers noted that cognitive behavioural therapy is often an effective treatment."
Power clothing
"Personal electronic devices are becoming smaller and more ubiquitous every day, but no one has yet managed to realize the dream of incorporating them seamlessly into clothing," The Economist reports. "Yi Cui and his colleagues at Stanford University may, however, have taken the first step: They have designed cloth that can transmit and store electricity. They achieved this trick by dipping the cloth into ink made of carbon nanotubes - cylindrical carbon molecules with excellent electrical properties." Dr. Cui is able to make a "supercapacitor" from this material. "It is only a first step, of course. Designing useful circuitry that can be woven into cloth will be a far harder task. If that proves possible, though, it will just be a question of plugging your jacket [in]to charge it up, and then boogying."
Duck teaches boy
A boy with cerebral palsy has learned to walk - after watching a disabled duckling, The (Plymouth, England) Herald reports. "The duckling, a Plymouth woman and her disabled son were brought together by a twist of fate - with life-changing consequences. Becci Lomax rescued the duckling when it was just a day-and-a-half old, as it was going to be put down after being born with a splay leg. 'Basically, when it [lay]down or sat down, its leg was right up near its head and it was unable to walk,' says Becci. After nursing Ming-Ming … the duckling is now able to walk. But it's not just the cute duckling who is now getting around. Amazingly, Becci's four-year-old son Finlay, who suffers from cerebral palsy, has copied [its]progress … 'This is the most amazing thing because in doing physio on the duckling, the same as I do for my son, Finlay took his first three steps after watching me doing the physio with the duckling.' "
Gullible smarties
"Why are we so gullible?" 60 Minutes' Morley Safer writes at CBSnews.com. "I asked that question of Ricky Jay, that master of sleight of hand and student of cons and con men through the ages. For one thing, he says the smarter we are, or the smarter we think we are, the easier we are taken. He says, 'For me, the ideal audience would be Nobel Prize winners … their egos tell them they can't be fooled. No one is easier to fool.' "
Driving beetles nuts
A team of researchers at Northern Arizona University don't like Rush Limbaugh. "And they theorized that bugs don't like him either. Specifically, pine bark beetles - insects that are being blamed for the destruction of millions of trees in the Rocky Mountain West," The Christian Science Monitor reports. The scientists figured that if they forced these bugs to listen to Limbaugh, they would become so upset that they'd leave the trees. "How'd it work out? It didn't. Richard Hofstetter, an entomology professor at NAU [said]Limbaugh's voice bothered the beetles initially, but [they]'mostly ignored the sounds after a while.' … What did work? Playing sounds of the beetles themselves back at them. Then it gets ugly. 'We observed and recorded beetles mating two or three times,' Hofstetter said. 'Then we'd play the beetle sounds that we manipulated and watch in horror as the male beetle would tear the female apart. This is not normal behaviour in the natural world.' "
Partisan looks
"You shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but you can probably judge political partisans by theirs," Kevin Lewis reports for The Boston Globe. "Psychologists at Tufts University showed people photos of white Democratic and Republican politicians and college students. People were able to guess the political affiliation of the person in the photo at a rate significantly better than chance. There was no significant difference in how accurately people perceived the political affiliation of men versus women. When asked to assess the traits of people in the photos, people perceived powerful-looking individuals to be Republicans and warm-looking individuals to be Democrats, though only perceptions of having a powerful appearance actually correlated with political affiliation."
Thought du jour
"Electricity is actually made up of extremely tiny particles called electrons, that you cannot see with the naked eye unless you have been drinking."
- Dave Barry