Article: 3D audio system developed by MP3 pioneer| New Scientist: "The new technology uses a principle known as 'wave field synthesis' to create complex audio illusions for everyone within a defined space. Computers are used to predict the way multiple sound waves will interact with each other within a space. Then, a multitude of small speakers - as many as 400 positioned around a large space - are used to mimic this interaction.
The end result can be dramatic, says Herbert Buchner, a 3D audio researcher at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, and not involved in the project. 'Using wave field synthesis you can control the whole room within the enclosed speaker area,' he told New Scientist. 'You really do have a 3D impression. If you close your eyes, you feel like you can reach out and touch it.'

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Article: Acupuncture points to post-op comfort| New Scientist: "Acupuncture is a cheap and safe way of preventing people who have just had an operation from being sick or feeling nauseous. That is the conclusion of a review of 26 trials involving over 3000 patients.
Anna Lee of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Mary Done of the New Children's Hospital in Sydney, Australia, focused on trials that studied the effects of 'P6' treatment - stimulation of the 'pericardium' (P6) acupuncture point on the wrist.
Patients receiving P6 acupuncture were 28 per cent less likely to feel nauseous and 29 per cent less likely to be sick than patients receiving sham treatments, such as insertion of the needle at the wrong place or pretended stimulation of P6."

Article: Brain not body makes athletes feel tired| New Scientist: "Traditionally, fatigue was viewed as the result of over-worked muscles ceasing to function properly. But evidence is mounting that our brains make us feel weary after exercise (New Scientist print edition, 20 March). The idea is that the brain steps in to prevent muscle damage.
Now Paula Robson-Ansley and her colleagues at the University of Cape Town in South Africa have demonstrated that a ubiquitous body signalling molecule called interleukin-6 plays a key role in telling the brain when to slow us down. Blood levels of IL-6 are 60 to 100 times higher than normal following prolonged exercise, and injecting healthy people with IL-6 makes them feel tired."

Article: Simpler pump boosts failing hearts| New Scientist: "A new type of pump to help failing hearts will undergo clinical trials in autumn 2004 in the UK. Its design is intended to solve the problems of mechanical failure and blood clotting that have bedevilled artificial hearts and pumps since they were invented.
The pump also has a curious side effect: people implanted with the device have no pulse."

Army rations rehydrated by urine | New Scientist: "Would you eat food cooked in your own urine? Food scientists working for the US military have developed a dried food ration that troops can hydrate by adding the filthiest of muddy swamp water or even peeing on it."

Handedness develops in the womb | New Scientist: "The hand you favour as a 10-week-old fetus is the hand you will favour for the rest of your life, suggests a new study.
The finding comes as a surprise because it had been thought that lifelong hand preferences did not develop until a child was three or four years old."

Teen driver, meet Big Brother: "Omnitrack, one of the latest products designed as an anti-theft and vehicle tracking system, allows parents to access data on their computers showing where their teens are driving, how fast they are going and the exact location of their vehicles "

New Scientist: "It looks like a fat carrot, but it is actually a banana. And it is so rich in precursors to vitamin A that researchers hope it could prevent children from going blind in the Pacific islands of Micronesia."

New Scientist: "Babies exposed to sign language babble with their hands, even if they are not deaf. The finding supports the idea that human infants have an innate sensitivity to the rhythm of language and engage it however they can, the researchers who made the discovery claim."

Australian IT - Shark shields for surfboards (, JULY 14, 2004): "WORLD-first surfboards containing electronic shark shields would be available this Australian summer, their maker said.
The devices emit an electronic field surrounding the surfboard which impacts on receptors in a a shark's snout.
The impact creates discomfort and if the shark continued into the field it would suffer muscle spasms, forcing it to retreat, the manufacturer, SeaChange Technology Pty Ltd, said."

New Scientist: "Shortening the spokes towards the front of the wheel changes its shape, causing the rim's point of contact with the ground to move backwards, behind the centre of gravity. As the wheel then tips forwards, other spokes are heated to deform the rim again and keep the robot rolling along (see diagram)."

New Scientist: "The epidemics of myopia(short-sightedness) in countries such as Singapore and Japan are due solely to changes in lifestyle, they say, and similar levels could soon be seen in many western countries as lifestyles there continue to change.
'As kids spend more time indoors, on computers or watching telly, we are going to become just as myopic,' says Ian Morgan of the Australian National University in Canberra.
Myopia is on the increase in most places, but in countries such as Singapore it has reached extraordinary levels. There, 80 per cent of 18-year-old male army recruits are myopic, up from 25 per cent just 30 years ago."

New Scientist: "Brain implants have been used to 'read the minds' of monkeys to predict what they are about to do and even how enthusiastic they are about doing it.
It is the first time such high level cognitive brain signals have been decoded and could ultimately lead to more natural thought-activated prosthetic devices for people with paralysis, says Richard Andersen project leader at the California Institute of Technology, in Pasadena, US.
By decoding the signals from 96 electrodes in a region of the brain just above the ear – called the parietal cortex - the researchers were able to predict 67 per cent of the time where in their visual field trained monkeys were planning to reach.
They also found that this accuracy could be improved to about 88 per cent when the monkeys expected a reward for carrying out the task.
The team were even able to predict what sort of reward the monkeys were expecting - whether it was juice or just plain water – from their brain signals.
'In the future you could apply this cognitive approach to language areas of the brain,' says Andersen. By doing so it may be possible to decode the words someone was thinking, he says."

'Billboards' that walk, talk, and even flirt a little | csmonitor.com: "Just think Teletubbies - with a hint of Hooters. Eleven-inch, flat television screens adorn the fronts of T-shirts worn by winsome women deployed to be, in the words of the product's developer, 'aggressively friendly.'"

BBC NEWS | Americas | Video diary from beyond the grave: "A US inventor has come up with a hi-tech way of allowing the deceased to talk from beyond the grave - by fixing video screens to their tombstones."

New Scientist: "A plant banned as an illegal drug in some countries could help boost men’s fertility, say UK researchers.
The leaves of khat, a plant cultivated in East Africa and the Arabian peninsula, contain a chemical that peps up sperm and increase their chances of fertilizing an egg. The researchers suggest the chemical could one day be produced as an over-the-counter treatment for couples experiencing problems conceiving."

New Scientist: "For the first time a woman has become pregnant after having thin slices of her ovaries removed and frozen during cancer treatment, and then re-implanted.
The woman became pregnant naturally, by having sex. Other research teams have tried IVF with eggs taken from such patients, but no pregnancy has yet resulted."

New Scientist: "Children who watch a lot of television produce less melatonin, new research suggests - the 'sleep hormone' has been linked to timing of puberty.
Scientists at the University of Florence in Italy found that when youngsters were deprived of their TV sets, computers and video games, their melatonin production increased by an average 30 per cent."

New Scientist: "New evidence that mice can renew the eggs in their ovaries has been revealed by US researchers. They have also discovered a drug that can boost the numbers of eggs in the ovaries of mice.
If this is shown to also be true of humans, it will overturn decades of dogma that women are born with a finite supply of eggs. It would mean that they make new eggs constantly, rather like the way men make sperm. It would also raise the possibility of developing drugs to protect the fertility of cancer patients or even delay the menopause in healthy women."