infoneer-pulse:

The UK needs to increase by as much as 50% the number of science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) graduates it is creating, a report says.

The study, by the Royal Academy of Engineering, says 100,000 Stem graduates are needed a year just to maintain the status quo.

It argues the UK is already slipping down the international innovation league tables.

The UK has dropped to eighth globally in the number of US patents registered.

» via BBC

infoneer-pulse:

Objectively time is constant. A minute is a minute. But when we have a lot to do, it usually feels like we have less time. Now a study finds an interesting wrinkle in time: when we busy ourselves with selfless tasks, time seems to expand. The work will be published the journal Psychological Science.

» via Scientific American

infoneer-pulse:

Monkey brains grow bigger with every cagemate they acquire, according to a new study showing that certain parts of the brain associated with processing social information expand in response to more complex social information.

“Interestingly, there are a couple of studies in humans by different research groups that show some correlation between brain size and the size of the social network, and we found some similarities in our studies,” study researcher Jerome Sallet, of Oxford University in the U.K., told LiveScience.

“[Our study] reinforces the idea that the human social network was built on something that was already there in the rhesus macaques.”

» via Live Science

infoneer-pulse:

You don’t have to be a Jedi to make things move with your mind.

Granted, we may not be able to lift a spaceship out of a swamp like Yoda does in The Empire Strikes Back, but it is possible to steer a model car, drive a wheelchair and control a robotic exoskeleton with just your thoughts.

“The first thing is to clear your mind…to think of nothing,” says Ed Jellard; a young man with the quirky title of senior inventor.

» via BBC