Month: July 2011

You might get annoyed half way through and storm out of the room.

Dutch train passengers running late to their appointments have a quicker option for getting across Overvecht Station – and that option isn’t a new flight of stairs or an elevator.

Design firm HIK Ontwerpers recently installed a slide in the newly renovated station on the Utrecht-Kampen railway to add a little fun to the everyday lives of commuters. Officially called a “transfer accelerator,” the slide was installed in this underutilized area as part of HIK Ontwerpers ongoing urban installations series.

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Changizi thinks that the wrinkles act like rain treads on [tires]. They create channels that allow water to drain away as we press our fingertips on to wet surfaces. This allows the fingers to make greater contact with a wet surface, giving them a better grip.

Scientists have known since the mid-1930s that water wrinkles do not form if the nerves in a finger are severed, implying that they are controlled by the nervous system.

“I stumbled upon these nearly century-old papers and they immediately suggested to me that pruney fingers are functional,” says Changizi. “I discussed the mystery with my student Romann Weber, who said, ‘Could they be rain treads?’ ‘Brilliant!’ was my reply.

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Via

For years, the explanation for weight gain was straightforward: it was all about energy balance, or calories-in versus calories-out. This Gluttony and Sloth theory held that obesity simply came from overeating and underexercising, and the only debate was about dieting — whether it was better to join the low-fat or the low-carb camp.

Some scientists explored genetic differences associated with fat, but others said genes couldn’t possibly explain the rate at which Americans were gaining weight: “We just aren’t evolving that fast,” one obesity expert noted.

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