Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com
Speaker 1: where smart happens. Hi. I'm Marshall Brandon. Welcome to this
Speaker 1: week's Friday news round up. Obviously, the big news this
Speaker 1: week has been the assault on Osama bin Laden's compound
Speaker 1: in Pakistan, which was announced early on Monday morning from
Speaker 1: the White House. Two interesting side stories that have captured
Speaker 1: people's attention during the week have been the military group
Speaker 1: that carried out the raid and the helicopter they used
Speaker 1: to do it. The group is called Team six, an
Speaker 1: elite unit of the already elite Navy Seals. You can
Speaker 1: google brain stuff Team six to learn more about them.
Speaker 1: It's a pretty interesting group. There's even a Team six
Speaker 1: dog that wears body armor, a camera, and is able
Speaker 1: to parachute from fifty feet like the rest of the team.
Speaker 1: The existence of Team six wasn't that surprising, because we
Speaker 1: know that the U. S. Government has lots of secret teams,
Speaker 1: and if Team six is now known to the public,
Speaker 1: we can be sure that there's a Team seven, eight, nine, whatever,
Speaker 1: and we'll never hear about those. But the stealth helicopter
Speaker 1: was the unexpected thing. Apparently the military has created helicopters
Speaker 1: that are quiet and radar evading. According to one article,
Speaker 1: the radar evading part comes from the use of technology
Speaker 1: like that found in the original F one seventeen. The
Speaker 1: F one seventeen was the first stealth fighter, and if
Speaker 1: you ever saw it, it really surprised you. Instead of
Speaker 1: being curvy and streamlined like a normal airplane, the F
Speaker 1: one seventeen was completely angular. Every surface of it was
Speaker 1: a flat plane. The idea was that when radio waves
Speaker 1: from a radar unit hit the F one seventeen, they
Speaker 1: would reflect off of the flat planes of the airplane
Speaker 1: at an angle, rather than reflecting back to the radar unit,
Speaker 1: so that the radar unit could sense the plane. As
Speaker 1: far as the radar unit was concerned, the plane was
Speaker 1: completely invisible and less. One of the flat planes happened
Speaker 1: to be angled just right so it faced towards the
Speaker 1: radar unit, and then you'd get a flash from the airplane,
Speaker 1: but that was a really rare event. The Team Sex
Speaker 1: helicopter apparently used this technique as well, along with quieting
Speaker 1: technology to cut the noise from the engines and the
Speaker 1: rotors of the helicopter. The fact that the helicopter crashed
Speaker 1: during the mission was most unfortunate. Just imagine if they
Speaker 1: hadn't killed Bin Laden, it would have been a total fiasco.
Speaker 1: You can google brain stuff Stealth Helicopter for more information
Speaker 1: on this machine. So besides the Bin Laden stuff, what
Speaker 1: was the most popular topic this week on brain Stuff?
Speaker 1: One was an article entitled Amazing Examples of Superhuman speed
Speaker 1: and Accuracy. It's a VIDEOEO montage showing people doing things
Speaker 1: that seem impossible, sort of like what Team six was doing.
Speaker 1: One guy, for example, is able to catch arrows as
Speaker 1: they fly by. When you consider that arrows typically fly
Speaker 1: at the speed of more than a hundred feet per second,
Speaker 1: it's a pretty amazing feat. But even more amazing is
Speaker 1: the modern samurai who can slice an air soft pellet
Speaker 1: traveling at two feet per second. An air soft pellet
Speaker 1: is a plastic sphere about the size of a p
Speaker 1: and once it's shot from the gun, there are two problems.
Speaker 1: The first is the reaction time. There just isn't that
Speaker 1: much time to draw the sword and position it. And
Speaker 1: then there's the accuracy part, getting the blade within the
Speaker 1: diameter of the pellet. I would have a problem hitting
Speaker 1: an air soft pellet with a sword, even if the
Speaker 1: pellet was sitting still on a table. If you google
Speaker 1: Brain Stuff Superhuman Examples, you can watch all the videos
Speaker 1: in this series. Another popular topic this week has to
Speaker 1: do with learning to dunk a basketball even if you're
Speaker 1: less than six ft tall. Is this possible? Yes, it is.
Speaker 1: I found one video showing a five ft five inch
Speaker 1: guy dunking a ball, so it's definitely possible. How do
Speaker 1: they do it? The first key is light weight. You
Speaker 1: have to eliminate every bit of fat on your body
Speaker 1: because weight reduces the height of your jump. Then you
Speaker 1: need to do weight training and exercises to develop explosive
Speaker 1: power in your legs, and then you need to practice
Speaker 1: to get the techniques down. If you want to learn
Speaker 1: to dunk, google martial Brain Dunk for details. Why do
Speaker 1: human beings have the power to reason? There's an article
Speaker 1: in Interesting Reading seven forty five that is just fascinating.
Speaker 1: It's talking about a very peculiar trap that the human
Speaker 1: mind falls into called confirmation bias. Confirmation biases the source
Speaker 1: of all manner of superstition and human culture. The superstition
Speaker 1: discussed in the article has to do with the perception
Speaker 1: of NBA players and fans. Here's basketball again, that a
Speaker 1: player can have a shooting streak. When players statistics are analyzed,
Speaker 1: there's no statistical evidence whatsoever to support the idea of
Speaker 1: a shooting streak. The belief in streaks is pure superstition.
Speaker 1: But of fans and players believe in the idea of
Speaker 1: shooting streaks nonetheless. So the article asks why would our
Speaker 1: brains evolve in a way that promotes confirmation bias given
Speaker 1: that it's always wrong. Let me quote one little paragraph
Speaker 1: from the article. Quote, But if you take the point
Speaker 1: of view of the argumentative theory, having a confirmation bias
Speaker 1: makes complete sense. When you're trying to convince someone, you
Speaker 1: don't want to find arguments for the other side. You
Speaker 1: want to find arguments for your side, and that's what
Speaker 1: the confirmation bias helps you to do. End quote. Yikes,
Speaker 1: I mean, what else can you say to that. It's like,
Speaker 1: we have something built into our brains that causes us
Speaker 1: to perceive the world incorrectly, and we do it so
Speaker 1: that we can have arguments with other people. Anyway, it
Speaker 1: helps to us understand a little more about how human
Speaker 1: beings function. If you google Interesting Reading number seven forty five,
Speaker 1: you can get the details. Also in Interesting Reading number
Speaker 1: seven forty five is a fascinating article that interviews a
Speaker 1: car salesman to better understand how consumers can deal with them.
Speaker 1: One of the questions he's asked is what's the best
Speaker 1: way to get a good deal. The answer is, quote,
Speaker 1: the best deals are really situational end quote. In other words,
Speaker 1: on any given car lot, there is a car, or
Speaker 1: there are several cars that have been sitting there for
Speaker 1: a long time. It could be something as silly as
Speaker 1: the color that's causing the problem. People just won't buy
Speaker 1: the car because of the color. If you aren't picky,
Speaker 1: then finding those cars may get you the best deal.
Speaker 1: There are lots of other good questions in the article,
Speaker 1: for example, when is the best time to buy a car?
Speaker 1: Or what is it with dealer add ons? What can
Speaker 1: you do to avoid them? Or how much profit is
Speaker 1: in each car? Things like that. If you google Interesting
Speaker 1: Reading number seven forty five you can read more from
Speaker 1: this car salesman. Think about your local blood bank. The
Speaker 1: blood in it has to come from generous human beings
Speaker 1: making donations, and it has to be the right type
Speaker 1: for the recipient, and it has a short shelf life.
Speaker 1: This is not a great product to have laying around
Speaker 1: on shelves. What if scientists could come up with synthetic blood,
Speaker 1: a much better product that could be made in a factory,
Speaker 1: doesn't care about blood types and lasts for years. Such
Speaker 1: a synthetic apparently save the life of a woman recently.
Speaker 1: It's still experimental. It has a long way to go
Speaker 1: to get full approval, but it does show a lot
Speaker 1: of promise. If you google interesting Reading number seven forty five,
Speaker 1: you can learn more about the woman who was saved
Speaker 1: and the blood that saved her. Is the sodium in
Speaker 1: table salt really bad for you? We've all been educated
Speaker 1: to think so, and there's huge momentum in the marketplace
Speaker 1: right now to suck salt out of processed foods and
Speaker 1: restaurant foods. But a new study is challenging the idea. Apparently,
Speaker 1: in some populations, lowered sodium intake actually creates more problems
Speaker 1: than it solves. The study was published in the Journal
Speaker 1: of the American Medical Association, a reputable source, but it
Speaker 1: flies in the face of all prior research, so it's
Speaker 1: suspect at the moment. If you google Interesting Reading seven
Speaker 1: forty four, you can learn more about this study and
Speaker 1: what it might mean. How might we go about detecting
Speaker 1: highly advanced civilizations of alien beings living elsewhere in our
Speaker 1: galaxy or in the universe. The SETI Project, which recently
Speaker 1: ran out of money, hasn't detected any alien signals for decades,
Speaker 1: so perhaps we need to try a different approach. What
Speaker 1: about looking for artifacts of alien life? For example, one
Speaker 1: article discusses super advanced alien cultures and how they might
Speaker 1: try tapping into the energy resources of a black hole.
Speaker 1: In fact, they might try to create their own black
Speaker 1: holes for energy, and one way to look for artificially
Speaker 1: created black holes would be to look for black holes
Speaker 1: with a low mass. Natural black holes have a minimum
Speaker 1: mass because they're only formed in certain situations involving star death,
Speaker 1: and artificial black hole might, in theory, be lighter than
Speaker 1: a natural black hole, and since it's lighter, it might
Speaker 1: be detectable. It could be that thinking like this could
Speaker 1: lead us to advanced civilizations. If you google interesting Reading
Speaker 1: number seven forty four, you can learn more about the technique.
Speaker 1: Are you getting the right amount of sleep? And if not,
Speaker 1: is it hurting you? Apparently sleep has a big effe
Speaker 1: act on brain function. According to one article quote around
Speaker 1: seven hours of good quality sleep is fundamental to human
Speaker 1: functioning and well being. End quote. People who get seven
Speaker 1: hours of sleep do the best on cognitive tests. Anywhere
Speaker 1: in the range of six to eight hours of sleep
Speaker 1: seems to be fine. If you get less than that,
Speaker 1: it can cause damage, and if you get more than that,
Speaker 1: it can cause damage. As we get more and more
Speaker 1: connected to the internet, however, sleep seems to take a
Speaker 1: back seat, and that can cause cognitive problems. If you
Speaker 1: google interesting Reading number seven forty three, you can learn
Speaker 1: more about sleep patterns and the amount of sleep you
Speaker 1: should be getting at night. What do you think is
Speaker 1: the most popular form of cosmetic surgery in the United States?
Speaker 1: Is it breast implants? Is it know his jobs as
Speaker 1: it tummy tuchs? No, it's LiPo suction NG with close
Speaker 1: to half a million LiPo section events per year. So
Speaker 1: let's say you go have liposuction. You might have some
Speaker 1: fat sucked out of your thighs or your stomach. What
Speaker 1: happens next, Basically a year later, the fat comes back
Speaker 1: for most people, but it doesn't come back in the
Speaker 1: same place because there are now less fat cells there
Speaker 1: and there's probably been damage around that area. As far
Speaker 1: as fat cells are concerned. Instead, it comes back somewhere else.
Speaker 1: Often it comes back in the arms. But even so
Speaker 1: people can still be happy with the results of liposection.
Speaker 1: The article puts it this way. Quote. Nonetheless, the women
Speaker 1: in the study who had liposection were happy. Dr Eco
Speaker 1: said they had hated their hips and thighs and just
Speaker 1: wanted that fat gone. End quote. Apparently it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if the arms get heavier in that case. If you
Speaker 1: google interesting Reading number seven forty two, you can learn
Speaker 1: more about the procedure and how it affects your body afterwards.
Speaker 1: For some time, scientists have been able to create and
Speaker 1: capture antimatter, but mostly it's been anti electrons, also known
Speaker 1: as hasitrons because they're created both naturally and artificially. Within
Speaker 1: the last decade, scientists have created anti hydrogen by combining
Speaker 1: anti protons with anti electrons, but storage times have been
Speaker 1: very short, typically less than a second. Now, scientists at
Speaker 1: CERN have created more than three hundred anti hydrogen atoms
Speaker 1: at one time, and they've kept them alive for fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: Why are they doing this? One reason, obviously, is because
Speaker 1: the warp drive in Star Trek is powered by antimatter,
Speaker 1: making antimatter intrinsically cool. The other reason, though, is because
Speaker 1: there's this huge unanswered question does the gravity created by
Speaker 1: matter attract or repel antimatter? As amazing as it sounds,
Speaker 1: we do not actually know which it is, but we
Speaker 1: are about to find out. If you google Interesting Reading
Speaker 1: number seven forty two you can get the details. And finally,
Speaker 1: did you know that it's illegal for a company to
Speaker 1: leave a prerecorded message on your cell phones voicemail? Apparently
Speaker 1: it is. An article this week reports that a guy
Speaker 1: was getting a lot of harassing calls from debt collection
Speaker 1: agencies and these calls were invalid, and he managed to
Speaker 1: sue the offending companies. According to the article, quote to
Speaker 1: make a long story short, so far, I have successfully
Speaker 1: sued three of these collection companies and settled for more
Speaker 1: than five thousand dollars out of court. All it cost
Speaker 1: me was thirty five dollars and twenty minutes per suit.
Speaker 1: End quote. It's nice when good triumphs over evil. You
Speaker 1: can google Interesting Reading number seven forty one to learn
Speaker 1: how this works, especially if you've been getting harassing phone calls.
Speaker 1: So that's it for this week. If you would like
Speaker 1: to look up. These are a hundred other interesting articles.
Speaker 1: You can google interesting reading number seven forty one, seven
Speaker 1: forty two, seven forty three, seven forty four and seven
Speaker 1: forty five, or come to the brain stuff blog at
Speaker 1: how stuff Works. Until next time, have a rate weekend
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Doesn't
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