IBM’s Top Five Predictions for 2015

IBM has unveiled its fifth annual “Next Five in Five” — five technology innovations that have the potential to change the way people work, live and play over the next five years:

• You’ll beam up your friends in 3-D
• Batteries will breathe air to power our devices
• You won’t need to be a scientist to save the planet
• Your commute will be personalized
• Computers will help energize your city

Where unconscious memories form

A small area deep in the brain called the perirhinal cortex is critical for forming unconscious conceptual memories, researchers at the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain have found. The perirhinal cortex was thought to be involved, like the neighboring hippocampus, in “declarative” or conscious memories, but the new results show that the picture is more complex, said lead author Wei-chun Wang, a graduate student at UC Davis.

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Infrared add-on could let standard cameras see cancer

Technical University of Denmark in Roskilde researchers are developing a device that can convert mid-infrared radiation into visible light. Attached to a digital camera fitted with an infrared flash, it could detect tumors by recording the telltale pattern of infrared light they reflect.

The device could be placed in front of a digital camera lens like a filter, and be used to take thermal photographs or video.Current mid-infrared color imagers need to run at -200°C and cost around $100,000; an upconversion imager would run at room temperature and cost about $10,000.

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What Are the Benefits of Being Left Handed?

According to ABC News, lefties are "more likely to be schizophrenic, alcoholic, delinquent, dyslexic, and have Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, as well as mental disabilities." Lefties are also more accident-prone. In some cultures, they're persecuted based on superstitions. With all these drawbacks, it's easy to overlook the advantages of being left-handed, but those advantages might be substantial. Here's a list posted by Emma Taylor: 10 benefits of being left-handed.