The U Curve

 Imagine just being able to think the words and have them come out as speech - for some of us, tempted to say the wrong thing, it mightn't be such a good idea. But for people like Stephen Hawking and other people who can't speak it would be a godsend. It's kind of the reverse of the cochlear implant. And I guess it would mean that in the same way you can have an avatar on line - a glamorised you that others see. You could have a glamorised voice coming out with the words you were thinking.

Thought created voice synthesis may still be a way off, but scientists at the university of Washington are working on the problem. The research isn't published yet, but they've already been able to track the thoughts behind a few phonemes (the building blocks of speech).

And scientists at the University of Utah are working with them, using sensors that sit on the brain, rather than tiny electrodes which poke into the grey and white matter.

It's still intrusive surgery to open the skull and put them there, but it means that paralysed people can use computers and amputees can control their bionic limbs.

Just as solar power is getting better, much better, it seems Australia is set to miss out. This according to a recent story Solar Power Faces Early Sunset in Australia by Paddy Manning in the Sydney Morning Herald. First the good news - a technology based on molten salts effectively manages to store the sun's energy through the night providing 24 hour electricity from the day's rays. In Spain they're so impressed they have 1400MW worth of solar power coming on line. That's enough clean power to keep New South Wales going. By 2020 American scientists say solar power will be comparable in cost to other electricity. And the May federal Budget allocated $1.35 billion for solar power stations. The bad news is that we could be doing so much more. Just where we sit between green science, business and government is very clear in Paddy Manning's excellent snapshot. Read it all here.

Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally, Really Grow Up

From Publishers Weekly

Hot or not? Men agree on the answer. Women don't.

There is much more consensus among men about whom they find attractive than there is among women, according to a new study by Wake Forest University psychologist Dustin Wood.

The study, co-authored by Claudia Brumbaugh of Queens College, appears in the June issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

"Men agree a lot more about who they find attractive and unattractive than women agree about who they find attractive and unattractive," says Wood, assistant professor of psychology. "This study shows we can quantify the extent to which men agree about which women are attractive and vice versa."

The controversial withdrawal of a common painkiller has dramatically cut suicides, say researchers in the UK, the BBC reports.

A gradual phase-out of co-proxamol (known as Digesic in Australia) led to 350 fewer suicides and accidental deaths in England and Wales, a study in the British Medical Journal reports.

Regulators removed the drug's licence in 2007 after fears about the risk of overdose but the move proved unpopular with some patients and doctors.

Arthritis Care says some patients now struggle to control their pain.

A small study has shown that people tend to believe that bottled water is somehow healthier than water from the tap. However, the research, published in the open access journal BMC Public Health, also shows that people are unsure exactly what these benefits might be and that they are rarely the main reason for choosing bottled.

Lorna Ward led a team of researchers from the University of Birmingham who carried out interviews with users of the University's sports centre. She said: "The majority of participants believed that bottled water has some health benefits, but that they were not necessarily significant or superior to the benefits provided by tap water. Convenience and taste were more influential factors for participants when deciding to buy a bottle of water".

Bottled water was described as being more 'pure' than tap water, and was also described as containing more 'minerals'. As one respondent put it,

""I mean I know it's good but I'm not sure why it's good"

You've just won a prize. Would you like to find out what it is right away, or wait until later? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research says most people are happier waiting.

People who know they've won a prize enjoy the anticipation of wondering what they will win, especially if they have clues about what it might be, explain authors Yih Hwai Lee (National University of Singapore) and Cheng Qiu (University of Hong Kong). Prize winners spend time imagining using the potential prizes, and such "virtual consumption" prolongs positive feelings, making them receptive to marketing messages.

What motivates people to rebel against global brands—or consumption in general? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research examines the connection between nationalism and the anti-consumption movement in India.

Authors Rohit Varman (Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta) and Russell W. Belk (York University, Toronto) examined a movement against Coca-Cola based in the village of Mehdiganj in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. They found that the movement employs a version of the nationalist ideology of swadeshi, an ideology that has been associated with Ghandhi and the overthrow of British colonialism.

You need to move out of your apartment. Do you call in your friends and family to haul boxes and furniture or contact a moving company? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research shows that sometimes the emotions connected with asking for favors can actually drive people to the market.

According to the study's author, Jean-Sébastien Marcoux (HEC Montréal), many researchers romanticize gift-giving. "They praise it for humanizing market relationships, for making the market meaningful, and for providing an escape from the commodifying logic of capitalist exchanges," Marcoux writes. Other researchers have examined the dark side of gift giving: the troublesome feelings that arise from social indebtedness. But Marcoux's research examines how feelings of perpetual obligation affect people's attitudes toward the market.