Tag Archives: MRI

Brain Activity Patterns Set Young Runners Apart from Healthy Peers

Spatial maps for (from top) the default mode network, frontoparietal network and motor network  (image courtesy Gene Alexander of University of Arizona).

The book The Runner’s Brain told runners how their minds could change their running. Now a University of Arizona study says the reverse might be true as well.

Using functional connectivity MRI (fcMRI), they found significant differences in areas that are active when the brain is at rest. Possibly, such networks could play a key role in the effects of aging and neurodegenerative diseases.

Read/listen to my full story at KJZZ’s Arizona Science Desk:
Arizona Study: Brains Of Young Adult Runners Differ From Those Of Healthy Peers

Superconductors? When frogs fly

levitating frogOne of the unwritten rules of physics says you can’t get something for nothing; at best, you can swing a fair exchange rate between energy in and energy out. The problem is heat:  Like an energy embezzler, it skims off the top of chemical reactions, physical systems and electrical circuits (which is why we can’t have perpetual motion machines).

Superconductors don’t break the laws of thermodynamics, but they do manage to find some fairly large loopholes. Send current through a superconducting wire, and it loses no energy to resistance. Bend the wire into a loop, and it will hold charge indefinitely. Levitate it above a magnet, and the sun will devour the Earth before it will fall.

Plus, it can levitate a frog.

What is Superconductivity?
Quiz: How Super are Superconductors?