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Researchers find fire ants tightly regulate the diameter of their tunnels to insure ideal mobility and traction—but when they slip, antennae take grip.

“Our hypothesis is that the ants are creating their environment in just the right way to allow them to move up and down rapidly with a minimal amount of neural control,” says Daniel Goldman, an associate professor in the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “The environment allows the ants to make missteps and not suffer for them. These ants can teach us some remarkably effective tricks for maneuvering in subterranean environments.”

Full story and video at Futurity.

More research news from top universities.

Photo credit: Nick Gravish

There may be more to perfection than a lot of practice, according to a small study of chess players and musicians.

A new study shows that even copious amount of practice is not enough to explain why people differ in level of skill in two widely studied activities: chess and music.

In other words, it takes more than hard work to become an expert. Natural talent and other factors likely play a role in mastering a complicated activity, says Zach Hambrick, associate professor of psychology at Michigan State University.

Hambrick and colleagues analyzed 14 studies of chess players and musicians, looking specifically at how practice was related to differences in performance. Practice, they found, accounted for only about one-third of the differences in skill in both music and chess.

Full story at Futurity.

More research news from top universities.

Photo credit: hannahwillow/Flickr

The public can help scientists by deciphering and recording the hand-written field notes that accompany a million insect specimens, many dating back more than 100 years.

Along the way, participants in the project, called Calbug, are getting a peek into history and the treasures held in museum collections. Among the many scientifically valuable objects in University of California, Berkeley’s Essig Museum collection is at least one—a ground beetle from Tierra del Fuego, Chile—that was collected in 1833 by none other than Charles Darwin.

“Through Calbug, our goal is to make at least some of those records, which are normally inaccessible to the public, available to people around the world,” says Rosemary Gillespie, principal investigator of the Calbug project. “And by converting those labels into electronic records, it will be possible for us to track any changes in range for different species, and that provides insight into how animals react to changes in the environment.”

Full story and additional image at Futurity.

More research news from top universities.

Photo credit: Marek Jacubowski

Gabriel Dawe’s Prismatic Installations

Crocheted Playgrounds by Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam

The Swedish Furniture Fair Installation

Full article with more fantastic art on BuzzFeed

Photo credits: archdaily.com, hefoxisblack.com and fc02.deviantart.net

A McKinsey iConsumer survey spotlights key trends in e-commerce, mobile, multichannel, social media, and big data.

From McKinsey via Visual.ly.

Tons of excellent infographics in one place.

Photo by Laura Blanc

You may have noticed cat owners prowling around the Internet lately sporting peculiarly feline facial hair, so it shouldn’t be surprising that dog people are lining up to put their mark on this particular meme.

According to Laughing Squid,

You can view more photos of people sporting a dog beard by searching in the Instagram tags#DogBeard and #DogBearding.

And you thought the rest of the week was going to be a bore…

Photo by Shovebug

Full story at Laughing Squid.

For the love of dogs.

Ever idly wonder what the difference was between a coaxial cable and an ethernet cable?

Wonder no more thanks to this infographic by DSL.com, and enjoy talking shop with the cable or phone guy next time he comes to call some time between 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM.

Via DSL.com.

Feel a little smarter with infographics.

Those who call Oklahoma home but have addresses elsewhere or are worried about the areas where their loved ones lived can now see how severely specific areas were affected thanks to the cooperative efforts of Google Maps, the City of Oklahoma City, the City of Moore, and Cleveland County.

The data was collected on May 22, and one can see building footprints when they zoom into an area of interest.

Full story at NPR.

Weather’s wrath.

There was a report released this week by a couple of democrats about the threat to critical infrastructure including US electric power utilities. I don’t think that this is a partisan concern, though.

Their report is called “Electric Grid Vulnerability: Industry Responses Reveal Security Gaps,” and describes the results of 160 utilities that were surveyed about their experiences. Incredibly, some reported daily attacks and this is not a new phenomenon. The Obama administration has been warning about these attacks to the power grid for a year or so now, and is working with various agencies to help.

Here’s a great quote from this article:

“In fact, many of the questions asked of utilities for the report were so specific and confidential in nature that for security reasons, they could not be answered by our members for fear of potentially violating the very standards with which the government has mandated us to comply,” according to a statement by the APPA. “Drawing such broad conclusions about the electric sector’s, and public power’s, level of security is therefore misleading.”

To assuage our fears though, we have to understand that the electric utility industry complies with high security standards.

It is important to note in fact, that the electric and nuclear industries are the only critical infrastructures that have such mandatory standards in place,” according to the APPA. “As an industry, we continue to closely coordinate at high levels both amongst members of our industry and with the federal government on cyber and physical security. We will continue to utilize and strengthen those relationships as we respond to evolving threats.”

And speaking from the other side of the debate:
The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association calls this report too alarmist.

Read more here: ELP.com.

More stories about homeland security.

Photo credit: Image of US Power Grid, FEMA – WikiCommons

There’s a shopping site called Cheapism.com and there, they recently took a look at a bunch of retailers and compiled a list of those who’ll price-match their online prices – not all will, I guess not surprisingly, presumably because the costs of running the online side of their business is less.

Here’s Cheapism.com’s methodology for their study:

[They] compiled the price-match policies of eight major retailers and visited store locations to see how well the front-line employees complied with the corporate policy. As part of their survey they also looked into which retailers price-matched their own sites.

Here’s a list of the stores who will price-match their own sites:

1. Target
2. Best Buy
3. Sears

And another two who may:

1. Lowe’s
2. Home Depot

And those whose policies say no, they won’t:

1. J.C. Penney
2. Walmart
3. Kohl’s

And so Cheapism.com suggests a workaround:

If you’re shopping at one of these retailers and find a price differential with a shopping app, then you’re not completely out of luck. A few months ago, I found a slow cooker at Kmart for $35, but discovered with my smartphone app that it was available for just $18 on Kmart.com. Since I wasn’t sure if Kmart price-matched its own site (as it turns out, it does), I just ordered it with my phone and selected the free store-pickup option; I was able to get it an hour later.

And that’s exactly what Cheapism editor-in-chief Kara Reinhardt recommends people do if they find such a price differential in Walmart or J.C. Penney. Both stores allow you to order online and pick up at the store for free, though delivery may take a few days if the retailer is actually shipping the product from a warehouse instead of just taking it out of the stockroom. It’s up to you to decide whether waiting a few days and then driving back to the store is worth whatever you’re saving.

But not all stores offer this program…and those who do, may not make it so easy for you…

Also to consider, advises Cheapism.com are the following policies:

• You also need to consider how long after purchase you can bring the item back for a retroactive price adjustment;
• which items and competitors are excluded;
• what sort of proof of the competitor’s price you need to furnish;
• and how well the front-line employees comply with the corporate policy.

For way more info on this, check out the original article, with links at: Daily Finance.

More stories about shopping.

Photo credit: Odua Images – Fotolia.com