Did you find Heath Ledger as The Joker scary? Then perhaps you suffer from coulrophobia, the abnormal fear of clowns. Join a self-confessed coulrophobic for a look at these guys and see if you are too. Like you don’t already know!
Researchers have “cloaked” a three-dimensional object, making it invisible from all angles, for the first time. However, the demonstration works only for waves in the microwave region of the electromagnetic spectrum. It uses a shell of what are known as plasmonic materials; they present a “photo negative” of the object being cloaked, effectively cancelling it out.
Duracell? Energizer? The cheapie packages of AAs at the dollar store? Tired of dumping money blindly on batteries for Wii remote controllers, flashlights, Nerf guns, and the like, a physicist decides it’s time to investigate which batteries truly give the most bang for the buck.
Rhett Allain, an associate professor of physics at Southeastern Louisiana University, had gotten into the habit of buying batteries based strictly on price. Mostly, this meant skipping the Duracells and Energizers of the world and purchasing cheapie off-brands at dollar stores instead.
Two baby rhinos in South Africa.
PROBLEM: Why do we often plan to take risks like skydiving and singing onstage but back out when the moment of truth arrives?
METHODOLOGY: Scientists led by University of Colorado Boulder psychology and neuroscience professor Leaf Van Boven hypothesized that this illusion of courage is the result of an empathy gap, or our inability to forecast how we will behave in emotional situations. In two of the experiments, they asked college students if they would be willing to engage in a future embarrassing situation, such as telling a funny story or dancing to James Brown’s “Sex Machine” in front of their class, in exchange for a few dollars. Some of the students were asked outright, while others were first exposed to short films that aroused feelings of fear and anger.
RESULTS: The students who were primed with negative emotions were much more accurate in predicting their true willingness to perform in public. The undergraduates who did not view movie clips were less empathetic to their future selves and significantly overestimated their interest.
CONCLUSION: People overestimate their ability to engage in embarrassing situations. They may be able to persevere, however, if they call to mind instances that could put them in better touch with the fear they would likely experience.
