1470148853000

science

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How Do Our Brains Process Another Person's Gaze?
How do we know when someone is looking at us? originally appeared on Quora - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights.

Answer by Paul King, Computational Neuroscientist, on Quora.

There are several things going on when you see someone looking at you, all of which happen very quickly.

This applies to actually seeing someone looking at you, not "sensing it" from behind or in the periphery.

Primates (including humans) are unique in the degree to which the eyeball can move around in the eye socket. This allows visual attention to be shifted quickly without physically moving the head.

Primates and certain other mammals can tell when another animal is looking at them, but humans are particularly good at doing this from a distance. In fact, humans have the added ability to be able to tell where someone is looking, even when it is not at them.

It is easy to see why this skill confers an evolutionary advantage: By being able to do this, you can essentially "read out" the location of another animal's attention. If you are a social animal, and the one looking at you is a superior, you'd better behave. Or if it is an inferior, you are being challenged and need to respond so you don't lose your place in the status hierarchy. For humans, knowing where another human is looking allows you to read their mind regarding what they are thinking about. This is invaluable when trying to learn language, since it allows you to pair particular words with particular objects in the environment. Pointing is also effective for this.

So, how do we do it?

Detecting the direction of gaze has to do with noticing the relative location of the dark spot of the eye (the pupil and iris) in the context of the whites of the eye. The differential size and location of the white region shows where the eye is pointed. And if the pupil is exactly in the middle with equal white regions on each side, then the eyes are looking at you. We can see this from across the room. Head direction also provides a cue, which is primarily determined by where the region of the two eyes and the nose are relative to oval face region, with hair as another reference marker. When the head is turned, the brain has to do some geometry to determine gaze direction from both head angle and relative eye angle.

Figure: Ratio of dark to light region of eye reveals direction of gaze. Bottom row: Location of facial features relative to head reveals head orientation. The visual system combines head orientation and eye orientation to calculate direction of gaze.

There is an additional effect that happens when "eyes meet". When you look at someone and they look back, you have the feeling that your gaze was met. This can feel uncomfortable, and the person who was "caught" often quickly looks away. This effect is caused by a feedback loop. The second person to make eye contact sees immediately that the first person is looking at them. The first person realizes they were "discovered" and responds often according to perceived relative status or confidence. There is also the mutual knowing that eyes met, which becomes a shared event establishing a transient relationship.

The meeting of gaze helps people recognize each other. You may think you recognize someone, but if they seem to think they recognize you too by not looking away, then the odds are greater that you are both correct. The visual systems of both individuals thus collaborate to establish mutual recognition. This happens quickly and subconsciously, allowing the social exchange to move forward toward acknowledging each other. If one person doesn't acknowledge back, it becomes an awkward case of mistaken identity.

Public speakers use the illusion of eye contact to create emotional intimacy with the audience. When people learn public speaking, they are told to glance around the room as they talk. This creates the illusion of intermittent eye contact with as many people in the room as possible, which allows the audience to feel that the speaker is talking to them personally, creating a feeling of intimacy with the speaker.

When TV newscasters deliver the news, they want the audience to have the impression they are talking to them. To accomplish this, they talk to the camera lens as if it was a person. In movies, actors avoid looking at the camera so that the audience never experiences mutual eye contact with them, preserving the feeling that the viewer is invisible. To look at the camera is called "breaking the fourth wall."

This question originally appeared on Quora. - the knowledge sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. More questions:

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

science

1470148130000

design

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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/1-7-august-2016/robert-welch-campden-toast-rack-reissued-limited-edition-run/
Robert Welch Campden toast rack reissued in limited edition run

Robert Welch Designs has reproduced the six-slice Campden toast rack in a limited edition run to mark the product's 60th anniversary.

The new edition of the Campden toast rack is £40 and is available to buy from the new Design Museum shop in London.

There are only 600 copies of the reissued toast rack available, which are numbered and come with a replicate of its original packaging.

The Campden is a simple, stainless steel toast rack, which was first produced for kitchenware company Old Hall, where Welch was consultant designer.

It was first produced in 1956 in four and six-slice options, and remained in manufacture until 1982, when it was discontinued.

It was one of three award-winning products Welch produced for Old Hall, alongside a range of 22 dishes and the distinctive Alveston range of cutlery, known for its inverted or “hollow” handles, which aim to provide balance.

The toast rack was part of the Campden collection, which included saucepans, candle holders, a coffee set, cutlery and salt and pepper shakers.

It was also exhibited as a single item, seen at Robert's first solo exhibition at Foyle's Art Gallery in 1956, and received a Council of Industrial Design award in 1957, where it was described as having “elegant and ingenious construction”. The toast rack was also included in the council's annual Design of the Year exhibition in 1958.

The Campden range's simple aesthetic made it unique in the 1950s, as Welch's designs conveyed a rawness and realism while other manufacturers adopted ornate styles.

It was named after the designer's design studio based on the top floor of the Old Silk Mill in Chipping Campden, the Cotswolds, which he set up in 1955.

Alongside the Design Museum, the reissued toast rack is also available to buy from the Robert Welch website, or from the Robert Welch shops in Chipping Campden and Bath, and the Compton Verney shop in Warwickshire.

All photos © Robert Welch.

The post Robert Welch Campden toast rack reissued in limited edition run appeared first on Design Week.

design

1470148125000

design

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https://www.designweek.co.uk/issues/1-7-august-2016/design-still-one-fastest-growing-creative-industries-uk-report-shows/
Design is still one of the fastest growing creative industries in the UK, report shows

The creative industries are growing faster than any other business sector across the majority of the UK, with design outstripping the likes of advertising, architecture and film, according to a new report.

The Geography of Creativity, produced by charities Nesta and Creative England, highlights the Department for Culture, Media and Sport's (DCMS) findings that the Gross Value Added for the creative industries was £81.4 billion in 2014.

Within these industries, the report finds that the design sub-sector alongside software and digital businesses has some of the highest rates of growth.

Number of businesses, turnover and employment rates

Comparing data from 2007 to 2014 from sources including the Office for National Statistics, the report shows that businesses within the design industry have an average growth rate of over 20%, and over 30% when viewed in terms of turnover and employment rates.

While London is shown to be the dominant location in most creative sub-sectors responsible for 40% of jobs and a third of creative businesses the report also highlights smaller hotspots of creative activity thriving across the rest of the UK as well.

One in five clusters in the North of England

In total the report counts a total of 47 “creative clusters” all over the country. It suggests that around one in five of these are in the North of England, with Scotland and Wales also identified as having “thriving creative ecossytems”.

The report differentiates between “creative cities” such as Glasgow, Manchester and Brighton which tend to have highly diversified creative industries, while “creative conurbations” including Slough and High Wycombe are generally more specialised.

“Less hip” creative clusters emerging

“These clusters specialising in a smaller number of creative sub-sectors with a high technology component may be less ‘hip' than creative cities like Brighton, Liverpool and Glasgow, but our research suggests they make significant economic contributions,” according to the report.

“In particular, they are associated with larger-sized creative businesses, and potentially higher levels of business productivity.”

More support needed at local and national levels

Despite the high levels of growth and productivity among creative sectors such as design, the report also suggests that more support ought to be offered to creative businesses on both a local and national level.

“Over half of Local Enterprise Partnerships fail to even mention the creative industries in their strategy plans. We hope that the evidence that we have presented in this report…will persuade some of them to…take action to boost the creative industries growth that is taking place on their doorstep,” says the report.

“We also believe that national and devolved governments can play a more active role to scale up creative clusters outside London and the South East, with well-resourced, locally relevant interventions along the lines of Nesta's previous recommendations.”

“Power of the creative industries to drive jobs and prosperity”

Caroline Norbury, chief executive of Creative England, adds: “This report clearly shows the power of the creative industries to drive jobs and prosperity not only in London and the south east, but in communities across the UK.

“”It is more crucial now than perhaps ever before, that we work together to make sure our creative industries are equipped to play their part in driving a strong economy and maintaining our position as a world leader in an increasingly competitive global marketplace.”

The post Design is still one of the fastest growing creative industries in the UK, report shows appeared first on Design Week.

design

1470148123000

design

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Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games seeks logo designer

"Screen — Beijing students celebrate the first anniversary of the 2022 bid at the Beijing Olympic Tower

The Beijing Organising Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games has announced it is looking for expressions of interest for the logo design of both competitions.

The games are set to take place in Beijing and Zhangijakou in 2022. At an event to mark the one-year anniversary of Beijing winning the bid, the organising committee set out broad proposals for the identity competition.

“Demonstrating the Chinese image to the world”

Both Olympic and Paralympic identities will need to reference the Beijing event and broader Chinese culture, according to the committee, which hopes the identity will be “globally accepted” and “demonstrate the Chinese image to the world.”

The identity will need to capture the Olympic and Paralympic spirit and embody the culture and values of the host city and country. Furthermore the logos need to be inspiring and show that they can be recognised by domestic and international communities, according to organisers.

Designs will need to stand up to the requirements of TV broadcasters, visual effects and digital platforms.

Key words and phrases

A series of key words and phrases have been given as broad guidelines for designers. These include running the Games in a “green, open, shared and honest manner”, the idea of “millions of people participating in winter sports,” as well as sustainable development and cues such as “cohesion, sport, strength,” and “world, reunion, festival”.

There are currently no detailed briefing documents available. The organising committee says that the “technical documents” will be “available to the public shortly”.

At the time of publication The Beijing Organising Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games was unable to confirm whether it was looking for professional designers to bid.

The post Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games seeks logo designer appeared first on Design Week.

design

1470148023000

culture

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99U and Behance are Hiring a Creative Events Manager

At 99U, our mission of empowering the creative community community encompasses more than this very site. If it's helpful to you, our readers, we want to be there. It's in that spirit that 99U and our sister site Behance produce industry-leading live events. And for the first time, we are looking for an experienced Creative Events Manager to spearhead these efforts.

We're on the hunt for a Type A personality who loves every part of the event planning process — especially the parts that involve a top-flight attendee experience — and is excited at the prospect of expanding two of our favorite efforts: our yearly 99U Conference and our Behance Portfolio Reviews. Our live events are the crown jewel of the 99U and Behance missions, a chance to serve an amazing creative community with speakers, workshops, organizers, and parties head and shoulders above any other conference on Earth.

Candidly, this role requires lots of experience executing large events. The idea of negotiating a six-figure venue contract while curating and coaching world-renowned speakers while charting the perfect ticket registration experience should feel like a walk in the park. Sound like you? Read our full description below for more.

—

99U is Adobe's Webby-award winning publication whose mission is to provide the “missing curriculum” for building an incredible creative career. Through our daily online articles, best-selling book series, popular quarterly magazine, and yearly sold-out conference, we provide actionable insights that empower the creative community.

The Creative Events Manager will be responsible for managing the current, and developing future, community-facing live events. This is to include the production and curation of Portfolio Review Week and The 99U Conference. This position will also work closely with the Editor and Creative Director of 99U to develop the brand's project roadmap.

99U is a small team, but we punch above our weight class. Each member must be an independent worker, someone who can take end goals and then execute with an extremely high level of autonomy. You must have a passion for organizing flawless events, a love of serving niche communities, a bias towards action, and an ability to work on deadline. We have fun and take a great deal of pride in our work — and you should too.

Responsibilities:

Be the lead on all aspects of organizing our yearly 99U Conference in New York City and our twice-yearly Portfolio Review Weeks.
Curate world-class speakers, workshops, and other editorial programming.
Work with our outside production staff to ensure a flawless execution of all events.
Oversee production of all collateral for 99U and Behance events.
Secure and manage a network of partners, vendors, and sponsors.
Develop and execute new live programming for 99U and Behance.
Manage event budgets and staffing.
Work with 99U Editor in Chief and Creative Director on 99U roadmap.

Requirements:

An obsession with providing unparalleled attendee experiences.
A passion and knowledge of the creative world.
Experience with speaker outreach, preparation, and coaching.
Experience leading or producing large (400 people or more) conferences — bonus points for experience with creative community.
Experience working with professional event producers, technicians, and venue management.
Be located in (or willing to relocate to) New York City.

To apply, send the following to behanceedits@gmail.com:

Your resume.
Links to events you've been involved in.
Any 99U or Behance events you've attended.

culture

1470146336000

astronomy

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/24PyITDnaF0/colossal-void-a-dead-zone-discovered-in-milky-way-requires-a-major-revision-in-our-thinking.html
Colossal Void, a Dead Zone Discovered in Heart of the Milky Way --"Requires a Major Revision in Our Thinking"

A major revision is required in our understanding of our Milky Way Galaxy according to an international team led by Prof Noriyuki Matsunaga of the University of Tokyo. The Japanese, South African and Italian astronomers find that there is a huge region around the center of our own Galaxy, which is devoid of young stars.

The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy containing many billions of stars with our Sun about 26,000 light years from its centre. Measuring the distribution of these stars is crucial to our understanding of how our Galaxy formed and evolved. Pulsating stars called Cepheids are ideal for this. They are much younger (between 10 and 300 million years old) than our Sun (4.6 billion years old) and they pulsate in brightness in a regular cycle. The length of this cycle is related to the luminosity of the Cepheid, so if astronomers monitor them they can establish how bright the star really is, compare it with what we see from Earth, and work out its distance.

The artist's impression below shows the implied distribution of young stars, represented here by Cepheids shown as blue stars, plotted on the background of a drawing of the Milky Way.

Despite this, finding Cepheids in the inner Milky Way is difficult, as the Galaxy is full of interstellar dust which blocks out light and hides many stars from view. Matsunaga's team compensated for this, with an analysis of near-infrared observations made with a Japanese-South African telescope located at Sutherland, South Africa. To their surprise they found hardly any Cepheids in a huge region stretching for thousands of light years from the core of the Galaxy.

Noriyuki Matsunaga explains: "We already found some while ago that there are Cepheids in the central heart of our Milky Way (in a region about 150 light years in radius). Now we find that outside this there is a huge Cepheid desert extending out to 8000 light years from the center."

This suggests that a large part of our Galaxy, called the Extreme Inner Disk, has no young stars. Co-author Michael Feast notes: "Our conclusions are contrary to other recent work, but in line with the work of radio astronomers who see no new stars being born in this desert."

Another author, Giuseppe Bono, points out: "The current results indicate that there has been no significant star formation in this large region over hundreds of millions years. The movement and the chemical composition of the new Cepheids are helping us to better understand the formation and evolution of the Milky Way."

Cepheids have more typically been used to measure the distances of objects in the distant Universe, and the new work is an example instead of the same technique revealing the structure of our own Milky Way.

The team publish their work in a paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

The Daily Galaxy via The University of Tokyo

"Earth May Have Experienced Dark-Matter Triggered Extinction Events" (Today's Most Popular)

Kepler Mission --"Discovers 33 Stars Over 11 Billion Years Old With Earth-Like Planets"

"Are We Entering the Danger Zone?" The Solar System's 250-Million-Year Orbit Through the Milky Way - The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel

The Milky Way's Massive Spinning Halo --New Insights

Extreme Disk Galaxy Discovered --"Seven Times the Width of the Milky Way"

Enormous X-Shaped Structure Detected at Center of Our Milky Way Galaxy

Mystery of The Great Attractor --"Unknown Force Pulling Our Milky Way Galaxy Towards It With the Force of a Million Billion Suns" (Today's Most Popular)

astronomy

1470146334000

astronomy

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/h-Tt1E6Taqc/-china-to-trump-cerns-lhc-initial-design-of-enormous-particle-accelerator-twice-the-size-and-seven-t.html
"Beyond the God Particle" --China to Trump CERN's LHC: Twice the Size and Seven Times as Powerful

China is planning to build an enormous particle accelerator twice the size and seven times as powerful as CERN's Large Hadron Collider, according to state media reports. According to China Daily, the new facility will be capable of producing millions of Higgs boson particles - a great deal more than the Large Hadron Collider which originally discovered the ‘God particle' back in 2012.

"We have completed the initial conceptual design and organized international peer review recently, and the final conceptual design will be completed by the end of 2016," Wang Yifang, director of the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, told China Daily in an exclusive interview.

The institute has been operating major high-energy physics projects in China, such as the Beijing Electron Positron Collider and the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino experiment. Now scientists are proposing a more ambitious new accelerator with seven times the energy level of the Large Hadron Collider in Europe. The first phase of the project's construction is scheduled to begin between 2020 and 2025.

“So far the Standard Model seems to explain matter, but we know there has to be something beyond the Standard Model,” said Denise Caldwell, director of the Physics Division of the National Science Foundation. “This potential new physics can only be uncovered with more data that will come with the next LHC run.”

The Standard Model contains no explanation of gravity, which is one of the four fundamental forces in the universe. It also does not explain astronomical observations of dark matter, a type of matter that interacts with our visible universe only through gravity, nor does it explain why matter prevailed over antimatter during the formation of the early universe. The small mass of the Higgs boson also suggests that matter is fundamentally unstable.

Gerald Hooft, winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, said in an interview to Doha-based broadcaster Al Jazeera that China's proposed collider, if built, "will bring hundreds, probably thousands, of top class scientists with different specializations, from pure theory to experimental physics and engineering, from abroad to China". Chinese scientists have completed an initial conceptual design of a super giant particle collider which will be bigger and more powerful than any particle accelerator on Earth.

In July 2012, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, also known as CERN, announced that it had discovered the long sought-after Higgs boson－the "God particle", regarded as the crucial link that could explain why other elementary particles have mass－on LHC. The discovery was believed to be one of the most important in physics for decades. Scientists are hopeful that it will further explain nature and the universe we live in.

The high-energy frontier has traditionally had one primary goal, to probe directly any uncharted physics waters. This has translated into the gigantic effort to complete the unobserved elements of the Standard Model of particle physics as well as to search for for signs of physics beyond.These measurements form a solid base from which searches for physics beyond the standard model have been launched. Since the discovery of the Higgs in 2012, searches for supersymmetry and several signatures of possible new exotic physics phenomena have been developed, and new parameter space is being explored.

In 2016, the Large Hadron Collider, the world's most powerful proton smasher, is preparing for its biggest run yet which scientists hope will uncover new particles that could dramatically change our understanding of the Universe. Scientists had been gearing up to resume experiments at the LHC this week, but the plans were delayed after a weasel wandered onto a high-voltage electrical transformer last Friday, causing a short-circuit. CERN told AFP that experiments were now expected to get underway next week.

The LHC, housed in a 27-kilometre (17-mile) tunnel straddling the French-Swiss border, has shaken up physics before. In 2012 it was used to prove the existence of the Higgs Boson -- the long-sought maker of mass -- by crashing high-energy proton beams at velocities near the speed of light. (A proton-lead ion collision, shown below as observed by the LHCb detector during the 2013 data-taking period LHCb/CERN). The giant lab might prove the exotic theory of supersymmetry, SUSY for short, which suggests the existence of a heavier "sibling" for every particle in the universe. The unexpected excess pair of photons spotted last year could be a larger cousin of the Higgs, according to one theory.

While LHC is composed of 27-kilometer-long accelerator chains and detectors buried 100 meters underground at the border of Switzerland and France, scientists only managed to spot hundreds of Higgs boson particles, not enough to learn the structure and other features of the particle.

With a circumference of 50 to 100 km, however, the proposed Chinese accelerator Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) will generate millions of Higgs boson particles, allowing a more precise understanding.

"The technical route we chose is different from LHC. While LHC smashes together protons, it generates Higgs particles together with many other particles," Wang said. "The proposed CEPC, however, collides electrons and positrons to create an extremely clean environment that only produces Higgs particles," he added.

The Higgs boson factory is only the first step of the ambitious plan. A second-phase project named SPPC (Super Proton-Proton Collider) is also included in the design－a fully upgraded version of LHC.

LHC shut down for upgrading in early 2013 and restarted in June with an almost doubled energy level of 13 TeV, a measurement of electron volts.

"LHC is hitting its limits of energy level, it seems not possible to escalate the energy dramatically at the existing facility," Wang said. The proposed SPPC will be a 100 TeV proton-proton collider.

If everything moves forward as proposed, the construction of the first phase project CEPC will start between 2020 and 2025, followed by the second phase in 2040.

"China brings to this entire discussion a certain level of newness. They are going to need help, but they have financial muscle and they have ambition," said Nima Arkani Hamed from the Institute for Advanced Study in the United States, who joined the force to promote CEPC in the world.

David J. Gross, a US particle physicist and 2004 Nobel Prize winner, wrote in a commentary co-signed by US theoretical physicist Edward Witten that although the cost of the project would be great, the benefits would also be great. "China would leap to a leadership position in an important frontier area of basic science," he wrote.

Today's Most Popular

The Daily Galaxy via China Daily

Image credit: CERN

Supersymmetry? --"Standard Model of the Universe Fails to Explain Dark Matter or Dark Energy"

The Higgs Particle --"It Can Disintegrate Into Dark Matter"

astronomy

1470146331000

astronomy

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Chance of Life in the Universe --"Much Higher in Distant Future" (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)

The universe is 13.8 billion years old, while our planet formed just 4.5 billion years ago. Some scientists think this time gap means that life on other planets could be billions of years older than ours. However, new theoretical work suggests that present-day life is actually premature from a cosmic perspective.

"If you ask, 'When is life most likely to emerge?' you might naively say, 'Now,'" says lead author Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "But we find that the chance of life grows much higher in the distant future."

Life as we know it first became possible about 30 million years after the Big Bang, when the first stars seeded the cosmos with the necessary elements like carbon and oxygen. Life will end 10 trillion years from now when the last stars fade away and die. Loeb and his colleagues considered the relative likelihood of life between those two boundaries.

The dominant factor proved to be the lifetimes of stars. The higher a star's mass, the shorter its lifetime. Stars larger than about three times the sun's mass will expire before life has a chance to evolve.

Conversely, the smallest stars weigh less than 10 percent as much as the Sun. They will glow for 10 trillion years, giving life ample time to emerge on any planets they host. As a result, the probability of life grows over time. In fact, chances of life are 1000 times higher in the distant future than now.

"So then you may ask, why aren't we living in the future next to a low-mass star?" says Loeb. "One possibility is we're premature. Another possibility is that the environment around a low-mass star is hazardous to life."

Although low-mass, red dwarf stars live for a long time, they also pose unique threats. In their youth they emit strong flares and ultraviolet radiation that could strip the atmosphere from any rocky world in the habitable zone.

To determine which possibility is correct -- our premature existence or the hazard of low-mass stars -- Loeb recommends studying nearby red dwarf stars and their planets for signs of habitability. Future space missions like the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and James Webb Space Telescope should help to answer these questions.

The Daily Galaxy via CfA

Image credit: With thanks to insider.si.edu and 3tags,org