Renault is well known as the car manufacturer with the most models that received 5-star ratings at the EuroNCAP crash-tests. What better way to promote the safety of their cars than to hit them from all directions, in all possible ways. A really ingenious clip from Renault!

By the look of the video it happened a long time ago, but it's still funny. It takes some hearing problems not to hear a gun shot. Look at his surprised face when he sees the other runners pass him by!

According to Reuters, this bomb is similar in power to a nuclear detonation, but it doesn't have the contamination effects. Because it doesn't violate any treaties, it can be used freely, just as the US uses its thermobaric bombs which are very similar.

Here's a cool way to hunt for fish. Forget dynamite. You'll be gathering them up for a few days. No, really, this tests sometimes are mad, people got to think that other humans could be at the receiving end of that! In an artistic way though, it's very beautiful. Enjoy!

In the 1960 America (and Russia) begun underground nuclear tests. Not only were they trying to see how the new nuclear bombs perform, but also they wanted to see if it was possible to shape the relief with the help of underground nuclear explosions. After a few tests, the idea was droped, but the video of this underground nuclear explosion remained. Enjoy!

Italian researcher Alessandra Luchini wins the first edition of "The Prize Award” with a paper of a system to identify those molecules that signal the presence of a tumor (tumor markers) that are beyond the traditional methods of investigation. To do this requires making a hydrogel containing certain microscopic nano-spheres that once inserted in the samples of blood taken for analysis diagnostic trap some markers and protect them from deterioration. "These nano-spheres, made of the same plastic as hydrated soft contact lenses are equipped with special molecules that, once in the blood, snap-specific tumor markers and incorporate them. In this way, they protect them from enzymes that would otherwise deteriorate them. Usually blood tests fail to identify precisely because these markers are destroyed prematurely, " says researcher Alessandra Luchini. "The beauty of this system," says the researcher, "is that it does not need very sophisticated tools, which is simple and economical: with one hundred U.S. dollars we can make nano-spheres for more than two hundred patients." The new method is not going to replace the standard, but acts at a stage prior to analysis by providing a better quality.

Twenty years after the first partially successful attempt to cold fusion, a new experiment seems to have reopened the hopes of obtaining nuclear reactions at low energy (LENR low-energy nuclear reactions). This was announced by a team of researchers led by Pamela Mosier-Boss of the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center San Diego (California), with a study presented at the annual meeting of American Chemical Society, the first visible evidence of the production of neutrons, the particles subatomic whose presence demonstrates the atomic reaction occurred. It was 1989 when Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons showed that it has obtained experimentally the Cold Fusion, arousing great outcry in the scientific community. Fusion is the reaction that takes place inside of stars, their source of energy, able to reproduce in the laboratory at room temperature this process would be an amazing achievement. Further research then disappointed initial expectations: the rare attempts (for example, those of 2000 and 2002) to reproduce the results of 1989 and have not convinced the path of nuclear reaction at low energy has not proved viable as an alternative to "clean" nuclear fission, which is based on the common operation of nuclear power.

The mutation of the gene Alk would be responsible for inherited forms of cancer. Neuroblastoma is a childhood cancer more widespread and aggressive: it attacks the autonomic nervous system during development, forming frequently in tumor masses or into the chest. A study, published in Nature and coordinated by the Children Hospital of Philadelphia (USA), indicates that mutations in the gene anaplastic lymphoma kinase (Alk) would be responsible for inherited forms of the disease. The international group of researchers, including some of the Italian Institute for Cancer Research in Genoa, have collected genetic information of 20 families where the disease was presented in more than one occasion, by analyzing the DNA of 176 people ( of which 49 with neuroblastoma). Eight families, in which at least three individuals suffering from the disease were closely analyzed, possessed the changed Alk gene. The normal role of this gene, which expresses a transmembrane receptor, is not yet understood in depth but, according to previous studies, its alterations increase the risk of developing lymphoma or lung cancer.

The brain responds to stimuli, tactile and visual contradiction in delaying the processing of information that comes from the skin. A fly is laying on the right elbow. Slight itching, moving vision towards the elbow, identification of the intruder and its position and, finally, blow. This reaction is not as instantaneous as you can imagine. Indeed, the brain seems to delay affixed aware of the tactile perception, as reported a study in Current Biology Group for Research in Cognitive Neuroscience (Grnc) in Barcelona. The brain is often having to generate rapid responses integrating stimuli that produce information in contradiction: if, for example, the subject has crossed his arms and brings his right arm on the left side and left arm on the right side, his hands will be in a position that is reversed from the original location. In this case, the brain must be able to correctly integrate the information of the tactile stimulus (for example pinch) on the right hand, although the visual stimulus comes in fact from the left. To avoid mistakes the brain needs time to make a realignment of the information space of two different maps: that rof the body and one that covers everything else. To understand how the mechanism works, researchers have assessed the response of 32 university students to a series of visual and tactile stimuli. Each student has been subjected to 600 tests. "First we asked participants to cross the arms, so that the position of hands was in conflict with the anatomical position" says Salvador Soto-Faraco, one of the authors of the study, "we have stimulated one of two hands." Few tenths of a second later, a small light (visual stimulus) I had left or right. Both the tactile stimuli that those visual products were in a totally random. In addition, the flash of light could be generated 60 or 200 milliseconds after the tactile stimulus. In order to assess whether the time elapsed between the two stimuli does influence or not the answer.

The transfer of data will be hundred of times faster than that by radio waves. The promise is made by the first tests conducted by a German institute. Receiving images in Google Earth or photos of the Hubble telescope in real time may soon be reality. A German institute has experienced a communication system based on lasers which will transfer data at a rate one hundred times higher than that possible with radio waves. The technology was developed by researchers from the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology in Aachen on the company's Tesat GmbH & Co. under a project funded by the German Aerospace Center (Dlr).

Recognizing the native language of a person after the electrical waves in the brain! By analyzing brain waves we can reveal the identity of an individual's language. Someone can involuntarily, because of a temporary amnesia or silence, or voluntarily, to try to avoid providing information on their origins. The discovery was made by Italian researchers and published on Biological Psychology. The study, coordinated by Alice Mado Proverb Electrophysiology Laboratory of the Department of cognitive psychology at the University of Milano-Bicocca, in collaboration with Roberta Adorni, and Alberto Zani, a researcher of the Institute of Physiology and Molecular Bioimaging of Cnr-Segrate in Milan , shows that there is a region of the brain, called "area for the visual form of words", which is located in the so-called fusiform cortex in the left occipital / temporal region of the brain. This automatically recognizes the shape of the letters and words, and it is very sensitive to levels of familiarity.

The rodents, as primates, are able to learn simple abstract principles for later use in different situations... A long considered exclusive to primates appears in reality shared by other species. Having already been demonstrated in some birds in fact, the ability to apply abstract rules just learned, and to to adapt to new situations was also observed in mice. The study, published in a number of Science, was conducted by Robin Murphy of University College London. The experiments were carried out by subjecting the animals to visual and acoustic stimuli. In the first phase mice, divided into three groups, have responded to three different sequences of visual stimuli, consisting of the sequence of light and dark. For each group only a sequence was associated with the food. After an initial period of "training", the mice were able to distinguish between those identifying sequences associated with reward.