“We all know the words around electricity, ‘charge,’ ‘positive,’ ‘battery’ and more. But where do they come from and what do they really mean? Let the history of these words illuminate the physics of electric phenomena.” — TEDEducation

“In 1970, Gary Anderson was a 23-year-old college student at the University of Southern California, when a Chicago container company held a design contest to raise awareness about the environment. Anderson’s submission won, and it became the internationally recognized recycling logo–and a design classic that ranks with the Coca-Cola and Nike marks, for sheer ubiquity. “It didn’t take me long to come up with my design: a day or two. I almost hate to admit that now. But I’d already done a presentation on recycling waste water and I’d come up with a graphic that described the flow of water: from reservoirs through to consumption, so I already had arrows and arcs and angles in my mind.” w/ photos

“Assuming you can’t spend a heat wave bobbing up and down in some cool body of water, the next best option is to hunker down inside with air blowing on you, right? Preferably it’s from an air conditioner set on arctic chill. But if there’s no AC, then an electric fan would be the next best thing, wouldn’t you think? Well, it turns out health experts aren’t so sure about electric fans. And they say using one in a really brutal heat wave can sometimes do more harm than good. In an editorial accompanying a review of studies from around the world on the effectiveness of electric fans, researchers writing this week in the The Cochrane Library say there’s no evidence that fans are the way to go during a heat wave. In fact, they say, that when temperatures rise above 95 degrees, or roughly body temperature, the fan might actually make you even hotter, unable to sweat and sick. There’s some disagreement as to how, but some researchers have found hot air blowing on a hot body can cause an increase in the rate of dehydration or heat exhaustion.” w/ photos

“It is a finding certain to be hotly disputed – at least among half the population. According to the latest research, women are brighter than men. For the first time in IQ testing, psychologists have found that female scores have risen above those of men. Since IQ testing began a century ago, women have been as much as five points behind, leading psychologists to suggest embedded genetic differences. But that gap has been narrowing in recent years and this year women have moved ahead, according to James Flynn, a world-renowned authority on IQ tests. ‘In the last 100 years the IQ scores of both men and women have risen but women’s have risen faster,’ said Mr Flynn. ‘This is a consequence of modernity. The complexity of the modern world is making our brains adapt and raising our IQ.’ One possible explanation is that women’s lives have become more demanding as they multitask between raising a family and doing a job.” w/ photos

“Yes, OK. Abuse is bad. But now I wanted to know: What about spanking? According to a 2011 study, more than half of all American parents spank their toddlers; some studies have put the number closer to 60 percent. But the American Academy of Pediatrics opposes it, and the practice is illegal in 32 countries, including Spain, Israel, and all of Scandinavia. So what’s the deal — are slaps on the tush OK if your children deserve it, or will it screw them up for life? After digging into the literature on the topic and talking to a handful of experts, my best shot at a conclusion is this: It depends.” w/ photos

“For decades, experts have been convinced that eye movements reveal when someone is lying. Psychologists believed that looking up to the left indicated honesty, while looking up to the right signalled a lie. But there is in fact no link between lying and eye movements, according to research.” w/ photos

“Hot tea on a hot day? Not for me, thank you. Not my idea of how to cool down. But I’ve been doing a series of stories for Morning Edition called Summer Science, where I tackle such subjects as how to roast the perfect marshmallow and what causes that sharp headache some people get when they eat ice cream. For my next installment, Morning Edition Executive Producer Madhulika Sikka asked me to explain why drinking hot tea cools you off on a hot day. It does? ‘Trust me,’ she said. ‘I’m Indian, I’m British. A billion Indians can’t be wrong. They drink hot tea in hot weather.’ So I started to make some calls.” w/ photos

“Team members at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory share the challenges of the Curiosity Mars rover’s final minutes to landing on the surface of Mars.” — JPLnews

“The sweltering heatwave of the last few weeks helped make this year the hottest on record so far, officials revealed today. The last 12 months also have been the warmest in the continental United States since modern record-keeping began in 1895, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Every state except Washington had warmer-than-average temperatures for the June 2011-June 2012 period. The national average temperature over that period was 56 degrees, 3.2 degrees higher than usual… This past month was also the 10th driest June, with drought spreading to 56 per cent of the contiguous U.S. states, up from 37.4 per cent in May, making it the largest drought footprint of the 21st century.” w/ photos

“As the fuel revolution begins in earnest and we begin to reduce our dependence on petrol, one key question remains: How do we charge up on the go? While many electronic refuel stops are now being built alongside roads across the country, a Japanese team of researchers has come up with another method, after demonstrating a way of sending electricity through 12 inches of concrete. The technological achievement could see cars being recharged through special tyres that could such charge up through the tarmac while on the move. The Toyohashi University of Technology say there are no technological hurdles to bringing ‘EVER’ – or Electric Vehicle on Electrified Roadway – to the roads, other than gaining mass-approval and adoption.” w/ photos