The Wisdom of the Crowds, the Music in Your Skin, and the Flaws in Neuroscience Funding: NOVA Next Week in Review

This Week’s NOVA Next Feature Article

Haptic devices could soon revolutionize how we experience everything from music to motion pictures. NOVA Next contributor Sujata Gupta reports on the technology that will have us hearing with our skin.

In other news from NOVA and around the web:

• The dozen or more photoreceptors on the eye of a peacock mantis shrimp act sort of like satellites.
• Boston has confirmed four cases of the chikungunya virus. Learn how it’s rapidly advancing on other parts of the country.
• In an open letter to the European Commission, 130 scientists have threatened to boycott the Human Brain Project.

• The simple act of touching money can dull pain, researchers say.
• The search for exoplanets is complicated. Some discoveries, it turns out, are just illusions . Others, though, are increasingly Earth-like and very real.
• Raju the elephant cried after being rescued from captivity. Despite relief from physical harm, though, emotional trauma has long-lasting effects .
• This extinct bird had a wingspan of up to 24 feet . So you have an image: that’s about equal to the height of a two-story building.
• Scientists cleaning out a lab on the NIH campus found vials labeled “variola” —that is, smallpox.
• Why “old book smell” has hints of vanilla .
• A remote-controlled contraceptive chip developed by MIT could be available by 2018.

Did you miss "Mystery of a Masterpiece" this week? Watch it streaming online.

• Scientists have discovered that they can sharpen memory by directly recording and stimulating circuits deep in the brain. Revisit NOVA’s Secret Life of Scientists profile on Andre Fenton and his unique perspective on memory.
• Yet another reason why you should get a good night’s sleep . If your anxiety is epigenetic , though, mere rest might not cut it.
• Here’s why you might benefit from following people with diverse viewpoints .
• The IAU is holding a contest to name 30 exoplanets and their stars.
• A baby girl born in the U.S. and believed to have been rid of HIV is now showing signs of infection again . The new results have possible implications for an upcoming federal HIV study.
• Your nose isn’t the only part of your body capable of taking a whiff. Skin has scent receptors , too—and they appear to be involved in healing.
• The wetter and more humid a city, the more susceptible it is to heat-trapping .
• Disturbing and humbling photos of illnesses removed from people’s bodies.
• Fish are losing the ability to recognize each other as carbon dioxide levels rise.

Photo Credit: Carmen Branje