In this issue: CAMERAS THAT LIE RETAIL THEFT IN ITALY CITIZEN PAPARAZZI MODIFIED GOATS CLICK FRAUD OBESITY TESTING And much much more... ------------------------------------------------------------ ____ ____ ___ _____ ____ ______ ______ * / __ )/ __ \/ | / _/ | / / |/ / | / _/ / / __ / /_/ / /| | / // |/ / /|_/ / /| | / // / / /_/ / _, _/ ___ |_/ // /| / / / / ___ |_/ // /___ /_____/_/ |_/_/ |_/___/_/ |_/_/ /_/_/ |_/___/_____/ *Keeping brains healthy since 2004 ------------------------------------------------------------ Brainmail email issue 21 - November 2006 ------------------------------------------------------------ Brainmail is a free monthly newsletter about new ideas, innovations and trends. To subscribe or unsubscribe visit the website at http://brainmail.nowandnext.com Tell the world about brainmail - forward this to a friend. ------------------------------------------------------------ > Three is the magic number The lone inventor may well be alive and well but research by the University of Illinois says that teams of people are much better at solving complex letter and word puzzles than individuals. However, there are subtle dynamics at work. Teams of two performed no better than two individuals while creating teams of more than three did not add any significant performance benefit. Ref: Scientific American Mind (US) > Smile I'll make you look thin Hewlett Packard has invented a digital camera that makes people in the centre of a picture look thinner by digitally 'squeezing' the middle of the photograph. Ref: Sense Bulletin (UK) > Obesity testing A Japanese company - Novus Gene Inc - has created a genetic test to determine whether an individual has a propensity for obesity. Ref: Nikkei Weekly (Japan) > Do you know what's his name? An Israeli website called myheritage.com is a good example of the growing popularity of sites that mix genealogy with face-recognition software. The site allows users to post photographs of unknown relatives on the site and then notifies them if someone else posts a similar picture - even if the person looks twenty years older or younger. Ref: Business 2.0 (US) > Smelly research Researchers at the University of Chicago have found that rats can distinguish between people that are related and those that are not by using smell. Previous research found that people could also identify individuals that are closely related by smell alone. The theory is that similar smells prevent inbreeding. Ref: New Scientist (UK) > Puff daddy A German businessman called Alexander Schoppmann is launching a smoking only airline with routes throughout Europe and Asia. Ref: The Times (UK) > Starbucks salons Starbucks is experimenting with a pop-up performance space blending coffee with the performing arts. The first performance coffeehouse is expected to appear in New York in late 2006 and there are plans to open similar spaces across the US. Ref: Trendwatching.com (Neth) > The daily grind You read it here first. Umpqua bank, a local community bank in the US, is quite possibly the first bank in the world to brew it's own blend of coffee. Customers can also download tracks from local musicians. Ref: Architecture Week (US) > Citizen paparazzi Spy Media is a virtual marketplace for news and celebrity photographs. Buyers can request a person, product or place and set a bounty for the photograph. Photographers (anyone with a camera-phone) then compete to be the first with the image. Similar citizen journalism sites include OhMyNews and ScooptWords. Ref: Newmediamusings.com (US) > Genetically modified goats Scientists at the University of California have created a breed of genetically modified goat that produces milk which kills harmful bacteria - such as the bacteria that causes diarrhoea. Similar milk has been created that prevents blood clotting. Ref: The Times (UK) > Subscription innovation A Dutch newspaper - de Volkskrant - is offering a dual subscription model whereby readers receive full access to the digital version during the week and receive the hard copy version at weekends. Ref: Trendwatching.com (Neth) > Organ self-assembly Scientists at the University of South Carolina Medical School are experimenting with the thought of whether the human body could be persuaded to grow its own replacement parts. Ref: The Times (UK) > Click fraud Google recently paid US $90 million to settle a class-action law suit in which a series of litigants claimed that they were the victims of click fraud on paid search advertisements. According to Click Forensics, a US based consulting firm, 14% of all pay-per-click advertising is fraudulent. Ref: New York Times (US) > Too much choice Between 2000 and 2004 the number of soft drink varieties and sizes increased by more than 100% to 791 types globally. Meanwhile, it's been reported that Crest now makes 85 different types, sizes, flavours and formulations of toothpaste. Ref: Mintel (UK) > Die Qual der Wahl (the torture of choice) Researchers at Cornell University have found that whilst people are happy to choose between totally different options many people prefer it if someone else makes the choice for them when it comes to options that are roughly similar - e.g. toothpaste. Ref: Journal of Consumer Research (US) > Consequences of climate change Are plague outbreaks related to climate? According to a team of Norwegian researchers the answer could be yes. Wet and warm spring conditions lead to an increase in rodent numbers which transmit bacteria. Analysing tree rings from the Medieval period has shown that the arrival of warmer and wetter springs coincided with the last bubonic plague outbreak known as the Black Death. Ref: New Scientist (UK) > Fast forward A survey by Nielsen Analytics says that 60% of people that listen to podcasts always skip over any advertisements. According to the survey 6% of US adults had downloaded a podcast during the last 30 days. Ref: Red Herring (US) > Video game = less pain Spanish psychologists have discovered that patients that wear virtual reality headsets suffer from less pain during surgery than those that don't. The reason for this is that we have only a limited attention span so the brain is distracted from the pain by visual and audio stimuli. Ref: The Times (UK) ------------------------------------------------------------ : STATSHOTS Parmesan cheese accounts for 10% of all retail thefts in Italy. Ref: Sunday Telegraph (UK) 70% of new cars sold in the US in 2007 will offer iPod connectivity. Ref: Red Herring (US) The 3-Dimensional version of the movie Chicken Little took three times as much money in cinemas last year as the 2-Dimensional version. Ref: The Times (UK) More children in the UK are born into mixed race households (one black and one white parent) than into black households (two black parents). Ref: The Economist (UK) Retail sales in China are growing at a rate of US $80 billion per year. This is roughly the size of the Argentine economy every year. Ref: McKinsey Quarterly (US) The ratio of wild tigers to the number currently living in the US as pets is 1:1. Ref: Harpers (US) 5% of all Kodak film used globally is used to take pictures of Disney attractions. Ref: Emory Group (US) There are 750 million workers in China of which 375 million work in state owned enterprises. Ref: McKinsey Quarterly (US) According to a Chief Economist at Merrill Lynch there is a 40% chance of a recession happening in 2007. Ref: Harpers (US) In the US there are 90.5 million cats and 73.9 million dogs. 51% of cat owners own more than one cat. Ref: Iconowatch (US) ------------------------------------------------------------ : QUOTE OF THE MONTH "The brands that will be big in the future will be those that tap into the social changes that are taking place" - Michael Perry, Chairman, Centrica Plc. ------------------------------------------------------------ : LOVE IT? THEN SHARE IT Do you know someone whose brain is not being fully exercised? Someone that is snacking on media that isn't terribly satisfying. Floss their brain and brighten up their day with a copy of brainmail in their inbox - forward this to a friend. ------------------------------------------------------------ : SUBSCRIBE TO BRAINMAIL Brainmail is a free monthly newsletter about new ideas, innovations and trends. To subscribe or unsubscribe visit the website at http://brainmail.nowandnext.com ------------------------------------------------------------