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Mining platinum along the sides of the highway

04.12.2012

Geologist Hazel Pritchard from Cardiff University (UK) argues that it makes sense to collect dust on the sides of busy highways and city streets. The dust accumulates particles of platinum flying out of the exhaust pipes of cars. This precious metal is used in mufflers as a catalyst to clean exhaust gases. There is reason to dig in roadside ditches, where platinum is carried down by rain streams.

In an average platinum deposit, its concentration is 3-6 grams per ton of ore, and concentrations of up to two grams per ton are found in road dust. The price of platinum now fluctuates between $45 and $50 per gram.

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While playing, the brains of parents and babies are synchronized 14.01.2020

During the game of babies aged 9-15 months and their parents, brain activity is synchronized. This happens in the prefrontal cortex. This is not observed between children and adults who simply sit side by side and read a book aloud, and synchronization itself seems to be at the heart of learning through communication.

The ability to communicate is formed in a person even in infancy: at a very early age, a child, for example, learns what will happen when he starts crying or screaming, and then he can use this as a way to get attention from a parent. Of course, this process is accompanied by the formation of strong neural connections, but this process itself has been studied only superficially.

Scientists led by Elise Piazza from Princeton University decided to test one key aspect of the formation of neural connections - the synchronization of brain activity during communication. Previously, researchers have shown that adult brain activity is synchronized during conversation, and in the new work, scientists decided to test whether the same thing happens during play - the main way of communication between infants and their parents.

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During the experiment, the children played toys with their parents, listened to how they read books and talk. The brain activity of the infants was compared with the activity of the brain of its parent, and in the control condition - with the experimenter, who, being next to the child, but not looking at him, read a book to another person.

It turned out that during the game between the activity of the brain of a child and a parent, there is more synchronization than between the brain of a child and an adult when he just reads a book to him and does not look at him. Activity correlated most in the prefrontal cortex, but also in the parietal zone. In addition, synchronization was higher if the child and adult were looking at the same object.

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