Bite Down to Change Songs

My least favorite part about the iPod is having to always stop running to pull it out to switch songs. The researchers at Osaka University must have had me in mind when they came up with a creative new way to control a music player- teeth. They’ve designed a piece of head gear that detects when the user is clenching their teeth, which can then be used to control a music device. Clenching on the left skips a song, while clenching on the right side makes a song start or stop. They say this dental technology could also be adapted for cell phones, slide presentations and wheelchairs. If it catches on, then temporomandibular joint disorder could be the new carpal tunnel.

Why Brad Pitt is hot

It’s commonplace for companies to use attractive people in their commercials; T-Mobile had Catherine Zeta-Jones, Coors Light had the Coors Twins and GEICO has those cavemen. What, you don’t think the cavemen are sexy? Actually, it turns out that ancient cavemen had facial structures like those of attractive men today. A group of researchers studied dozens of skulls from southern Africa and found that the males with a relatively small upper face (upper lip to brow) lived on in evolution and attracted the most mates. Ironically, this accompanied a decrease in the size of the canine teeth, so they looked less threatening. Among today’s men that fit the “hot caveman” facial structure: Kanye West, Brad Pitt, David Beckham and the granddaddy of the scrunched face, Will Smith.

Judge Not by the Color of One’s Skin

Martin Luther King Jr. once dreamed of a day when we wouldn’t judge people by the color of their skin, but I bet he never dreamed about the day when we would change the color of people’s skin. Scientists discovered skin cells called keratinocytes that can control how much pigment is present in a person’s skin. They think these cells can be manipulated to create more convincing cosmetics and skin grafts, making the new skin blend in well with a person’s original skin. Feel free to toss in any Michael Jackson joke you choose.

PLUS: Speedy T-Rexes and Why bees will help us live forever, all after the jump!

Who would win in a race?

I’ll admit, I was never all that scared of the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. I always figured I could just run away, so the velociraptors were more frightening to me. It turns out I was wrong about that; a new computer model shows that a T-Rex could outrun a human pretty handily. By going back through simulated bone structures and measuring the speeds of those animals, two researchers at the University of Manchester in England managed to create a workable computer model of a T-Rex running, which they raced against similar bipeds and showed just how slow humans really are.

Could Bees Help us Live Forever?

Bees seem to make a lot of appearances in these weekly wrap-ups, but this may be their biggest contribution yet; they might hold the secret to reversing old age. An Arizona State University researcher found that some worker bees, whose life expectancy is four to six weeks, end up getting a second lease on life after they care for the queen, resulting in a refreshed immune system and a life span ten times their original expectations. The key is a protein that gets released into their body, which reverses most symptoms of aging. The researchers are studying the protein for use in humans and say its not unreasonable to think that we might someday be able to increase our lifespan tenfold, too.