Latest news with #research
The Drive
2 hours ago
- Automotive
- The Drive
A Shocking Amount of People Say Car Cupholders Are ‘Difficult to Use'
The consumer insight researchers at J.D. Power and Associates run an annual Initial Quality Survey (IQS) on new car buyers. It yields a comparative list of how satisfied people are with new cars from all of our market's major brands. It also exposes features and trends that buyers like and don't. And this year, one of the biggest jumps in car-owner complaints was about cupholders. J.D. Power's IQS press release lays it out like this: 'While it seemed like manufacturers had cupholders figured out, given that owners are now bringing more reusable containers into their vehicles, manufacturers are struggling to keep up with being able to accommodate all the different shapes and sizes that are increasingly available. Consequently, owners are again citing more problems in this area, with the expectation that their vehicle should be able to hold different sizes of containers.' I got some more context for us on that from Frank Hanley, J.D. Power's Senior Director, Auto Benchmarking. 'When looking at the top 10 problems for the [industry] 'cupholders – difficult to use' went from being the [seventh] most problematic issue for the vehicle to the [third] most reported this year,' he explained over email. Third-most-problematic sounds high, no? Elaborating, Hanley added [sic]: 'In the survey we ask owners about 227 specific areas where they can report issues with their vehicles across 10 categories. Owners also have the ability to write in any problems that are not listed. Cup holders this year was the 3rd most reported of those 227 items.' 'Everything a customer does mark a problem we ask additional follow up questions that pertain to the issue including having them write in a comment. When reading these comments it was clear that more customers are complaining about the cup holders not being able to hold the larger cup sizes being brought into the vehicles well like Yetis and Stanley mugs. The larger cups are also intruding on access to other areas in the center tunnel like storage spaces and controls in the center stack depending on the positioning of the cup holders.' As a lover of both old cars and giant coffee cups, I feel this pain deeply. Driving my 20-year-old manual-shift BMW with a drink in the center console is equally hilarious and annoying. But I'm a little surprised people are having this issue with new cars—a lot of the press loaners I'm in seem to accommodate cups well enough. Or, maybe, is it possible that I just don't have a big enough coffee cup? It's funny to think of product planners at car companies trying to track the next trend in travel mugs as they spec out center console cupholder designs. I remember talking to somebody at a German automaker years ago, with a question along the lines of 'why aren't the cupholders bigger,' and his frustration at the concept of cupholders at all was not well hidden. He said something like, 'Why do you need to drink while you drive? Just stop at a cafe.' Trust, if I could spend my days sipping cappuccinos at roadside rest stops in Europe, that's exactly where I'd be writing this from right now. But here in America, I have to drive 100 miles through the mud, uphill both ways, just to get my groceries. And I'm not about to sit anywhere for that long without a little coffee to suck on, goshdang it. Jokes aside, I very much do like to sip a beverage while cruising, and a good cupholder does go a long way in interior ergonomics. So while it does sound silly that so many people would complain about something as trivial as beverage storage, I kind of get it. And I guess it's good news that one of America's biggest issues with their new cars could be solved by simply switching to a smaller cup? As for automakers trying to keep up with cup trends, here's a free pitch: Cupholder adapters.
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Rocks in Canada's Quebec province found to be the oldest on Earth
By Will Dunham (Reuters) -Along the eastern shore of Hudson Bay in Canada's northeastern province of Quebec, near the Inuit municipality of Inukjuak, resides a belt of volcanic rock that displays a blend of dark and light green colors, with flecks of pink and black. New testing shows that these are Earth's oldest-known rocks. Two different testing methods found that rocks from an area called the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt in northern Quebec date to 4.16 billion years ago, a time known as the Hadean eon. The eon is named after the ancient Greek god of the underworld, Hades, owing to the hellish landscape thought to have existed then on Earth. The research indicates that the Nuvvuagittuq Greenstone Belt harbors surviving fragments of Earth's oldest crust, the planet's outermost solid shell. The Nuvvuagittuq rocks are mainly metamorphosed volcanic rocks of basaltic composition. Metamorphosed rock is a kind that has been changed by heat and pressure over time. Basalt is a common type of volcanic rock. The rocks tested in the new study were called intrusions. That means they formed when magma - molten rock - penetrated existing rock layers and then cooled and solidified underground. The researchers applied two dating methods based on an analysis of the radioactive decay of the elements samarium and neodymium contained in them. Both produced the same conclusion - that the rocks were 4.16 billion years old. Future chemical analyses of these rocks could provide insight into Earth's conditions during the Hadean, a time shrouded in mystery because of the paucity of physical remains. "These rocks and the Nuvvuagittuq belt being the only rock record from the Hadean, they offer a unique window into our planet's earliest time to better understand how the first crust formed on Earth and what were the geodynamic processes involved," said University of Ottawa geology professor Jonathan O'Neil, who led the study published on Thursday in the journal Science. The rocks may have formed when rain fell on molten rock, cooling and solidifying it. That rain would have been composed of water evaporated from Earth's primordial seas. "Since some of these rocks were also formed from precipitation from the ancient seawater, they can shed light on the first oceans' composition, temperatures and help establish the environment where life could have begun on Earth," O'Neil said. Until now, the oldest-known rocks were ones dating to about 4.03 billion years ago from Canada's Northwest Territories, O'Neil said. While the Nuvvuagittuq samples are now the oldest-known rocks, tiny crystals of the mineral zircon from western Australia have been dated to 4.4 billion years old. The Hadean ran from Earth's formation roughly 4.5 billion years ago until 4.03 billion years ago. Early during this eon, a huge collision occurred that is believed to have resulted in the formation of the moon. But by the time the Nuvvuagittuq rocks formed, Earth had begun to become a more recognizable place. "The Earth was certainly not a big ball of molten lava during the entire Hadean eon, as its name would suggest. By nearly 4.4 billion years ago, a rocky crust already existed on Earth, likely mostly basaltic and covered with shallow and warmer oceans. An atmosphere was present, but different than the present-day atmosphere," O'Neil said. There had been some controversy over the age of Nuvvuagittuq rocks. As reported in a study published in 2008, previous tests on samples from the volcanic rock layers that contained the intrusions yielded conflicting dates - one giving an age of 4.3 billion years and another giving a younger age of 3.3 to 3.8 billion years. O'Neil said the discrepancy may have been because the method that produced the conclusion of a younger age was sensitive to thermal events that have occurred since the rock formed, skewing the finding. The new study, with two testing methods producing harmonious conclusions on the age of the intrusion rocks, provides a minimum age for the volcanic rocks that contain these intrusions, O'Neil added. "The intrusion would be 4.16 billion years old, and because the volcanic rocks must be older, their best age would be 4.3 billion years old, as supported by the 2008 study," O'Neil said.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Is Using ChatGPT to Write Your Essay Bad for Your Brain?
TIME reporter Andrew Chow discussed the findings of a new study about how ChatGPT affects critical thinking with Nataliya Kosymyna. Kosymyna was part of a team of researchers at MIT's Media Lab who set out to determine whether ChatGPT and large language models (LLMs) are eroding critical thinking, and the study returned some concerning results. The study divided 54 subjects into three groups, and asked them to write several essays using OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google's search engine, and nothing at all, respectively. Researchers used an EEG to record the writers' brain activity. What they found was that of the three groups, the ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic and behavioral levels. Over the course of several months, the ChatGPT users got lazier with each subsequent essay, often resorting to copy and paste. Contact us at letters@
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Earth's Rotation Is Speeding up This Summer—but Just for 3 Days
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story: Although the Earth completes one full rotation in 86,400 seconds on average, that spin fluctuates by a millisecond or two every day. Before 2020, the Earth never experienced a day shorter than the average by much more than a millisecond, but in the past five years, it's been more likely to see days during the summer than are nearly half-a-millisecond shorter than pre-2020s levels. In 2025, the Earth will continue this trend, and scientists predict that three days—July 9, July 22, and August 5—could be atypically short compared to historical averages. While many of the astronomical truths of existence feel like immutable facts compared to our relatively puny lifespans, the movement of the heavens is constantly changing and evolving. Take the Earth's rotation, for example. During the Mesozoic, dinosaurs actually experienced 23 hours days, and as early as the Bronze Age, the average day was 0.47 seconds shorter. 200 million years from now, a standard Earth day will actually be 25 hours long (and it remains to be seen whether or not humans will still complain about there not being enough hours in the day). While the Earth's rotation changes over cosmic timescales, it also fluctuates on daily ones. We all know that a day lasts 24 hours, or 86,400 seconds, but that's not perfectly accurate. Earthquakes, volcanoes, tidal forces, subterranean geology, and many other mechanisms can cause the planet's rotation to slow down or speed up, and those micro-adjustments can trend over time. Although Earth's overall rotational trend is to slow down, since 2020, scientists have noticed—thanks to the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service (IERS) at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington D.C.—that Earth's rotation is speeding up. So much so, in fact, that experts expect we'll need to subtract a leap second for the first time ever in 2029. A new report from claims that this fast-rotating trend won't be slowing down in 2025, either. According to IERS data, the three shortest days (mathematically speaking) this year will be July 9, July 22, and August 5. These are the dates when the Moon will be furthest from the equator, which will impact the speed of Earth's rotation. Current predictions place the shortest day, August 5, at roughly 1.51 milliseconds shorter than average. That doesn't quite beat out the recent record holder—July 5, 2024, which clocked in at 1.66 milliseconds shorter than average—but it's still a full half-millisecond faster than when this rotational trend began in 2020 (and, technically, it could still break the record once scientists measure the actual rotation on the day). 'Nobody expected this,' Leonid Zotov, an Earth rotation expert from Moscow State University, told Zotov co-authored a study in 2022 analyzing the cause of Earth's recent rotational uptick. 'The cause of this acceleration is not explained […]. Most scientists believe it is something inside the Earth. Ocean and atmospheric models don't explain this huge acceleration.' Scientists will continue to study the reasons behind the Earth's rotational fluctuation, and we'll all endure at least one leap second skip before abandoning leap seconds completely by 2035. However, Zotov also tells that this acceleration is not a new trend. In other words, we're not traveling back toward back toward the Mesozoic in terms of rotation. The planet will eventually continue its steady deceleration—this is, of course, it's natural tendency, but surface changes like polar ice melt can also contribute to the Earth's rotation slowing down. The only constant is change. You Might Also Like The Do's and Don'ts of Using Painter's Tape The Best Portable BBQ Grills for Cooking Anywhere Can a Smart Watch Prolong Your Life?
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Science
- Yahoo
Orcas filmed making out in the wild for first time
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. For the first time ever, a pair of orcas have been spotted making out in the wild. The amorous pair was observed nibbling each other's tongues during a snorkeling expedition in the Kvænangen fjords in northern Norway, around 68 miles (109 kilometers) northeast of Tromsø, according to a new study published June 11 in the journal Oceans. This tongue-nibbling behavior has only previously been seen on a handful of occasions in captivity. The action, described as resembling "kissing" by the citizen scientists who observed it, may play a role in social bonding, the researchers suggest. The citizen scientists spotted and recorded this unique behavior during a whale-watching snorkeling expedition in October 2024. The interaction lasted just under two minutes and involved three bouts of gentle mouth-to-mouth contact between the two orcas (Orcinus orca). Afterward, the pair swam their separate ways. Tongue-nibbling was first seen in captive orcas in 1978 and was described again in 2019 at Loro Parque, a zoo in Tenerife, Spain that houses three captive orcas. The researchers spoke to a range of divers and other orca researchers regarding the behavior in the wild, but only a handful had ever spotted it. Trainers at Loro Parque noted that four individuals at the facility had been seen tongue-nibbling, but the orcas had not performed the behavior for several years. "Tongue-nibbling is exceptionally rare," study co-author Javier Almunia, a marine mammal researcher and director of Loro Parque Fundación, told Live Science via email. "Orca caretakers at several facilities are aware of the behaviour, but its prevalence is extremely low — it may appear and then not be observed again for several years." Mouth contact between animals is seen in a vast number of species and can represent a variety of different social cues. Many social animals use mouth contact to reinforce bonds, such as primates, who engage in kissing or lip-touching as a sign of trust and friendship. In dogs and wolves, mouth licking, especially from younger or subordinate individuals, can represent a sign of respect or submission to a higher-ranking individual. The researchers suggest that tongue-nibbling in orcas may be a form of social bonding, similar to that seen in belugas (Delphinapterus leucas), a type of toothed whale. "Tongue-nibbling itself has not been recorded in other species, but comparable mouth-related social interactions have been observed in belugas (e.g., mouth-to-mouth contact). This could suggest that, given cetacean anatomy — particularly the adaptation of limbs to the marine environment — oral contact may serve as a more versatile means of social communication than in terrestrial mammals," Almunia said. "This behaviour appears to serve affiliative purposes and may play a role in reinforcing social bonds or resolving conflicts, akin to grooming or reconciliation behaviours in other highly social species," he added. However, we cannot be certain of what exactly drove the orcas to exhibit this behavior without further research. "We can only speculate on the function and nobody can know for sure without data relating it to known social structures in the wild (in captivity the 'social structure' is completely artificial and therefore largely irrelevant for understanding social function in evolutionary terms)," said Luke Rendall, a marine mammal researcher at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. "It may be affiliative, it might be a form of begging, that is trying to stimulate food transfers, it might even be a form of grooming, somehow having a cleaning function," Rendall told Live Science. The researchers suggest in the paper that the observed tongue-nibbling could be a "trend" play behavior in the orcas, similar to positioning dead fish on their heads as hats, which was seen in one orca population. This observation of tongue-nibbling in the wild suggests that the behavior is not exclusive to captive animals and instead is found in a range of genetically distinct populations. "Observing the same behaviour in wild orcas confirms that this is a natural behaviour retained in orcas under human care. This continuity supports the idea that behavioural studies in zoological settings provide important insights into the ethology of wild populations," Almunia said. Related stories —Salmon-hat wearing orcas also give each other massages with kelp, scientists discover —'Incredible and rare' sight as endangered whale attacked by 60 orcas in brutal hunt —Grieving orca mom carries dead calf around on her head for a 2nd time However, not everyone is convinced by the argument that captive animals can give insights into natural behavior and suggest far more research is needed to understand this tongue-nibbling. "There's no quantification here — no attempt to calculate actual rates by doing the hard work of pulling together numbers such as the number of hours observed in the wild per observation of this behaviour, and the same for captivity," Rendall said. "Even if the behaviour itself is fascinating, and I think it is, we are limited on conclusions because it's just one observation, but it is telling that in their summing up these authors take great pains to try and explain how this observation justifies the activities of [orca captivity and swim-with-cetaceans programmes]. It does not, in my view."
