Welcome to Weekend Links, a collection of fascinating science stories from across the web, curated by your science-loving friends at the Mass General Research Institute.
This is the Very Fattest Bear in Katmai National Park
Brian Resnick writing for Vox
Katmai National Park & Preserve in Alaska wanted the public to weigh in on a very important question: Which of the park’s fat brown bears has gotten the fattest after a summer of nearly nonstop gorging on salmon? Was it Bear 747, who this year truly represented the jet which shares his name?
The Power of a Hug Can Help You Cope with Conflict
Lisa A. Williams writing for The Conversation
Hugs are considered a form of affectionate touch. Hugs occur between social partners of all types, and sometimes even strangers. New research from the United States, published today in PLOS, now shows hugs can help us to cope with conflict in our daily life.
This Ultrasound Patch Monitors Blood Pressure in Deep Arteries
Emily Matchar writing for Smithsonian.com
If you want to monitor the blood pressure in someone’s arm, just slap on a blood pressure cuff. But if you want to measure blood pressure inside someone’s heart or lungs, that’s much more complicated. Now, a team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) has developed a wearable ultrasound patch they say can non-invasively monitor blood pressure in arteries far beneath the skin.
Ancient Proteins From Unwashed Dishes Reveal the Diets of a Lost Civilization
Lorraine Boissoneault writing for Smithsonian.com
Calcified deposits were found in the ceramic vessels but nowhere else. If those deposits showed up on other objects, like bones or human-made tools, they would likely have been a product of the environment where they were buried. But deposits found exclusively on the inside of the ceramics pointed to another explanation.
With New Technology, Mind Control is No Longer Science-Fiction
Lily Toomey writing for Massive Science
A brain-to-brain interface records the signals in one person’s brain, and then sends these signals through a computer in order to transmit them into the brain of another person. This process allows the second person to “read” the mind of the first or, in other words, have their brain fire in a similar pattern to the original person.
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