6:51 18 January 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Michael Day



A "smart" dashboard that reduces the amount of information displayed to drivers during stressful periods on the road could be available in just five years, say German engineers.
A team from the Technical University of Berlin found they could improve reaction times in real driving conditions by monitoring drivers' brains and reducing distractions during periods of high brain activity.

They were able to speed up driver's reactions by as much as 100 milliseconds. It might not sound much, but this is enough to reduce breaking distance by nearly 3 metres when travelling at 100 kilometres per hour, says team leader Klaus-Robert MŸller.
"In a real life situation this could be enough to prevent an accident or stop someone being injured, or worse," he says. "We now have the brain-interface technology to make this a reality."

---

Squirrels 'fake it' to fool would-be thieves
19 January 2008
Magazine issue 2639

Squirrels seem to realise that the trees have eyes. To protect their food from would-be thieves, the rodents put on a great show of "hiding" non-existent nuts.
When squirrels have spare morsels they bury them, digging a separate hole for each tasty titbit. But up to 20 per cent of the time they are merely faking it, says Michael Steele of Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The squirrels act as if they are thrusting something into the pit, and the deception even extends to covering the fake cache with soil and leaves (Animal Behaviour, DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2007.07.026).

Squirrels show fake-cacheing behaviour when they are being watched, even by humans, so Steele recruited a group of undergraduates who did their best to see where the squirrels actually deposited their food. Fake burials increased after the squirrels saw team members raiding their caches, suggesting, Steele says, an understanding of the intention .