One of the popular demonstrations of atmospheric pressure in introductory physics courses is the "crushing can" or "imploding can" experiment. In this demonstration, which has also been extensively discussed on the Internet, a small amount of water is placed in a soda can and heated until it boils and water vapor almost entirely fills the can. The…

On the answer page to a recent "Figuring Physics" question, the cute mouse asks another question: "Does the [sea] water level change if the iceberg melts?" The conventional answer is "no." However, in this paper I will show through a simple analysis involving Archimedes' principle that the sea level will rise. The analysis shows the wrong…

In a series of studies, we examined how mothers naturally stress words across multiple mentions in speech to their infants and how this marking influences infants' recognition of words in fluent speech. We first collected samples of mothers' infant-directed speech using a technique that induced multiple repetitions of target words. Acoustic…

Using the violation-of-expectancy method, we investigated 10-month-old infants' ability to rely on dynamic features in object individuation processes. Infants were first familiarized to events in which two different objects repeatedly appeared and disappeared, one at a time from behind a screen; at test, the screen was removed, revealing either…

The ability to quickly detect potential threat is an important survival mechanism for humans and other animals. Past research has established that adults have an attentional bias for the detection of threat-relevant stimuli, including snakes and spiders as well as angry human faces. Recent studies have documented that preschool children also…

I discuss some interesting classroom demonstrations of diamagnetism and how this effect can produce levitation. The possibilities for hands-on demonstrations of diamagnetic and superconducting levitation are discussed. To conclude I discuss some practical uses for levitation in daily life. (Contains 6 figures.)

Extinction is generally more fragile than conditioning, as illustrated by the contextual renewal effect. The traditional extinction procedure entails isolated presentations of the conditioned stimulus. Extinction may be boosted by adding isolated presentations of the unconditioned stimulus, as this should augment breaking the contingency between…

People cannot veridically perceive reflections of objects as projections on the surface of mirrors. People tried to locate an object's projection on a flat mirror. The observer stood at the opposite end of a long mirror to the experimenter. They were told to remember the location of the projection of the experimenter's face. The experimenter then…

While both conscious and unconscious reward cues enhance effort to work on a task, previous research also suggests that conscious rewards may additionally affect speed-accuracy tradeoffs. Based on this idea, two experiments explored whether reward cues that are presented above (supraliminal) or below (subliminal) the threshold of conscious…

This study investigates the properties of particles in Japanese from a pragmatic viewpoint. The main target of analysis is "wa" and "ga", which are regarded as a topic and nominative marker respectively. The research is based on the pragmatic theory proposed by Levinson (2000). This dissertation consists of three parts as…

This laboratory exercise uses a problem-based approach to expose students to some basic concepts relating to proteins and enzymes. One of the main applications of enzymes at the industrial level is their use in the detergent market. The students examine a detergent sample to ascertain whether proteolytic enzymes are a component and, if so, which…

The Josephson effect, the 50th anniversary of which will be celebrated in 2012, remains one of the most spectacular manifestations of quantum mechanics in all of experimental science. It was first predicted in 1962 and then experimentally verified in 1963. At its most fundamental level the Josephson effect is nothing more than the electronic…

It is shown that the well-known linear variation of p-n diode terminal voltage with temperature at different fixed forward currents allows easy and accurate determination of the semiconductor ideality factor and bandgap from only two data points. This is possible if the temperature difference required to maintain the same diode voltage drop can be…

Glass beads are placed in the compartments of a horizontal square grid. This grid is then vertically shaken. According to the reduced acceleration [image omitted] of the system, the granular material exhibits various behaviours. By counting the number of beads in each compartment after shaking, it is possible to define three regimes. At low…

In 2 experiments, 241 undergraduates with low domain knowledge viewed a tutorial on how to use Packet Tracer (PT), a computer-networking training simulation developed by the Cisco Networking Academy. Participants were then tested on retention of tutorial content and transfer using PT. Tutorial modality (text, narration, or narration plus text) was…