ICYMI: The death-proof car, rat gambling addiction and more
Rolling the dice to lights and music either makes you an addict or insane.
Today on In Case You Missed It: Volvo just pledged to build a 'deathproof' automobile by 2020 that will include adaptive cruise control and pedestrian detection. By 'deathproof,' it means unless you are crazy stupid (ie: Go flying off the Golden Gate Bridge in it), you won't be able to die in one of the company's cars.
Speaking of car stunts, VW punked us all with a video of a prototype autonomous stroller that followed a dad as he went for a walk around the neighborhood. Little did the car company know, makers were on it themselves, with the Smartbe Intelligent Stroller. For $3,000 this thing follows parents with motion control sensing and even has cruise control and a climate control system.
Meanwhile Canadian researchers are studying what creates gambling addiction by playing with the emotions of rats. First, the team taught them how to avoid risky gambling decisions for a treat, which the rats grasped easily. Then the scientists added music and bright lights to the gambling game and turned the rodents into addicts in no time, just with that casino-level stimulus.
if you have some extra time, we recommend the story about the German Aerospace Center landing a UAV on a roof of a car, traveling about 47 miles per hour.
Please share any interesting science or tech videos, anytime! Just tweet us with the #ICYMI hashtag to @mskerryd.
