Two experiments (N=136) studied how 4- to 6-month-olds perceive a simple schematic event, seen as goal-directed action and reaction from 3 years of age. In our causal reaction event, a red square moved toward a blue square, stopping prior to contact. Blue began to move away before red stopped, so that both briefly moved simultaneously at a distance. Primarily, our study sought to determine from...

This study investigated infants' ability to use facial expressions to predict the expressers' subsequent cooperative behavior. To explore this problem, Experiment 1 tested 10- and 14-month-olds (N = 16, respectively) by using a violation-of-expectation procedure. In the experiment, all infants were first familiarized with two models, one with a happy facial expression and the other with an angr...

In 3 experiments, the authors examined whether a single act of testimony can inform children's subsequent information seeking. In Experiment 1, participants saw one informant give a correct and another informant give an incorrect answer to a question, assessed who was right (wrong), and decided to whom to address a 2nd question. Adults and 7-year-olds but not 4-year-olds selected the previously...

In this Commentary, we discuss the paper Quantitative Determination of Size and Shape of Surface-Bound DNA Using an Acoustic Wave Sensor [Tsortos et al., Biophys. J. 94(7), 2706-2715 (2008)]. The paper under discussion presents a novel theory that uses the response of a Shear-Horizontal Surface Acoustic Wave device to characterize surface-attached double- and triple-strand DNA. The authors rela...

In a travelling wave thermoacoustic device, the regenerator sandwiched between a pair of (hot and cold) heat exchangers constitutes the so-called thermoacoustic core, where the thermoacoustic energy conversion from heat to acoustic power takes place. The temperature gradient along the regenerator caused by the two heat exchangers excites and maintains the acoustic wave in the resonator. The dev...

Introduction: Microbubbles are widely used as contrast agent in diagnostic ultrasound. Recently they have shown good potential for applications in the therapeutic field such as drug delivery to the brain. Recent studies have shown focused ultrasound in conjunction with injected micro-bubbles could temporarily disrupt blood-brain barrier and let therapeutic agents transport into...

Within a time span of 15 years, acoustic metamaterials have emerged from academic curiosity to become an active field driven by scientific discoveries and diverse application potentials. This review traces the development of acoustic metamaterials from the initial findings of mass density and bulk modulus frequency dispersions in locally resonant structures to the diverse functionalities afford...

We experimentally investigate the acoustic characteristic of micro plasma shock wave obtained by femtosecond laser ablation of silicon wafer surface using F-P optical fiber acoustic sensor with anti electromagnetic interference. The experimental results show that each of the femtosecond laser pulse can only produce a plasma shock wave. Under the different femtosecond laser energy, the acoustic ...