NASA tests laser communications by sending Mona Lisa to space

A new experiment by NASA proving the effectiveness of laser communications has raised the prospect that beam technology could one day replace radio. That’s after NASA scientists successfully beamed an image of the Mona Lisa to the moon.
­NASA scientists usually use lasers to track the position of its Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) – the robotic spacecraft that creates gravitational maps of the moon. It collects the information then transmits it back to earth at a rate of 50 Mbs.
Then NASA scientists had the bright idea of reversing the flow by beaming an image of the Mona Lisa to the LRO using lasers.

Learning foreign languages triggers brain growth

In the Swedish Academy of young translators, new recruits study a crash course in complex languages. It is not only about military discipline: specialists discovered that intensive study of foreign tongues stimulates the growth of the hippocampus and causes changes in other structures of the brain. Learning languages also helps in preventing Alzheimer's disease.

In the Swedish Academy, young people are offered to study Arabic, Russian or Dari (the language of the Afghan Tajiks) in 13 months. Newcomers had to learn the language all day long, every day, at a very intense pace. Their hard work gave unexpectedly impressive results. The experiment showed that it was not just active intellectual activity, but the study of foreign tongues. Researchers used a group of students of the Medical University of Umeå to control the research. Medics are known for their extensive studies, but the subject of their studies has nothing in common with foreign languages. Both groups took MRI tests before the experiment and after three months of active studies.