Getting 633 miles per gallon (on a bike)

Nicholas Goddard, a recent Duke grad, calculated how many miles he could ride on 31,000 calories (the amount of energy in a gallon of gasoline). While the measurements are a bit suspect (the sci-am podcast discusses the heart-rate monitor he used), just going on orders-of-magnitude, it sounds like we won't be too badly off if nuclear armageddon comes.

Bicycle.com article; Sci-am podcast; Author's blog

Distraction hinders learning

Using functional MRI, researchers studied children learning a new task. When the children were distracted, the fMRI showed that a different part of the brain was being used to remember the task being learned... rather than the more active part of the brain normally used, the part of the memory involved in habit learning was active instead.

WebMD; Chicago Sun Times, Russel Poldrack @ UCLA (the specific study)