In a not-so-startling discovery, scientists have supposedly demonstrated that yawning is contagious, especially between "self-aware or empathic people". The referenced author is perhaps taking things a bit far with the article's title. While I don't doubt yawning is indeed contagious, I question the study's findings; I catch yawns regularly, yet am described by many as the most empathically dimwitted person they've ever met. At any rate, aren't self-awareness and empathy mutually exclusive?

It also seems we're one step closer to a quantum computer. Physicists in the United States have managed to successfully create a logic gate constructed from excitons (electron-hole pairs). Excitons form when electrons are excited into higher energy levels (valence shells), leaving behind a positively charged 'hole' (of sorts) in the lower energy level, which is then combined with the electron.

By manipulating the four exciton energy states, scientists have been able to create a crude "quantum-dot" system which behaves like a conventional NOT gate. It uses qubits (quantum particles which can either be 0, 1, or both), the values of which are opposite one another at any given time.

Optometerists everywhere will be up in arms about the latest achievement of those doggedly persistent empirical clowns and their new-fangled technological breakthroughs. It seems that reading glasses to correct old-age myopia may become a thing of the past, joining such fabled accessories as type-writers, bowler hats, and bicycles. Good news for the 40-somethings, but what of us youthful folks who have had our eyesight ruined by staring at poor quality computer monitors for 8 hours each day? I smell a class action...