Science 2.0

Letting Teachers Also Handle Social And Emotional Skills Can Lead To Academic Gains - Study

News Staff — Sun, 09 Mar 2014 15:58:22 +0000

Decades ago, when the Outcome Based Education movement was trying to take hold, educators who were already overburdened did not want to be saddles with managing social and emotional development of diverse classrooms and the competing goals of parents.

Parents agreed that turning over the social development of children to school districts was a bad idea but a new paper says that classroom programs designed to improve elementary school students' social and emotional skills also increase reading and math achievement, even if academic improvement is not a direct goal of the skills building. The benefit holds true for students across a range of socio-economic backgrounds, they say.

Why Soil Changes Color In Air

News Staff — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 18:26:06 +0000

According to the results of a recent study, soil color changes in the atmosphere basically through the oxidation of chemical substances in the soil. The fundamental mechanism is the remodeling effect of micro-structures because of motion effects and chemical reactions of the water–soil–electrolyte–atmosphere system leading to the coupling and transforming of soil particles. The above provides a theoretical foundation for the assessment and forecast of the stability of the geotechnical environment.

Offshore Dispersant Data And Decisions

News Staff — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 18:26:02 +0000

COLUMBIA, S.C. — Dispersants are often used in oil spill responses because they may mitigate the environmental impacts of the spill by moving the oil from the water surface into the water column enhancing its biodegradation. While this process helps reduce the likelihood of oil exposure to marine wildlife such as seabirds and marine mammals, aquatic toxicity on marine communities from the dispersant and the chemically dispersed oil needs to be considered more carefully.

Spectroscopy Science: Did You Really Buy A Priceless Work Of Art?

News Staff — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 17:30:24 +0000

Collectors,museums and art dealers face a lot of problems determining origin, authenticity and discovery of forgery of artwork. Experts are easily fooled - but science, not so much.

They get help through the application of modern, non-destructive, "hi-tech" techniques. Spectroscopy is a technique that has been useful in the fight against art fraud because it can determine chemical composition of pigments and binders, which is essential information in the hands of an art specialist in revealing fakes. As described in a recent paper, "…according to the FBI, the value of art fraud, forgery and theft is up to $6 billion per year, which makes it the third most lucrative crime in the world after drug trafficking and the illegal weapons trade."

We Think About Illness Differently Than Our Ancestors, Thanks To The Internet

News Staff — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 17:21:16 +0000

If you feel ill, chances are you go to the Internet before you see a doctor. Most Americans have seen dramatic rises in health care premiums thanks to new government mandates and penalties, but the cultural groundwork to visit doctors less was laid a decade ago in most developed nations.

Professor Sue Ziebland, Director of the Health Experiences Research Grou at the University of Oxford, share findings with health practitioners and researchers at the South West Society for Academic Primary Care (SW SAPC) meeting at the University of Bristol on Thursday.

Love Or Kill Thy Neighbor? New Study Into Animal Social Behavior

News Staff — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 17:16:10 +0000

A theoretical study led by the University of Exeter has shed new light on the conditions that lead to the evolution of spite or altruism in structured populations.

Understanding the way in which social behaviours such as altruism – when animals benefit others at their own expense – develop is a long-standing problem that has generated thousands of articles and heated debates.

Dr Florence Débarre of Biosciences at the University of Exeter led a study, published today in Nature Communications, which presents a comprehensive framework that applies to a large class of population structures and identifies the crucial elements which support the evolution of social behaviour.

Energy Drinks Linked To Teen Health Risks

News Staff — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 17:16:00 +0000

The uplifting effects of energy drinks are well advertised, but a new report finds consumption among teenagers may be linked with poor mental health and substance use.

Researchers are calling for limits on teen's access to the drinks and reduction in the amount of the caffeine in each can.

The paper by researchers at the University of Waterloo and Dalhousie University, published in Preventive Medicine, found that high school students prone to depression as well as those who are smoke marijuana or drink alcohol are more likely to consume energy drinks than their peers.

Are You Smarter Than A 5-year-old? Preschoolers Can Do Algebra

News Staff — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 16:02:49 +0000

Millions of high school and college algebra students are united in a shared agony over solving for x and y, and for those to whom the answers don't come easily, it gets worse: Most preschoolers and kindergarteners can do some algebra before even entering a math class.

In a recently published study in the journal Developmental Science, lead author and post-doctoral fellow Melissa Kibbe and Lisa Feigenson, associate professor of psychological and brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University's Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, find that most preschoolers and kindergarteners, or children between 4 and 6, can do basic algebra naturally.

Crystals Ripple In Response To Light

News Staff — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 16:02:42 +0000

Light can trigger coordinated, wavelike motions of atoms in atom-thin layers of crystal, scientists have shown. The waves, called phonon polaritons, are far shorter than light waves and can be "tuned" to particular frequencies and amplitudes by varying the number of layers of crystal, they report in the early online edition of Science March 7.

These properties - observed in this class of material for the first time - open the possibility of using polaritons to convey information in tight spaces, create images at far finer resolution than is possible with light, and manage the flow of heat in nanoscale devices.

Plasma Plumes Help Shield Earth From Damaging Solar Storms

News Staff — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 16:02:38 +0000

The Earth's magnetic field, or magnetosphere, stretches from the planet's core out into space, where it meets the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the sun. For the most part, the magnetosphere acts as a shield to protect the Earth from this high-energy solar activity.

But when this field comes into contact with the sun's magnetic field — a process called "magnetic reconnection" — powerful electrical currents from the sun can stream into Earth's atmosphere, whipping up geomagnetic storms and space weather phenomena that can affect high-altitude aircraft, as well as astronauts on the International Space Station.

Warmer Temperatures Fuel Spread Of Malaria Into Higher Elevations

News Staff — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 16:02:30 +0000

In the tropical highlands of South America and East Africa, cool temperatures have historically kept mosquito-borne diseases, such as malaria, at bay. New research by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) scientists shows that as annual temperatures rise in these areas, malaria can spread to populations in higher elevations that had historically not been at as much risk of being infected by malaria parasites.

Top Asymmetry: The Latest From DZERO

Tommaso Dorigo — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 14:21:30 +0000

It is nice to see that the Tevatron experiments are continuing to produce excellent scientific measurements well after the demise of the detectors. Of course the CDF and DZERO collaborations have shrunk in size and in available man-years for data analysis since the end of data taking, as most researchers have increased and gradually maxed their participations to
other experiments - typically the ones at the Large Hadro Collider; but a hard core of dedicated physicists remains actively involved in the analysis of the 10 inverse femtobarns of proton-antiproton collisions acquired in Run 2, in the conviction that the Tevatron data still provides a basis for scientific results that cannot be obtained elsewhere.

Oxadiazoles: New Class Of Antibiotics Discovered

News Staff — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 21:43:35 +0000

A team of researchers led by Mayland Chang and Shahriar Mobashery have discovered a new class of antibiotics to fight bacteria such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and other drug-resistant bacteria that threaten public health.

New Theory On Cause Of Endometriosis

News Staff — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 21:41:01 +0000

Changes to two previously unstudied genes are the centerpiece of a new theory regarding the cause and development of endometriosis, a chronic and painful disease affecting 1 in 10 women.

The discovery by Northwestern Medicine scientists suggests epigenetic modification, a process that enhances or disrupts how DNA is read, is an integral component of the disease and its progression. Matthew Dyson, research assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and and Serdar Bulun, MD, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Feinberg and Northwestern Memorial Hospital, also identified a novel role for a family of key gene regulators in the uterus.

The Dark Side Of Fair Play

News Staff — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 21:40:58 +0000

We often think of playing fair as an altruistic behavior. We're sacrificing our own potential gain to give others what they deserve. What could be more selfless than that? But new research from Northeastern University assistant professor of philosophy Rory Smead suggests another, darker origin behind the kindly act of fairness.

Service Is Key To Winery Sales

News Staff — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 21:40:54 +0000

ITHACA, N.Y. – To buy, or not to buy? That is the question for the more than 5 million annual visitors to New York's wineries. Cornell University researchers found that customer service is the most important factor in boosting tasting room sales, but sensory descriptions of what flavors consumers might detect were a turn-off.

The findings stem from two studies on how the tasting room experience affects customer purchases and what wineries can do to create satisfied sippers, published in the current issue of the International Journal of Wine Business Research.

Oh, What A Tangled Web The NSA Weaves

Steve Schuler — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 20:49:08 +0000

There’s a popular YouTube video featuring mathematician Edward Frenkel where he describes how the NSA hacked our emails. It is a backdoor into the National Institute of Standards and Technology public key encryption standards.

I’ll borrow an analogy for a simplified description of how public key encryption works from Simon Singh. Imagine a sturdy metal box that can be locked shut with a padlock.

Infants Using Known Verbs To Learn New Nouns

News Staff — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 17:28:33 +0000

EVANSTON, Ill. --- There is a lot that 19-month-old children can't do: They can't tie their shoes or get their mittens on the correct hands. But they can use words they do know to learn new ones.

New research from Northwestern University demonstrates that even before infants begin to talk in sentences, they are paying careful attention to the way a new word is used in conversations, and they learn new words from this information in sentences.

Epigenetic Changes Could Explain Type 2 Diabetes

News Staff — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 17:28:28 +0000

People with type 2 diabetes have epigenetic changes on their DNA that healthy individuals do not have. This has been shown in a major study by researchers at Lund University. The researchers also found epigenetic changes in a large number of genes that contribute to reduced insulin production.

"This shows that the risk of developing type 2 diabetes is not only genetic, but also epigenetic", said Charlotte Ling, who led the study.

Pre-term Birth And Asthma

News Staff — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 17:28:25 +0000

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) in Boston, Massachusetts, in collaboration with investigators at the Maastricht University Medical Centre and Maastricht University School of Public Health in the Netherlands and The University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom, have published findings strongly suggesting that preterm birth (prior to 37 weeks gestation) increases the risk of asthma and wheezing disorders during childhood and that the risk of developing these conditions increases as the degree of prematurity increases.

What You're Doing Affects Perception Of Earthquake Intensity More Than Where You're At

News Staff — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 13:51:03 +0000

While instruments an provide an objective measure of earthquake intensity, the intensity of ground motion is often anecdotal. How accurate and reliable are public perceptions?

A new study in Seismological Research Letters suggests that a person's activity at the time of the quake influences their perception of shaking more than their location. So whether a person is at rest or walking plays a greater role in their perception of ground motion than whether they were asleep on the first or sixth floor of a building.

People in motion had the worst perception.

Birds Display Lateralization Bias When Selecting Flight Paths

News Staff — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 01:15:40 +0000

Flocks of birds manage to navigate through difficult environments by individuals having predispositions to favour the left- or right-hand side, according to research published in PLOS Computational Biology this week.

Scientists at The University of Queensland's Queensland Brain Institute (QBI) and the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Vision Science found that budgerigars display individual bias to fly to the left or right. This allows flocks to quickly navigate past obstacles by being able to split and not slow down due to crowding.

Dr Partha Bhagavatula, the study's first author, says:

Fighting For Survival In The Gut: Unravelling The Hidden Variation Of Bacteria

News Staff — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 01:15:32 +0000

This news release is available in Portuguese.

Our intestines harbour an astronomical number of bacteria, around 100 times the number of cells in our body, known as the gut microbiota. These bacteria belong to thousands of species that co-exist, interact with each other and are key to our health. While it is clear that species imbalances may result in disease, it is unclear at what pace does each species in the gut evolves, a process that contributes to the chance of a particular innocuous species becoming harmful to the host.

Beta Pictoris: Icy Debris Suggests 'Shepherd' Planet

News Staff — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 21:40:42 +0000

A vast belt of carbon monoxide located at the fringes of the Beta Pictoris system is concentrated in a single clump located about 8 billion miles from the star, or nearly three times the distance between the planet Neptune and our sun.

The total amount of CO observed exceeds 200 million billion tons, equivalent to about one-sixth the mass of Earth's oceans.

The presence of all this gas is interesting because ultraviolet starlight breaks up CO molecules in about 100 years, much faster than the main cloud can complete a single orbit around the star.

Soundscapes: Training Blind People To See Shapes Using Sound

News Staff — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 21:34:37 +0000

People born unable to see are readily capable of learning to perceive the shape of the human body through soundscapes that translate images into sound, according to a new article in Current Biology.

With a little training, soundscapes representing the outlines and silhouettes of bodies cause the brain's visual cortex—and specifically an area dedicated in normally sighted people to processing body shapes—to light up with activity.

With no more than 70 hours of training on average, study participants could recognize the presence of a human form. What's more, they were able to detect the exact posture of the person in the image and imitate it.

Iron Deficiency Does Not Cause People To Become Vegans

Hank Campbell — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 21:29:08 +0000

Statisticians have a rule of thumb for calibrating claims made in humanities and science papers alike. Andrew Gelman, for example, talks about statistical significance filter - "If an estimate is statistically significant, it’s probably an overestimate."

A good thing to remember when you read weak observational studies, psychology surveys and, in modern times, a shocking number of epidemiology papers.

For health, you can use a different rule of thumb: Does Joe Mercola sell it?

If he does, it is probably suspect.

Why Are Women So Uncooperative?

Curt Rice — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 17:18:44 +0000

Female professors are less cooperative than men, which is exactly what we would expect from watching the behavior of men and women in groups. That is the claim recently published in a letter to Current Biology.

Or, at least that’s the tabloid version of the letter. For example, here on Science 2.0, the article reads as follows.

Will Eating Red And Processed Meat Lead To Cancer? The Science Answer

News Staff — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 16:39:18 +0000

Some recent claims have warned about a link between eating red and processed meat and the risk of developing cancer. While vegetarians unleashed their confirmation bias in full force, they were happy to ignore the uncertainties in the evidence.

As often happens, concerns about reports, rather than data, lead to action and there have been called for new nutritional recommendations cautioning people to limit their intake of red and processed meats. A recent review in Meat Science examines the evidence and seeks to improve the foundation for future recommendations on the intake of red meat.

Asteroid P/2013 R3 Is Mysteriously Disintegrating

News Staff — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 16:07:04 +0000

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured a never-before-seen break-up of an asteroid, P/2013 R3, which has fragmented into as many as ten smaller pieces.

Although fragile comet nuclei have been seen to fall apart as they approach the Sun, nothing like the breakup of P/2013 R3 has ever been observed before in the asteroid belt.

Tiger Mom Backlash? Asians Without Academic Success May Be Shunned

News Staff — Thu, 06 Mar 2014 16:04:42 +0000

In the War On Smart Kids Department, tiger mom mentalities may cause ethnic outcasts, say sociologists.

Smart Asian kids will be shunned for being too smart? of course not. Instead, the scholars argue, the children who don't achieve might be. Sociologists Jennifer Lee of UC Irvine Min Zhou of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore detail in Race and Social Problems their weak observational study based on a small sample to make their headline-grabbing conclusion.

The data was surveys of 82 adult children of Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants, who were randomly selected from the survey of Immigration and Intergenerational Mobility in Metropolitan Los Angeles.