In a previous
entry, I discussed Sharon Begley’s Newsweek article titled “Ignoring the Evidence; Why do psychologists reject science?”
It nettled a perennial sore spot for me, which is the culture of Psychology and the role Psychology
plays in the family of sciences. An issue I often wrestle with is the widely held disbelief in the merit of a psychological science. Some of this animosity is of course well earned.
There is a common misconception when assessing computers in suggesting that parallel processing increases speed. This simply isn't true.
Parallel processing is intended to increase throughput by addressing queuing delays that may be experienced by "ready" units of work that are waiting for access to the processor. Each processor is essentially a hardware server for instructions to be processed. In modern computers there are actually multiple points of parallelism and overlap processing, but the primary point is to avoid delays.
If you think choosing a candy bar or a granola bar is totally a matter of free will, think again. A new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research argues that the choices we make to indulge ourselves or exercise self-control depend on how the choices are presented.
University of Miami Assistant professor of marketing Juliano Laran tested subjects to determine how certain words and concepts affected their ability to control themselves when confronted with the choice of healthy or unhealthy food. He found that consumer choices were affected by the actions most recently suggested to them by certain key words.
For many years, so called 'junk RNA' was thought to be nothing more than cellular trash. Recent research, however, has called this view into question as scientists have discovered the importance of some small RNAs that generally contain more than 20 molecular units called nucleotides.
The CDC has released 3.4 million doses of the H1N1,or swine flu,vaccine, which will be distributed throughout the 50 states. More than 251 million doses of the vaccine will be administered to patients throughout flu season.
Although the panic factor surrounding the potential threat of a swine flu pandemic is
high, lethal cases of H1N1 have been relatively low. Out of the almost 30,000 cases of swine flu that have been reported, most cases are mild. As of early September 127 people in the U.S. had died of swine flu. Pat El-Hinnawy, H1N1 Public Affairs Specialist for the FDA, says "So far, [the H1N1 virus] has not shown a very high virulence or a very high mutation rate. For most of the people who get it, it's not a very severe set of symptoms."
The Naval Research Laboratory's Ion Tiger has set an unofficial record for flight endurance by a hydrogen-powered fuel cell unmanned air vehicle, staying out for 23 hours and 17 minutes. The test flight took place on October 9th through 10th at Aberdeen Proving Ground. The Ion Tiger fuel cell development system team is led by NRL and includes Protonex Technology Corporation, the University of Hawaii, and HyperComp Engineering.
The electric fuel cell propulsion system onboard the Ion Tiger has the low noise and signature of a battery-powered UAV, while taking advantage of hydrogen, a high-energy fuel. Fuel cells create an electrical current when they convert hydrogen and oxygen into water, with only water and heat as byproducts.
Americans, but in general scientists, and science-lovers of any country, should be proud of the achievements of the Tevatron collider, the 2-TeV proton-antiproton collider build over a quarter of a century ago under the prairie of Batavia (IL), and which is still the world's most powerful, and may I say successful, particle accelerator ever built by humans.
Researchers from the University of Gothenburg say they have discovered a new cancer gene related to adenoid cystic carcinoma, a slow-growing but deadly form of cancer. The research group can now show that the gene is found in 100% of these tumors, which means that a genetic test can easily be used to make a correct diagnosis.
The newly discovered cancer gene is what is known as a fusion gene, created when two healthy genes join together as a result of a chromosome change.
Parts of our genetic programs that determine programmed cell death in plants and animals are actually evolutionarily related and function in a similar way, according to an article in Nature Cell Biology.
Research has previously believed that animals and plants developed different genetic programs for cell death.
Children in english-speaking, letter-driven languages are diagnosed with dyslexia more commonly than those in Asia so is it a function of our alphabet?
English dyslexia consists of a 'phonological disorder', meaning that people with the condition have trouble detecting or manipulating the sound structure of oral language, which in turn leads to problems in mapping speech sounds onto letters
Chinese-speaking children get a form of dyslexia but the disorder is distinctly different, and perhaps more complicated and severe, than that of English speakers. Those differences can even be seen in the brain and in the performance of Chinese children on visual and oral language tasks, according to a report in Current Biology.
