Archaeologists have integrated textual evidence with archaeological research in order to further understand the impact of China's first emperor Qin Shihauangdi, responsible for initiating construction of the Great Wall. The result of their work, they say, is a more holistic view of China's first emperor and his influence on the eastern province of Shandong.

A report of their research is published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Shihuangdi first unified China in 221 BC but scholars have few details of his distant conquests or how they changed the path of local histories. Records show that in 219 BC the emperor visited Langya Mountain on the southeastern Shandong coast.

Glaciers, Drumlins and Ripple Moraine


A drumlin is an elongated, streamlined,  teardrop-shaped hill formed by glacial action. Its long axis is parallel with the presumed longitudinal flow of a former glacier, with the tail pointing away from the glacier foot.  Drumlins often occur in clusters - drumlin fields - with their long axes in approximate alignment.

Newspaper headlines report the total medal count as the most noteworthy measure of a country’s success in the recent Olympic games. The top three were the US with 37, Germany with 30 and Canada with 26. This can be misleading, because the numbers don’t take into account the very different resources available to athletes from different countries. It’s like comparing athletics at a university that has a well-funded sports program and 30,000 students to that of a small college with 2000 students and no sports budget at all.  

Iowa State University physicist Kerry Whisnant has developed a mathematical formula that he says predicts how well baseball teams will perform on the field.

The new formula is based on work of Bill James, the baseball author and statistician who inspired sabermetrics, the study of how statistics relate to success on the baseball diamond. James developed a basic formula, which has been tweaked over the years, that uses the number of runs scored per game (RPG) and runs given up per game to estimate a team's winning percentage.

According to a new study in the May issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, educational DVDs do not improve overall general language learning abilities Among 12- to 24-month old children, and manufacturers' claims that these infant-directed media can teach children specific vocabulary words have not been substantiated.

Researchers from Chungnam National University in Daejeon, South Korea say that increasing dissolved oxygen concentrations in alcohol may reduce drinking-related side effects and accidents. The Results will be published in Alcoholism: Clinical&Experimental Research.

Scientists performed three experiments with 49 healthy volunteers (30 men, 19 women), with a mean age of 27.2 years. Experiment one compared 8 ppm and 20 ppm dissolved oxygen concentrations in 240 ml of 19.5 percent alcoholic beverage. The second compared 8 ppm and 20 ppm dissolved oxygen concentrations in 360 ml of 19.5 percent alcoholic beverage. The final experiment compared 8 ppm and 25 ppm dissolved oxygen concentrations in 360 ml of 19.5 percent alcoholic beverage.

A survey of parents who have lost children to cancer found that one in eight considered hastening their child's death, a consideration influenced by the amount of pain the child experienced during the last month of life, according to a new survey in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Researchers say the findings underscore the importance of managing patients' pain, and of communicating with parents about the tools available for easing progressive pain.

Teens who spend more time watching television or using computers appear to have poorer relationships with their parents and peers, according to a report in the March issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

Given the importance of healthy relationships with friends and family to adolescent development, the researchers suggest that "concern about high levels of screen time among adolescents is warranted" and that more research is needed to monitor the effects of new technologies on the well being of growing teenagers.

Despite research suggesting that sodium reduction would do little to improve public health, scientists writing in the Annals of Internal Medicine say  that a voluntary effort by the U.S. food service industry to reduce salt in processed foods could have far-reaching implications for the health of the U.S. population, preventing strokes and heart attacks in nearly a million Americans and saving $32.1 billion in medical costs.

A new meta-analysis of 130 research reports on more than 130,000 subjects worldwide 'proves conclusively' that exposure to violent video games makes more aggressive, less caring kids, say researchers from Iowa State University and the City University of New York.

The team used meta-analytic procedures -- the statistical methods used to analyze and combine results from previous, related literature -- to test the effects of violent video game play on the behaviors, thoughts and feelings of the individuals, ranging from elementary school-aged children to college undergraduates. The research also included new longitudinal data which provided further confirmation that playing violent video games is a causal risk factor for long-term harmful outcomes.