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- May 22, 2013
- 07:07 AM
- 21 views
Study Finds Why Penguins Lost Their Ability to Fly
by Katja Keuchenius in United Academics
If you’ve seen March of the Penguins, you probably understand the question. Many penguins live a shitty life, walking miles and miles without any food and spending months apart from their families. This would be over with if they just flew from one place to the other. So why did they stop doing that?... Read more »
Elliott, K., Ricklefs, R., Gaston, A., Hatch, S., Speakman, J., & Davoren, G. (2013) High flight costs, but low dive costs, in auks support the biomechanical hypothesis for flightlessness in penguins. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1304838110
- May 22, 2013
- 03:18 AM
- 26 views
Science Proves Connection Between Racism and Stupidity
by Simone Munao in United Academics
In a recent research conducted by two scientists from Brock University in Canada, the authors have proposed and tested several mediation models. With such models they have proven that lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice, an effect mediated through the endorsement of right-wing ideologies (social conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism) and low levels of contact with out-groups.... Read more »
Hodson, G., & Busseri, M. (2012) Bright Minds and Dark Attitudes: Lower Cognitive Ability Predicts Greater Prejudice Through Right-Wing Ideology and Low Intergroup Contact. Psychological Science, 23(2), 187-195. DOI: 10.1177/0956797611421206
- May 21, 2013
- 08:53 AM
- 48 views
Bright Lights, Cold Bodies - The Near-Death Experience Explained
by Anouk Vleugels in United Academics
Last February, Dr. Sam Parnia, an intensive care physician who has been researching near-death experiences for the past 15 years, published his new book ‘Erasing death: The Science That is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death’. Following the release of that book, Dr. Parnia was interviewed on National Public Radio in the US. It wasn’t so much this interview that sparked my interest, as much as the comments that followed. “It’s hard to believe that this guy is actually a doctor based on the junk he presents here,” commenter ‘Joe MARTYN’ says. And another user, ‘Steven Kay’, adds: “Oh, please.. Not this guy again. Why not interview the last person who claims to have seen the Virgin Mary?”
To be fair, many other commenters did appreciate the interview and the work that Dr. Parnia had done. But still, the virulent dismissiveness related to this subject baffled me. Why is research on near-death experiences received with such hostility?... Read more »
van Lommel P, van Wees R, Meyers V, & Elfferich I. (2001) Near-death experience in survivors of cardiac arrest: a prospective study in the Netherlands. Lancet, 358(9298), 2039-45. PMID: 11755611
- May 20, 2013
- 09:24 AM
- 25 views
Do We Really Want To Eat Mexican Food?
by Katja Keuchenius in United Academics
FIFA discoverd that a lot of Mexican meat contains clenbuterol. A drug used to fatten cattle, enhance sportsperfomance, treat people with breathing disorders ánd to lose weight. So watch it with those tacos.... Read more »
Thevis, M., Geyer, L., Geyer, H., Guddat, S., Dvorak, J., Butch, A., Sterk, S., & Schänzer, W. (2013) Adverse analytical findings with clenbuterol among U-17 soccer players attributed to food contamination issues. Drug Testing and Analysis. DOI: 10.1002/dta.1471
- May 19, 2013
- 08:39 AM
- 30 views
Caring for infants is all in the-womans eyes
by Andrew Porterfield in United Academics
Human infants require a lot of care, and our evolution owes a lot of how well, and how long we take, to raise our offspring. So, it’s very important that not only parents pay close attention to their young children, it’s also evolutionary important that extended family members (grandparents, siblings, even friends) can give their attention to another person’s child... Read more »
Cárdenas, R., Harris, L., & Becker, M. (2013) Sex differences in visual attention toward infant faces. Evolution and Human Behavior. DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2013.04.001
- May 16, 2013
- 07:17 AM
- 62 views
To Predict a Bird’s Song, Head Out to Space
by Andrew Porterfield in United Academics
Any given species of bird probably has a variety of different songs. Most bird studies track individual birds in their own habitats, and then make more or less one-by-one comparisons—a bird in a forest will sound different from the same species in a city. An international team has taken these studies one step further—by making a giant leap into space.... Read more »
Smith, T., Harrigan, R., Kirschel, A., Buermann, W., Saatchi, S., Blumstein, D., de Kort, S., & Slabbekoorn, H. (2013) Predicting bird song from space. Evolutionary Applications. DOI: 10.1111/eva.12072
- May 15, 2013
- 09:12 AM
- 45 views
Getting Science Right: Power Cables and Cancer
by Katja Keuchenius in United Academics
Some people would think twice before buying a house next to high-voltage power line. Wasn’t there something in the news about these wires causing cancer? Indeed many media have elaborately cited people worrying about the risks of electricity. But often without offering a scientific view on the subject.... Read more »
Draper, G. (2005) Childhood cancer in relation to distance from high voltage power lines in England and Wales: a case-control study. BMJ, 330(7503), 1290. DOI: 10.1136/bmj.330.7503.1290
- May 14, 2013
- 10:04 AM
- 41 views
Carnivorous Plant Ejects Junk DNA
by Geetanjali Yadav in United Academics
Research shows Utricularia gibba maintains a small genome size by resisting gene duplications.
... Read more »
Ibarra-Laclette, E., Lyons, E., Hernández-Guzmán, G., Pérez-Torres, C., Carretero-Paulet, L., Chang, T., Lan, T., Welch, A., Juárez, M., Simpson, J.... (2013) Architecture and evolution of a minute plant genome. Nature. DOI: 10.1038/nature12132
- May 14, 2013
- 07:12 AM
- 54 views
Turtle genome shows breathing is optional
by Andrew Porterfield in United Academics
Genome of the western painted turtle has developed a remarkable ability to go without oxygen for months. And this genomic change could point to better heart attack and stroke treatments for us.... Read more »
Abramyan, J., Badenhorst, D., Biggar, K., Borchert, G., Botka, C., Bowden, R., Braun, E., Bronikowski, A., Bruneau, B., Buck, L.... (2013) The western painted turtle genome, a model for the evolution of extreme physiological adaptations in a slowly evolving lineage. Genome Biology, 14(3). DOI: 10.1186/gb-2013-14-3-r28
- May 13, 2013
- 09:45 AM
- 35 views
A Quantum Version of Google
by Carian Thus in United Academics
A team of computer scientists in Spain applied a quantum PageRank algorithm to a network with 7 webpages. They found that the quantum PageRank sometimes ordered the webpages differently in terms of importance, but averaging the quantum PageRank score over time recovered the classical ordering.... Read more »
Paparo, G., & Martin-Delgado, M. (2012) Google in a Quantum Network. Scientific Reports. DOI: 10.1038/srep00444
- May 13, 2013
- 07:27 AM
- 52 views
Boosting your wage by lowering your voice
by Katja Keuchenius in United Academics
t’s sexier, we already knew that. But lower voices do more than just turning people on. It appears a deep sound also means more success in your career. A new study makes some pretty clear statements about the associations between wage, management power, tenure and the tone of voice.... Read more »
Mayew, W., Parsons, C., & Venkatachalam, M. (2013) Voice pitch and the labor market success of male chief executive officers. Evolution and Human Behavior. DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2013.03.001
- May 12, 2013
- 07:55 AM
- 42 views
Plants are listening, but how?
by Andrew Porterfield in United Academics
A group of researchers from the University of Western Australia reported a new type of unknown mechanism by which some plants communicate.... Read more »
Gagliano, M., & Renton, M. (2013) Love thy neighbour: facilitation through an alternative signalling modality in plants. BMC Ecology, 13(1), 19. DOI: 10.1186/1472-6785-13-19
Gagliano, M., Mancuso, S., & Robert, D. (2012) Towards understanding plant bioacoustics. Trends in Plant Science, 17(6), 323-325. DOI: 10.1016/j.tplants.2012.03.002
- May 10, 2013
- 11:06 AM
- 69 views
How To Make Yourself A Popular Tweeter
by Katja Keuchenius in United Academics
Twitter has a pretty bad reputation caused by a lot of people twittering about their personal issues. But is that really what Twitter is about? Researchers just discovered that this typical Twitter behavior actually decreases your followers. Time for a do’s and don’t list.... Read more »
C.J. Hutto, Sarita Yardi, & Eric Gilbert. (2013) A Longitudinal Study of Follow Predictors on Twitter. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems . DOI: 10.1145/2470654.2470771
- May 10, 2013
- 07:18 AM
- 57 views
Looking Into The Personality of Adventurers
by Katja Keuchenius in United Academics
Some feel the need to explore more than others. This apparently random characteristic really makes a difference to personalities, a mice experiment shows. Those that like to be adventurous and have the capacity to do so, develop different brains than those who stay mostly in the same place.... Read more »
Freund, J., Brandmaier, A., Lewejohann, L., Kirste, I., Kritzler, M., Kruger, A., Sachser, N., Lindenberger, U., & Kempermann, G. (2013) Emergence of Individuality in Genetically Identical Mice. Science, 340(6133), 756-759. DOI: 10.1126/science.1235294
- May 9, 2013
- 12:15 PM
- 40 views
Gut Bugs against Diabetes
by Pieter Carriere in United Academics
A new discovery regarding the relationship between gut bugs and disease... Read more »
Markle JG, Frank DN, Mortin-Toth S, Robertson CE, Feazel LM, Rolle-Kampczyk U, von Bergen M, McCoy KD, Macpherson AJ, & Danska JS. (2013) Sex differences in the gut microbiome drive hormone-dependent regulation of autoimmunity. Science (New York, N.Y.), 339(6123), 1084-8. PMID: 23328391
Flak, M., Neves, J., & Blumberg, R. (2013) Welcome to the Microgenderome. Science, 339(6123), 1044-1045. DOI: 10.1126/science.1236226
Leavy, O. (2013) Autoimmunity: Gut bugs help protect males from diabetes. Nature Reviews Immunology, 13(3), 152-153. DOI: 10.1038/nri3409
Turnbaugh, P., Ley, R., Mahowald, M., Magrini, V., Mardis, E., & Gordon, J. (2006) An obesity-associated gut microbiome with increased capacity for energy harvest. Nature, 444(7122), 1027-131. DOI: 10.1038/nature05414
- May 8, 2013
- 11:49 AM
- 50 views
Getting Science Right: Hazards of Political Statistics
by Andrew Porterfield in United Academics
Radioactive iodine is dangerous, and public health and academic researchers are now trying to determine what long-term damage can occur, where it can occur, and how long it will take to occur. What politcs can learn from Fukushima.... Read more »
J. Mangano, J. (2013) Elevated airborne beta levels in Pacific/West Coast US States and trends in hypothyroidism among newborns after the Fukushima nuclear meltdown. Open Journal of Pediatrics, 03(01), 1-9. DOI: 10.4236/ojped.2013.31001
- May 8, 2013
- 09:42 AM
- 52 views
Can Probability Explain Gravity?
by Simone Munao in United Academics
According to Dutch theoretical physicist Erik Verlinde, there is a new theory for gravity: Entropic gravity is a hypothesis in modern physics that describes gravity as an entropic force.... Read more »
Verlinde, E. (2011) On the origin of gravity and the laws of Newton. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2011(4). DOI: 10.1007/JHEP04(2011)029
- May 8, 2013
- 07:33 AM
- 48 views
What did your ancestors talk about?
by Katja Keuchenius in United Academics
What subjects were important for both modern humans and our ancestors? A new study into the Eurasian primal language offers some important clues. Researchers found 23 words that are approximately 15.000 years old. ... Read more »
Pagel, M., Atkinson, Q., S. Calude, A., & Meade, A. (2013) Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1218726110
- May 8, 2013
- 07:06 AM
- 32 views
What Did Our Ancestors Talk About?
by Katja Keuchenius in United Academics
Our modern lives don't have a lot in common with those of our ancestors. Still, scientists found 23 words that were already being used 15.000 years ago.... Read more »
Pagel, M., Atkinson, Q., S. Calude, A., & Meade, A. (2013) Ultraconserved words point to deep language ancestry across Eurasia. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1218726110
- May 7, 2013
- 03:38 AM
- 49 views
Music and Cannabis; What’s the Connection?
by Mark Fonseca Rendeiro in United Academics
When you bring up the subject of listening to music while stoned, you get a range of responses, almost all of them positive. While you might enjoy a song in a non-altered state, under the influence of Cannabis, it has been established that listening to and creating music is somehow a deeper and more intense experience. The disputed issue that arises is why this happens and if the feeling is real.... Read more »
Webster, P. (2001) Marijuana and Music. Journal of Cannabis Therapeutics, 1(2), 93-105. DOI: 10.1300/J175v01n02_05
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