- June 19, 2013
- 12:07 PM
- 1 view
Dim light enhances your creativity
by Usman Paracha in SayPeople
Main Point:
Researchers have found that dim light could enhance our creativity as the dark surrounding broadens our thinking and encourages innovation.
Published in:
Journal of Environmental Psychology
Study Further:
This study would help you to understand why in a hotel with dim light you feel enhanced ability of mind wandering.
In the present study, researchers exposed different groups of German undergraduates to different amount of light. Some groups received only 150 lux (r........ Read more »
Steidle, A., & Werth, L. (2013) Freedom from constraints: Darkness and dim illumination promote creativity. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 67-80. DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvp.2013.05.003
- June 19, 2013
- 11:55 AM
- 1 view
What is Foreign Accent Syndrome?
by Lyndsey Nickels in United Academics
In the past few days, a great deal of media attention has been paid to Leanne Rowe, a Tasmanian woman who has lived eight years with a French accent she acquired after a car accident. This phenomenon is known as foreign accent syndrome, a rare disorder that usually arises after brain damage as a result of, for example, stroke or head injury.
Foreign accent syndrome has always been the source of much media interest and the stories often sound sensational. There has been, for example, an Americ........ Read more »
David Stehling. (2009) Foreign Accent Syndrome (FAS): The Speech Characteristics of Foreign Accent Syndrome. Grin. info:/
Dio, C., Schulz, J., & Gurd, J. (2006) Foreign Accent Syndrome: In the ear of the beholder?. Aphasiology, 20(9), 951-962. DOI: 10.1080/02687030600739356
- June 19, 2013
- 11:01 AM
- 3 views
Compost Program Could Bring Dangerous Fungus into NYC Homes
by Elizabeth Preston in Inkfish
If Mayor Bloomberg's wildest decay-related fantasies are realized, New Yorkers will soon be sparing their food scraps from the garbage. A new composting program would encourage (or possibly require) people in the city to collect their food waste in a separate container. Yet Bloomberg may want to consider whether a Manhattan apartment has the square footage to fit both its residents and their potentially harmful compost fungi.
The New York City recycling plan, as described in the New York Tim........ Read more »
De Gannes, V., Eudoxie, G., & Hickey, W. (2013) Insights into fungal communities in composts revealed by 454-pyrosequencing: implications for human health and safety. Frontiers in Microbiology. DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2013.00164
- June 19, 2013
- 10:58 AM
- 3 views
Sons and daughters of same-sex couples grow up as good as in traditional families.
by Simone Munao in United Academics
Sons and daughters of same-sex couples grow up as good as in traditional families. That's what Australian research shows us.... Read more »
Crouch SR, Waters E, McNair R, Power J, & Davis E. (2012) ACHESS--The Australian study of child health in same-sex families: background research, design and methodology. BMC public health, 646. PMID: 22888859
- June 19, 2013
- 10:36 AM
- 3 views
Kids of Same-Sex Couples Are Just as Happy As Those In Traditional Families
by Simone Munao in United Academics
They live with two mums or two dads, and they are on the same level as their school friends regarding self-esteem, emotional behavior and time spent with their parents. But they seem to have the edge over the average regarding overall health and familiar cohesion. Kids that grow with homosexual couples grow up as good as in traditional families, and even better in some aspects. This seems to be confirmed by a study conducted by a group of researchers of the University of Melbourne on 500 minors ........ Read more »
Crouch SR, Waters E, McNair R, Power J, & Davis E. (2012) ACHESS--The Australian study of child health in same-sex families: background research, design and methodology. BMC public health, 646. PMID: 22888859
- June 19, 2013
- 09:29 AM
- 4 views
Scientists Model Biofuel Production After Ants’ Fungus Gardens
by dailyfusion in The Daily Fusion
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Bacteriology are studying the colonies of leaf-cutter ants as they cultivate thriving communities of fungi and bacteria using freshly cut plant material. While these fungi provide nutrients for the ants, researchers are hoping to replicate the process and apply it for better biofuel production.... Read more »
Aylward, F., Burnum-Johnson, K., Tringe, S., Teiling, C., Tremmel, D., Moeller, J., Scott, J., Barry, K., Piehowski, P., Nicora, C.... (2013) Leucoagaricus gongylophorus Produces Diverse Enzymes for the Degradation of Recalcitrant Plant Polymers in Leaf-Cutter Ant Fungus Gardens. Applied and Environmental Microbiology, 79(12), 3770-3778. DOI: 10.1128/AEM.03833-12
- June 19, 2013
- 09:11 AM
- 4 views
Video Tip of the Week: ENCODE ChIP-Seq Significance Tool
We’ve been doing training and workshops on the UCSC Genome Browser for 10 years now. It’s a tremendous tool that has to be a foundational item in your toolkit in genomics. But–there may be times when you want to examine some of the data that you can find there in another way, with a different [...]... Read more »
Auerbach, R., Chen, B., & Butte, A. (2013) Relating Genes to Function: Identifying Enriched Transcription Factors using the ENCODE ChIP-Seq Significance Tool. Bioinformatics. DOI: 10.1093/bioinformatics/btt316
- June 19, 2013
- 08:30 AM
- 2 views
The end for shock collars?
by CAPB in Companion Animal Psychology Blog
Something puzzles me about the arguments made by shock collar advocates. On the one hand they claim the e-collar doesn’t hurt, and on the other they say it’s a last resort to prevent ‘dead dogs’ due to recall and chasing problems. Surely the second justification casts doubt on the first? Two new scientific studies funded by the UK’s DEFRA address both arguments, and conclude that e-collars are unnecessary and detrimental to animal welfare.Shock collars (including invisible fences)........ Read more »
Blackwell, E., Bolster, C., Richards, G., Loftus, B., & Casey, R. (2012) The use of electronic collars for training domestic dogs: estimated prevalence, reasons and risk factors for use, and owner perceived success as compared to other training methods. BMC Veterinary Research, 8(1), 93. DOI: 10.1186/1746-6148-8-93
Herron, M., Shofer, F., & Reisner, I. (2009) Survey of the use and outcome of confrontational and non-confrontational training methods in client-owned dogs showing undesired behaviors. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 117(1-2), 47-54. DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2008.12.011
Schalke, E., Stichnoth, J., Ott, S., & Jones-Baade, R. (2007) Clinical signs caused by the use of electric training collars on dogs in everyday life situations. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 105(4), 369-380. DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2006.11.002
Schilder, M., & van der Borg, J. (2004) Training dogs with help of the shock collar: short and long term behavioural effects. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 85(3-4), 319-334. DOI: 10.1016/j.applanim.2003.10.004
- June 19, 2013
- 08:10 AM
- 8 views
When your neighbour wins the lottery
by Jason Collins in Evolving Economics
I’m not sure if the format of the Dutch postcode lottery is common, but it certainly creates some interesting incentives. In this lottery, a random postcode is drawn from the 430,000 postcodes in the Netherlands, with each postcode having, on average, 19 households. Each person in that postcode who has purchased a ticket in the [...]The post When your neighbour wins the lottery appeared first on Evolving Economics.... Read more »
Kuhn, P., Kooreman, P., Soetevent, A., & Kapteyn, A. (2011) The Effects of Lottery Prizes on Winners and Their Neighbors: Evidence from the Dutch Postcode Lottery. American Economic Review, 101(5), 2226-2247. DOI: 10.1257/aer.101.5.2226
- June 19, 2013
- 08:00 AM
- 7 views
The Roots Of Our Animal Family Tree
by Mark Lasbury in As Many Exceptions As Rules
Research continues on what is the most basal animal on Earth and if that animal is representative of the earliest metazoaon. A 2013 report says that it isn’t time to rewrite the books, but even if we tried to do just that, what would we place at the bottom of the tree? Recent studies argue for different groups. A 2009 study says it is the placozoans. A 2012 study gives the award to the sponges. And several studies in the 2000’s wanted to nominate the comb jellies. The biggest differe........ Read more »
Dohrmann, M., & Worheide, G. (2013) Novel Scenarios of Early Animal Evolution--Is It Time to Rewrite Textbooks?. Integrative and Comparative Biology. DOI: 10.1093/icb/ict008
Schierwater, B., Eitel, M., Jakob, W., Osigus, H., Hadrys, H., Dellaporta, S., Kolokotronis, S., & DeSalle, R. (2009) Concatenated Analysis Sheds Light on Early Metazoan Evolution and Fuels a Modern “Urmetazoon” Hypothesis. PLoS Biology, 7(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000020
- June 19, 2013
- 07:02 AM
- 3 views
When in-group rebels have a cause…
by Rita Handrich in The Jury Room
Despite the admiration we often have for whistle-blowers and the generous adjectives we might use to describe them (e.g., courageous, principled, moral) they almost uniformly have a very tough time. They are also seen as disloyal and mean-spirited by members of their former group and typically not revered as having the best interests of the [...]
Related posts:
“It was ‘a man’s work’ and I just didn’t like working with those incompetent women….”
Politics and prejudice? Nope. I........ Read more »
Packer, D., Fujita, K., & Herman, S. (2013) Rebels with a cause: A goal conflict approach to understanding when conscientious people dissent. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2013.05.001
- June 19, 2013
- 06:45 AM
- 8 views
Rotten America - Big Prison, Arrest Quotas, and What Education Really Pays For
America is being eroded by greed. More schools are being closed, more prisons are being built, and money is changing hands in all the wrong places. From limiting the potential of the future generations, to arresting innocent people for personal gain, America has become rotten.
Like a rat in a Skinner box, when you give the right incentives, they're motivated to get the cheese. But unlike in the Skinner box, the cheese taken in America is at the expense of others.
This article explains........ Read more »
Lochner, L., & Moretti, E. (2004) The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports. American Economic Review, 94(1), 155-189. DOI: 10.1257/000282804322970751
- June 19, 2013
- 06:34 AM
- 9 views
Immune reactivity to gluten in autism
by Paul Whiteley in Questioning Answers
When I first saw the paper from Nga Lau and colleagues* (open-access) looking for markers of gluten sensitivity and/or coeliac (celiac) disease in children with autism I have to admit to raising a smile. I smiled because in a previous post on this blog I talked about a 'wish-list' for autism research specifically focused on the gluten and casein-free dietary intervention**. Part of that wish list was some further inquiry into why, biochemically, some people on the autism spectrum might benefit f........ Read more »
Lau, N., Green, P., Taylor, A., Hellberg, D., Ajamian, M., Tan, C., Kosofsky, B., Higgins, J., Rajadhyaksha, A., & Alaedini, A. (2013) Markers of Celiac Disease and Gluten Sensitivity in Children with Autism. PLoS ONE, 8(6). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0066155
- June 19, 2013
- 05:02 AM
- 14 views
Are you really at risk of attack by someone with schizophrenia?
by Rebecca Syed in United Academics
A violent attack by someone who is mentally ill quickly grabs the headlines. And it’s usually implied that mental illnesses are a preventable cause of violent crime. Tackle that and we can all sleep safer in our beds. But by pressuring mental health services to focus on the risk of violence we are in danger of actually increasing it.
Most of the debate around risk and offending has centred around schizophrenia – the bread and butter of community psychiatry. But what is the evidenc........ Read more »
Fazel, S. (2009) Schizophrenia, Substance Abuse, and Violent Crime. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 301(19), 2016. DOI: 10.1001/jama.2009.675
Short, T., Thomas, S., Mullen, P., & Ogloff, J. (2013) Comparing violence in schizophrenia patients with and without comorbid substance-use disorders to community controls. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. DOI: 10.1111/acps.12066
- June 19, 2013
- 12:54 AM
- 11 views
We like turtles ('s genomes)
by zacharoo in Lawn Chair Anthropology
June 2013, Volume 45 No 6 pp 579-714Jonathan the zombie isn't the only one who likes turtles. These heroes-in-a-half-shell adorn the cover of the current Nature Genetics, as two species of turtle have just joined the Genome Club (Wang et al. 2013; paper's free!).This definitely not one of those genome sequencing studies alluded to recently by John Hawks, that's "too boring for journals." Wang and colleagues didn't just sequence the genomes of soft-shell and green sea tur........ Read more »
Wang Z, Pascual-Anaya J, Zadissa A, Li W, Niimura Y, Huang Z, Li C, White S, Xiong Z, Fang D.... (2013) The draft genomes of soft-shell turtle and green sea turtle yield insights into the development and evolution of the turtle-specific body plan. Nature genetics, 45(6), 701-6. PMID: 23624526
- June 18, 2013
- 06:25 PM
- 47 views
I WILL FEAR NO EVIL: the first head transplant on human
by Eugenio Maria Battaglia in Semanto.me
In 2008, doctor Sergio Canavero, an italian neurosurgeon based in Turin, IT, have awakened a 20 years old lady from a permanent post-traumatic vegetative state, by means of a bifocal extradural cortical electro-stimulation. Today, while Science still find it hard to explain consciousness and embodied cognition – the world-class neurosurgeon made a shock announcement: “I’m ready for the first head transplant on a man.”
In the manuscript published on Surgical Neurology I........ Read more »
Canavero, S. (2013) HEAVEN: The head anastomosis venture Project outline for the first human head transplantation with spinal linkage (GEMINI). Surgical Neurology International, 4(2), 335. DOI: 10.4103/2152-7806.113444
- June 18, 2013
- 06:11 PM
- 19 views
Quantum-Dot Microscopy Method Allows to Improve Solar Cells
by dailyfusion in The Daily Fusion
Researchers working at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed a new microscopy technique that uses a process similar to how an old tube television produces a picture—cathodoluminescence—to image nanoscale features. Combining the best features of optical and scanning electron microscopy, the fast, versatile, and high-resolution technique allows scientists to view surface and subsurface features potentially as small as 10 nanometers in size.... Read more »
Yoon, H., Lee, Y., Bohn, C., Ko, S., Gianfrancesco, A., Steckel, J., Coe-Sullivan, S., Talin, A., & Zhitenev, N. (2013) High-resolution photocurrent microscopy using near-field cathodoluminescence of quantum dots. AIP Advances, 3(6), 62112. DOI: 10.1063/1.4811275
- June 18, 2013
- 05:57 PM
- 24 views
Psychology At the Movies: Essentialist Musings in Man of Steel
by Psych Your Mind in Psych Your Mind
www.imdb.com
Yesterday, my spouse and I dropped our newborn daughter off with Grandma and then popped over to the local theater to see this summer's much anticipated comic-book blockbuster Man of Steel. By any standard, Man of Steel is exceptionally light when it comes to philosophical musings: The plot is predictably linear--good guys fight bad guys who are trying to kill them. At first glance, it may seem like a stretch to write an entire blog entry (for a psychology blog) about the fil........ Read more »
Kraus MW, & Keltner D. (2013) Social Class Rank, Essentialism, and Punitive Judgment. Journal of personality and social psychology. PMID: 23713698
- June 18, 2013
- 03:31 PM
- 20 views
June 18, 2013
by Erin Campbell in HighMag Blog
The study of how cells move in development is not just about development. Understanding cell migration can also help researchers understand how tumors spread and invade other tissues. So, the next time you see someone roll their eyes at your fruit fly egg chambers (or worm vulva, or culture dishes), take pity at their ignorance and explain to them how they should thank you instead.The movement of cells during development drives the shape changes and organization of an embryo. I........ Read more »
Lucas, E., Khanal, I., Gaspar, P., Fletcher, G., Polesello, C., Tapon, N., & Thompson, B. (2013) The Hippo pathway polarizes the actin cytoskeleton during collective migration of Drosophila border cells. originally published in the Journal of Cell Biology, 201(6), 875-885. DOI: 10.1083/jcb.201210073
- June 18, 2013
- 03:06 PM
- 17 views
Nanog protein promotes the growth of cancer stem cells in head and neck cancer
by beredim in Stem Cells Freak
A new study led by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center -- Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC-James) has identified a biochemical pathway in cancer stem cells that is essential for promoting head and neck cancer.The study shows that a protein called Nanog, which is normally active in embryonic stem cells, promotes the growth of cancer stem cells in head and neck cancer. The findings provide information essential for de........ Read more »
Xie, X., Piao, L., Cavey, G., Old, M., Teknos, T., Mapp, A., & Pan, Q. (2013) Phosphorylation of Nanog is essential to regulate Bmi1 and promote tumorigenesis. Oncogene. DOI: 10.1038/onc.2013.173
topics
join us!
Do you write about peer-reviewed research in your blog? Use ResearchBlogging.org to make it easy for your readers — and others from around the world — to find your serious posts about academic research.
If you don't have a blog, you can still use our site to learn about fascinating developments in cutting-edge research from around the world.
