COLUMBUS, Ohio – For students to accept the theory of evolution, an intuitive "gut feeling" may be just as important as understanding the facts, according to a new study.
In an analysis of the beliefs of biology teachers, researchers found that a quick intuitive notion of how right an idea feels was a powerful driver of whether or not students accepted evolution—often trumping factors such as knowledge level or religion.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Why did language evolve? While the answer might seem obvious — as a way for individuals to exchange information — linguists and other students of communication have debated this question for years. Many prominent linguists, including MIT's Noam Chomsky, have argued that language is, in fact, poorly designed for communication. Such a use, they say, is merely a byproduct of a system that probably evolved for other reasons — perhaps for structuring our own private thoughts.
Adults who participated in a high quality early childhood education program in the 1970s are still benefiting from their early experiences in a variety of ways, according to a new study.
The study provides new data from the long-running, highly regarded Abecedarian Project, which is led by the FPG Child Development Institute at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Researchers have followed participants from early childhood through adolescence and young adulthood, generating a comprehensive and rare set of longitudinal data.
The results are largely unexpected: the best male marathon runners over 65 and the best female marathon runners over 45 have consistently improved their performance over the last 30 years. At the same time, the researchers also observed a strong increase in athletes over 40 participating in the New York marathon: from 36% of the total masculine runners between 1980-1989, to 53% between 2000 and from 24 to 40% during the same periods for female runners. Details of these descriptive analyses were published in the AGE review, The Official Journal of the American Aging Association.
Max Planck researchers have proven something scientifically for the first time that laypeople have always known: the mere sight of delicious food stimulates the appetite. A study on healthy young men has documented that the amount of the neurosecretory protein hormone ghrelin in the blood increases as a result of visual stimulation through images of food. As a main regulator, ghrelin controls both eating behaviour and the physical processes involved in food metabolism.
Passersby who stopped to answer surveys taken next to churches in the Netherlands and England reported themselves as more politically conservative and more negative toward non-Christians than did people questioned within sight of government buildings — a finding that may be significant when it comes to voting, according to a Baylor University study.
Treating brain tumors with whole brain radiation therapy can damage healthy brain tissue, but a new study in mice reveals that limiting the oxygen supply, or hypoxia, can alleviate some of the cognitive impairment caused by the radiation. The results are reported in the Jan. 18 issue of the online journal PLoS ONE.
The researchers, led by William Sonntag of University of Oklahoma, exposed the mice to a clinically relevant regimen of radiation, which caused progressive deterioration of spatial learning starting about two months post-radiation.
Nearly one out of seven college students surveyed at a Texas university has participated in the Choking Game, a dangerous behavior where blood flow is deliberately cut off to the brain in order to achieve a high, according to a study by The Crime Victims' Institute at Sam Houston State University.
Harvard scientists have developed the fullest picture yet of how neurons in the brain interact to reinforce behaviors ranging from learning to drug use, a finding that might open the door to possible breakthroughs in the treatment of addiction.
COLUMBIA, Mo. – A University of Missouri researcher and his colleague have conducted a review that casts doubt on the accuracy of a popular theory that attempted to explain why there are more men than women in top levels of mathematic fields. The researchers found that numerous studies claiming that the stereotype, "men are better at math" – believed to undermine women's math performance – had major methodological flaws, utilized improper statistical techniques, and many studies had no scientific evidence of this stereotype.
Psychology textbooks have made the same historical mistake over and over. Now the inaccuracy is pointed out in a new article published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
For generations, social psychology students have read that Norman Triplett did the first social psychology experiment in 1889, when he found that children reeled in a fishing line faster when they were in the presence of another child than when they were alone.
You're driving from work to pick up your kids at school. The drive is familiar; you've done it almost every day for years. But how do you know in which direction the school is from your home? Landmarks? The sun? Animal instinct? Now, a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science, yields an alternative answer that surprised even its authors, Julia Frankenstein, Betty J. Mohler, Heinrich H. Bülthoff, and Tobias Meilinger, who collaborated at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, in Tübingen, Germany.
A new research project into the role of sport in rehabilitating young prisoners has found that sport can be effective in reducing the reconviction rate of offenders.
The research project was led by Dr Rosie Meek, a lecturer in psychology in the Third Sector Research Centre at the University of Southampton, as part of her evaluation of the Portland Prison Sports Academy, an initiative developed by Bristol-based organisation, the 2nd Chance Project.
New research from Uppsala University, Sweden, shows that a specific brain region that contributes to a person's appetite sensation is more activated in response to food images after one night of sleep loss than after one night of normal sleep. Poor sleep habits can therefore affect people's risk of becoming overweight in the long run. The findings are published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
Eighty-five percent of children's learning is related to vision. Yet in the U.S., 80 percent of children have never had an eye exam or any vision screening before kindergarten, statistics say. When they do, the vision screenings they typically receive can detect only one or two conditions.
Three researchers at the University of Tennessee Space Institute in Tullahoma are working to change that with an invention that makes children eye exams inexpensive, comprehensive, and simple to administer.