Uncategorized
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19083
That six college students in London should require more brain activity than Italian students in decoding words is consistent with the use of whole-language methods favored in London classrooms when these respondents were young. For people not trained in phonics, word decoding is more difficult. A more complete study would include students from Scotland, where […]
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Readers’ brains go native
Brain functions linked to reading reflect cultural differences in spelling systems.
- Health & Medicine
Survivors’ Benefit?
Smallpox outbreaks throughout history may have endowed some people with genetic mutations that make them resistant to the AIDS virus.
- Anthropology
Cultures of Reason
East Asian and Western cultures may encourage fundamentally different reasoning styles, rather than build on universal processes often deemed necessary for thinking.
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19082
I thought this article was quite interesting, but I would derive a different conclusion than did the scientists featured. I would not presume that Easterners have less capacity to make logical inferences than Westerners, but that they give logical inferences less import. The primary religions in the East–Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism–stress the importance of harmony […]
- Tech
Building a Supermodel
Researchers are combining ergonomics and biological research with computer power to build a virtual human that can simulate human biology from anatomy down to the genetic code.
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19081
This article seems to ignore the fatal flaw in the search for the virtual person: While such a model is designed to represent all people, it in reality represents no individual. The ergonometric model says that a man is 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighs 160 pounds. I can tell you–as a man 6 […]
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Obesity hormone tackles wound healing
The hormone leptin, which seems to have many roles in the body including regulating fat storage, may speed the healing of wounds.
- Physics
Lasers act on cue in electron billiards
Electrons torn from atoms by a laser beam can shoot back into the atom and knock loose other electrons like balls in a billiard game, a finding that may have applications in nuclear fusion, particle acceleration, and fundamental physics experiments.
- Chemistry
Powerful explosive blasts onto scene
Researchers have synthesized what could be the most powerful nonnuclear explosive known.
- Animals
Butterfly ears suggest a bat influence
Researchers have found the first bat-detecting ear in a butterfly and suggest that the threat of bats triggered the evolution of some moths into butterflies.
- Astronomy
Hubble Space Telescope: Eye wide open
Two months after the failure of a fourth gyroscope shut it down, and 3 weeks after a shuttle crew paid it a service call, the Hubble Space Telescope is back in business.
