Objective
The activities carried out in this area are intended to mobilise in a coherent effort, in all their wealth and diversity, European research capacities in economic, political, social sciences and humanities that are necessary to develop an understanding of, and to address issues related to, the emergence of the knowledge-based society and new forms of relationships between its citizens, on the one hand and between its citizens and institutions, on the other.
Justification of the effort and European added value
At the European Council in Lisbon in March 2000, the European Union
set itself the ambitious objective of becoming "the most competitive
and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustained
economic growth providing more and better jobs and greater social
cohesion".
In this perspective, the European Council in Lisbon underlined that "human resources are Europe's main strength", stressing the need for Europe's education and training systems to "adjust both to the needs of the knowledge-based society and to the need to raise the level of employment and improve quality".
Europe's transition towards a knowledge-based economy and society, and its sustainable development in the interests of the quality of life of all citizens will be all the easier if it takes place in a way which is properly understood and managed. This requires a substantial research effort concerning the issues of integrated and sustainable economic and social progress based on the fundamental values of justice and solidarity and cultural diversity which characterise the European model of society, as well as research on issues relating to entrepreneurship and the setting up, growth and development of small enterprises.
In this respect, economic, political, social and human sciences
research should more particularly help to ensure the harnessing and
exploitation of an exponentially increasing quantity of information and
knowledge and an understanding of the processes at work in this
area.
In Europe, this issue arises in particular in connection to the future enlargement, the functioning of democracy and new forms of governance, and in the general context of this. What is at stake is the relationship between citizens and institutions in a complex political and decision-making environment characterised by the coexistence of national, regional and European decision-making levels and the increasing role of civil society and its representatives in the political debate.
Issues such as these have a clear and intrinsic European dimension,
and there is much to be gained by examining them from a global
perspective, taking into account the historical dimension as well as
the cultural heritage.
This European dimension is only just starting to be taken into account in research conducted at national level, and is not yet receiving all the attention that it requires.
It seems highly appropriate to address these aspects on the European scale. What is more, action taken at Union level will make it possible to ensure the requisite degree of methodological coherence and guarantee that full benefit is derived from the rich variety of approaches existing in Europe and European diversity.
Actions envisaged
Action by the Community will focus on the following themes:
knowledge-based society and social cohesion:
(a) research with reference to the objectives set by the Lisbon European Council and subsequent Councils, in particular systematic analysis of best methods for improving the production, transmission and utilisation of knowledge in Europe;
(b) options and choices for the development of a knowledge-based society serving the Union objectives emphasised at the Lisbon, Nice and Stockholm European Councils, in particular as regards improving the quality of life, social, employment and labour market policies, lifelong learning, and strengthening social cohesion and sustainable development with due consideration for the various social models in Europe and taking into account aspects relating to the ageing of the population;
(c) variety of transition dynamics and paths towards the knowledge-based society at local, national and regional level;
citizenship, democracy and new forms of governance, in particular in the context of increased integration and globalisation, and from the perspectives of history and cultural heritage:
- consequences of European integration and enlargement of the Union for democracy, the concept of legitimacy, and the functioning of Union institutions through a better understanding of political and social institutions in Europe, and their historical evolution,
- research on the redefinition of and the relationship between areas of competence and responsibility, and new forms of governance,
- issues connected with the resolution of conflicts and restoration of peace and justice, including the safeguarding of fundamental rights,
- emergence of new forms of citizenship and cultural identities, forms and impact of integration and cultural diversity in Europe; social and cultural dialogue involving Europe as well as the rest of the world.
In operational terms, Community activities will focus on support
for:
(a) transnational research and comparative studies and the
coordinated development of statistics and qualitative and quantitative
indicators;
(b) interdisciplinary research in support of public policies;
(c) the establishment and exploitation on a European scale of
research infrastructures and data and knowledge bases.
FP6 - social
sciences
CORDIS
European
Commission Research
30 June 2009: A microscopic analysis
of scratches on dinosaur teeth has helped scientists unravel an ancient
riddle of what a major group of dinosaurs ate and exactly how they did
it. Read more
30 June 2009: Social scientist creates a computer model to
determine human perception of hues. Read more
30 June 2009: Adult-child conversations have a more
significant impact on language development than exposing children to
language through one-on-one reading alone. Read more
29 June 2009: People with ample
moral self-worth in one aspect of their lives can slip into immorality
or opposite behavior in other areas -- their abundant self-esteem
somehow pushing them to balance out all that goodness. Read
more
29 June 2009: Intelligent wireless systems developed for
monitoring cultural monuments and historical structures. Read
more
29 June 2009: There is much more consensus among men about
whom they find attractive than there is among women. Read more
29 June 2009: Evidence is found that Cognitive Behavioural
Therapy (CBT) is of no value in schizophrenia and has limited effect on
depression. Read
more
29 June 2009: Language change can be traced using gigantic
electronic text archives of a dozen American and British newspapers.
Linguistics researchers can make use of it to track changes in language
usage. Read more
29 June 2009: Cooperative learning methods top the list of
effective approaches for secondary mathematics. Read more
26 June 2009: People in very early
stages of Alzheimer's disease already have trouble focusing on what is
important to remember: what to remember and what to forget. Read more
26 June 2009: Megapiranha paranensis, the previously unknown
fossil fish bridges the evolutionary gap between flesh-eating piranhas
and their plant-eating cousins. Read more
26 June 2009: Online ethics and the bloggers' code revealed:
telling the truth, accountability, minimizing harm and attribution,
etc. Read more
26 June 2009: In 'reading' a gaze, what we believe can
change what we see. Read
more
25 June 2009: Heavy women have lower
quality relationships, but same is not true for men, according to a
study addressing body image, weight, romantic relationships, and
differences between men and women. Read
more
25 June 2009: Archaeologists have discovered a water well in
Cyprus that was built as long as 10,500 years ago, and the skeleton of
a young woman at the bottom of it. Read more
25 June 2009: Psychiatrists who were studying perceptions of
beauty, had expected women to spend more time than men cooing over
pictures of extra-cute babies. A puzzling research outcome suggests
women have a harder time than men looking at babies with facial birth
defects. Read more
25 June 2009: Cultural games change attitudes. Persuasive
technologies such as educational video games are more effective at
changing people's attitudes or behaviours when they are adapted to a
specific cultural audience. Read more
25 June 2009: People shopping online are likely to bail out
on planned purchases before making the final click to submit their
orders, often because they are surprised by high shipping costs and
other fees. Read
more
25 June 2009: Employee involvement programs that executives
adopt to increase efficiency end up improving their record on workplace
diversity. Read
more
25 June 2009: A study adds to mounting evidence that
clinicians consider irritability as a symptom when diagnosing pediatric
bipolar disorder. Read
more
24 June 2009: Initial research
findings of a happiness gene, the genetic component of happiness
provide a positive outlook on life for those suffering from stress,
money trouble or chronic illness. Read more
24 June 2009: Ability to literally imagine oneself in
another's shoes may be tied to empathy. Read more
24 June 2009: Recent excavations in Jordan reveal evidence
of the world's oldest know granaries. Read more
23 June 2009: When we use a tool, it
changes the way our brain represents the size of our body. In other
words, the tool becomes a part of what is known in psychology as our
body schema. Read
more
23 June 2009: Alterations in the brain's white matter is a
key to schizophrenia. It can strike us in late adolescence or early
adulthood. Read
more
23 June 2009: Citizens in 34 countries show implicit bias
linking males more than females with science. It may have a powerful
effect on gender equity in science and mathematics engagement and
performance. Read
more
23 June 2009: Among older adults, less frequent
participation in social activity is associated with a more rapid rate
of motor function decline. Read more
23 June 2009: Social problems like bullying and stereotyping
involve thoughts, feelings and reactions that resist change. New
research shows that when students play active roles in virtual dramas,
their attitudes and behaviour can change. Read more
23 June 2009: The Science of Economic Bubbles and Busts. The
worst economic crisis since the Great Depression has prompted a
reassessment of how financial markets work and how people make
decisions about money. Read
more
22 June 2009: Attempted Iran media
clampdown meets Internet age, showing how difficult it is to shut off
the flow of information. Read more
22 June 2009: Domestication of Capsicum annuum chile pepper
provides insights into crop origin and evolution. Read more
19 June 2009: Interactive Web-based
science tutorials can be effective tools for helping elementary school
teachers construct powerful explanatory models of difficult scientific
concepts. Read
more
18 June 2009: Over the last 4
decades, medical studies of intercessory prayer—the prayer of strangers
at a distance—actually say more about the scientists than the subject
topic. Read more
18 June 2009: Our eyes move methodically through a scene
when seeking out an object. Our attention leaves the already-scanned
area behind and moves on to new, unexplored regions of a scene, still
seeking the target. Read
more
18 June 2009: Validity of the Implicit Association Test
result that indicates widespread unconscious or implicit, preference
for white people compared to blacks. Read more
18 June 2009: Wrong type of help from parents could worsen
child's obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Read more
17 June 2009: Putting a name to a
face may be key to brain's facial expertise. Read more
17 June 2009: An archaeological team has uncovered an
ancient and previously unknown Maya agricultural system -- a large
manioc field intensively cultivated as a staple crop that was buried
and exquisitely preserved under a blanket of ash by a volcanic eruption
in present-day El Salvador 1,400 years ago. Read more
17 June 2009: Doctors who ignore the socioeconomic status of
patients -- income, education, etc. -- when evaluating their risk for
heart disease are missing a crucial element that might result in
inadequate treatment. Read more
17 June 2009: Online obituaries are changing the way we
publicly remember the dead and how newspapers cover deaths. Read more
17 June 2009: Years of musical training leave the brains of
musicians better attuned to the emotional content, like anger, of vocal
sounds -- emotionally intelligent. Read
more
16 June 2009: Using a highly
sensitive new test, scientists in Europe are reporting "convincing
evidence" that marijuana smoke damages the genetic material DNA in ways
that could increase the risk of cancer. Read
more
16 June 2009: The exhaustion new moms experience is
likely due to sleep fragmentation, rather than not sleeping enough or
sleeping at the wrong times. Read
more
16 June 2009: Consumer experts have long recommended against
buying Extended Service Contracts (ESCs) with products. A new study
examines the reasons why so many people ignore the experts' advice. Read more
16 June 2009: Consumer attitudes toward emotional ads.
People's responses are affected by, in addition to positive emotions,
factors such as the amount of mental energy or attention they are able
to devote to the ads as well as the physical layout of the
advertisings. Read
more
16 June 2009: The dark side of gifts: Feeling indebted may
drive people to the marketplace. Read more
15 June 2009: Sleep selectively
preservers memories that are emotionally salient and relevant to future
goals when sleep follows soon after learning. Effects persist for as
long as four months after the memory is created. Read
more
12 June 2009: The popular computer
Wii game console, which simulates various sports and activities, could
improve coordination, reflexes and other movement-related skills, and
help treat symptoms of Parkinson's disease, including depression. Read more
12 June 2009: An increase in the use of Ecstasy may be
due to the outlawing of the party pill drug BZP and the bad reputation
of P, according to the latest findings of the illicit drugs monitoring
work done by Massey University researchers. Read more
11 June 2009: Internet-based therapy
programs are as effective as face-to-face therapies in combating
depression. Read
more
10 June 2009: An important new study
reveals that the overall well-being is initially plummeted in countries
directly affected by the fall of the Iron Curtain in the late 1980s. Read more
10 June 2009: How consequential a change of residence is to
behavioral outcomes such as crime. Relocation substantially lowers the
likelihood of re-incarceration for parolees. Read more
9 June 2009: According to new
research, television watching may be an important determinant of
bedtime, and may contribute to chronic sleep debt. Watching television
seemed to be the most important time cue for the beginning of the sleep
period. Read
more
9 June 2009: Researchers shed light on trading behavior in
animals and humans. Trading enables people to receive something that
they couldn't achieve on their own, requiring also a leap of faith. Read more
9 June 2009: Computer/console gamers who play for more than
7 hours a week and who identify their gaming as an addiction sleep less
during the weekdays and experience greater sleepiness than casual or
non-gamers. Read
more
9 June 2009: A study finds connection between evolution and
classroom learning. Read
more
8 June 2009: War and migration may
have shaped human behaviour. Demographic factors could be behind
diverse aspects of social evolution. Read
more
8 June 2009: Geography and history shape genetic differences
in humans, together with natural selection. Read
more
8 June 2009: Boys who carry a particular variation of the
gene Monoamine oxidase A (MAOA), sometimes called the “warrior gene,”
are more likely not only to join gangs but also to be among the most
violent members and to use weapons. Read more
5 June 2009: To understand the
evolutionary basis of some human behaviors, anthropologists must
consider not only issues connected to social evolution in animals, but
also the implications of the possible coevolution of genes and culture.
Read
more
5 June 2009: A recent study has investigated why some
cultural products and styles die out faster than others. According to
the results, the quicker a cultural item rockets to popularity, the
quicker it dies. Read
more
5 June 2009: High population density leads to greater
exchange of ideas and skills. Combined with a greater probability of
useful innovations, modern human behaviours appear at different times
in different parts of the world. Read more
5 June 2009: Cause marketing: Companies that join with
social causes to sell products not only enhance their image but also
improve their bottom line. Read more
5 June 2009: A research suggests that depression can be
treated effectively by helping people reclaim healing habits from a
more primitive way of life rather than modern psychotherapy or
antidepressant drugs. Read more
5 June 2009: Arts is good for the psyche. Youth who do arts
are psychologically better off than those who do not. Read more
5 June 2009: A new study of Chinese-American youth has found
that family obligation, for example caring for siblings or helping
elders, plays a positive role in the mental health of Chinese-American
adolescents and may prevent symptoms of depression in later teenage
years. Read more
4 June 2009: “Science diplomacy is
not the same as the use of science in diplomacy." Read
more
4 June 2009: A new theory called the Alliance Hypothesis for
Human Friendship is distinct from traditional explanations for human
friendship that focused on wealth, popularity or similarity. How you
rank your best friends is closely related to how you think your friends
rank you. Read more
4 June 2009: Our mood literally changes the way our visual
system filters our perceptual experience. When in a positive
mood, our visual cortex takes in more information, while negative moods
result in tunnel vision. Read more
4 June 2009: A paleontological survey to study fossil
remains of the bones and teeth of small vertebrateswas was
carried out in the cave of El Mirón in the Cantabrian region,
Spain,
over the past 41,000 years, at the end of the Quaternary. It is found
that the place experienced 7 cooling, warming phases. Read more
3 June 2009: Researchers have
discovered a fossilized face and jaw from a previously unknown hominoid
primate genus in Spain dating to the Middle Miocene era, roughly 12
million years ago. Read
more
3 June 2009: Why dishing with a girlfriend does wonders for
a woman's mood. A likely reason for gossiping: feeling emotionally
close to a friend increases levels of the hormone progesterone, helping
to boost well-being and reduce anxiety and stress. Read more
3 June 2009: Discoveries shed new light on how the brain
processes what the eye sees. The fact is: Visual input obtained during
eye movements is being processed by the brain but blocked from
awareness. Read
more
3 June 2009: Indonesian women born into rural communities in
rainy years grow taller, stay in school longer and live in households
with greater wealth. The study focuses on focus on a common source of
vulnerability in poorer agricultural economies—weather. Read more
3 June 2009: Cognitive behavioral intervention helps prevent
depression among at-risk teens. Read more
2 June 2009: Culture, not biology,
underpins math gender gap. Read more
2 June 2009: Computer scientists have developed a new way
of cloning facial expressions during live conversations to help us
better understand what influences our behaviour when we communicate
with others. Read
more
2 June 2009: Cutting-edge computer modelling software has
enabled a long-lost, trumpet-like instrument to be recreated - allowing
a work by Bach to be performed as the composer may have intended for
the first time in nearly 300 years. Read more
2 June 2009: The antidepressant citalopram does not appear
to reduce the occurrence of repetitive behaviors in children and teens
with autism spectrum disorders. Read more
29 May 2009: Sociologist
investigated how the context in which we meet people influences our
social network. One conclusion: you lose about half of your close
network members every 7 years. Read more
29 May 2009: A new study provides some of the strongest
evidence to date that Americans prefer to read political articles that
agree with the opinions they already hold. Read more
29 May 2009: When someone becomes dependent on drugs or
alcohol, the brain's pleasure center gets hijacked, disrupting the
normal functioning of its reward circuitry. A naturally occurring
protein can flip the addiction "switch". Read more
28 May 2009: A better process for
the mothers suffering from postpartum depression and other mood
disorders to develop healthy connections between their maternal
experiences and their infants' behaviors. Read
more
28 May 2009: Our brain is wired to identify gender based on
facial cues and coloring, according to a new study -- the luminescence
of the eyebrow and mouth region is vital in rapid gender
discrimination. Read
more
28 May 2009: A recent study finds that the antidepressant
effects of drugs like Prozac involve both neurogenesis-dependent and
-independent mechanisms. Read more
27 May 2009: Scientists have
developed a new way of dating archaeological objects – using fire and
water to unlock their 'internal clocks'. Read
more
27 May 2009: Kids with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity
Disorder (ADHD) need to fidget. It helps them to solve problems, just
like figuring out a math test. Read more
27 May 2009: A third species of Palaeopropithecus, an
extinct group of large lemurs, has just been uncovered in the northwest
of Madagascar. Read
more
27 May 2009: Neuroscientists feel they are much closer to an
accepted unified theory about how the brain processes speech and
language. Read more
27 May 2009: Banks are not responding adequately to
financial market fluctuations in using risk-assessment tool such as
Value-at-Risk (VaR). Read more
27 May 2009: Music is social communication between
individuals. The neurobiology of music perception and production is
likely to be related to the pathways affecting intrinsic attachment
behavior. Read more
27 May 2009: A new research: University students considered
likeable by people that met them in real life have been found to make a
similar impression on people who view their Facebook profiles. Read
more
26 May 2009: Social Brain Hypothesis
-- sociality has played a key role in the evolution of larger brain
size among several orders of mammals – is questioned. Increased brain
size is not routinely associated with sociality, as in the carnivore
species. Read more
26 May 2009: Head movement is more important than gender in
nonverbal communication. Women use more active head motion when
conversing with each other than men. Read more
26 May 2009: Available evidence supports the use of online
or other computer-based smoking cessation programs for helping adults
quit smoking, according to a meta-analysis of previously published
studies. Read more
25 May 2009: Study indicates people
by nature are universally optimistic. At the country level, optimism is
highest in Ireland, Brazil, Denmark, and New Zealand. Read more
25 May 2009: Computers have been used for years to
facilitate learning at a distance. A new European research programme
shows that computers can also enhance collaborative, face-to-face
learning and problem solving. Read more
25 May 2009: Ancient bones suggest "lefties" have been
coping with a right-handed world for more than half a million years. A
study of Homo heidelbergensis, an ancestor of Neanderthals, seems to
show that the ancient humans were predominately right-handed. Read
more
22 May 2009: Information engineers
in India and Japan believe they have found an automatic way to
discriminate between personal web pages and commercial pages designed
to fool consumers. Read
more
21 May 2009: Combination of old and
new media such as ICT (information and communications technologies)
deepens mathematical understanding. Read
more
21 May 2009: It has been discovered that whether someone is a
'people-person' may depend on the structure of their brain: the greater
the concentration of brain tissue in certain parts of the brain, the
more likely they are to be a warm, sentimental person. Read more
21 May 2009: Feeding behavior in monkeys and humans have
ancient, shared roots. Behavioural ecologists working in Bolivia have
found that wild spider monkeys control their diets in a similar way to
humans, contrary to what has been thought up to now. Read more
21 May 2009: In the past 50 years it has become commonplace
to think of Earth as a nurturing place. The Gaia hypothesis vs the
Medea hypothesis. Read
more
21 May 2009: The psychological reasons consumers may fall
victim to mass marketed scams are revealed today in a groundbreaking
research in UK. Read
more
21 May 2009: Using fire and water to unlock the 'internal
clocks' of archaeological objects. Read more
21 May 2009: Schizophrenia, a major psychotic disorder, does
not increase risk of violent crime, contrary to common assumption. Read more
20 May 2009: Scientists have found a
47-million-year-old human ancestor. Discovered in Messel Pit, Germany,
the fossil, described as Darwinius masillae, is 20 times older than
most fossils that explain human evolution. Read
more
20 May 2009: Perfect pitch is defined as the ability to
recognize the pitch of a musical note without comparing it to any
reference note. Musicians who speak an East Asian tone language
fluently are much more likely to have perfect pitch. Read more
20 May 2009: "Super-recognizers": those who can easily
recognize someone they met in passing, even many years later. A new
study suggests that skill in facial recognition might vary widely among
humans. Read more
20 May 2009: Exposure to 2 languages carries far-reaching
benefits. Read more
20 May 2009: Sick of the same old thing? It may be Variety
Amnesia. Researchers finds solution to satiation blues. Read more
19 May 2009: Ciguatera poisoning,
the food-borne disease, may be the key to the storied migrations of the
Polynesian natives who colonized New Zealand, Easter Island and,
possibly, Hawaii in the 11th to 15th centuries. Read
more
18 May 2009: Neandertals, the
'stupid' cousins of modern humans, are sophisticated and fearless
hunters. Read
more
15 May 2009: Achieving Fame, Wealth,
and Beauty ends can actually make a person less happy. Read more
15 May 2009: A new article suggests that our feelings in our
lifetime can affect our children. Our brain generates chemicals when we
are in different moods. They could affect 'germ cells' (eggs and
sperm). Read more
15 May 2009: Avoiding social potholes on your career path
alongside occupying the 'structural hole.' Read more
14 May 2009: People who live in
urban areas are more likely to develop late-stage cancer than those who
live in suburban and rural areas. Read
more
14 May 2009: Following the leader: social networks of school
children. Read
more
14 May 2009: Significant and widespread cognitive problems
appear to exist in schizophrenia in its earliest phase, making it very
hard for people with the disorder to work, study or be social. Read more
13 May 2009: Early diagnosis and
treatment of Alzheimer's disease could save millions or even billions
of dollars while simultaneously improving care. Read more
13 May 2009: Too much information: Choosing among products
can be more difficult if you tend to think more about the process of
using an item rather than the outcome of the purchase. Read more
13 May 2009: Body movements can influence problem solving.
The brain can use bodily cues to help understand and solve complex
problems, just like in a study, swinging their arms helped participants
solve a problem whose solution involved swinging strings. Read more
13 May 2009: A study shows that girls in sports develop
conflict-resolution skills. Read more
12 May 2009: Brain's problem-solving
function at work when we daydream. A study finds that our brains are
much more active when we daydream than previously thought. Daydreaming
is an important cognitive state. Read more
12 May 2009: To preserve the world's oldest submerged town
-- the ancient town of Pavlopetri in 3 to 4 metres of water off
the coast of southern Laconia in Greece, dated back to at least 2800
BC. Read more
12 May 2009: A research has found a traditional extract of
kava, a medicinal plant from the South Pacific, to be safe and
effective in reducing anxiety. Read more
12 May 2009: Spending more time in the sunshine could help
older people to reduce their risk of developing heart disease and
diabetes. Read more
11 May 2009: Representation of
confidence associated with a decision by neurons in the parietal
cortex. Read
more
11 May 2009: The Neoproterozoic interval of "hidden"
evolution refers to a gap of unknown duration between the time when
animals first evolved (uncertain) and the oldest known fossil or
geochemical evidence of animals (latest Neoproterozoic, about 600-650
million years ago). Read
more
11 May 2009: Will the economic crisis lead to major
societal changes? Why has the size of Japanese immigrant families
declined substantially? A new theory of social change and development
tries to answer these questions. Read more
11 May 2009: Punitive policies intended to reduce drug use
by making life difficult for convicted users are counterproductive and
actually lead to a vicious spiral of drug use and reincarceration. Read more
8 May 2009: Suicide rates in
Greenland increase during the summer. Researchers speculate that
insomnia caused by incessant daylight may be to blame. Read more
7 May 2009: A detailed analysis of
the feet of Homo floresiensis—the miniature hominins who lived on a
remote island in eastern Indonesia until 18,000 years ago—may help
settle the question of how similar was this population to modern
humans. Read
more
7 May 2009: A new study demonstrates that the use of a
consistent bedtime routine contributes to improvements in multiple
aspects of infant and toddler sleep, bedtime behavior and maternal
mood. Read
more
7 May 2009: It is possible to influence emotional evaluation
of visual stimuli by listening to musical excerpts before the
evaluation. Read
more
7 May 2009: Children as young as 19 months understand
different dialects. A ground-breaking study on the early development of
a cross-dialect skill, which is termed "phonological constancy." Read more
7 May 2009: Children who can stay focused and happier have a
better shot at good health in adulthood -- and this is especially true
for girls. Read
more
7 May 2009: Superior entrepreneurial performance is not
driven by technical knowledge, rather, mainly the non-technical
knowledge. Read
more
6 May 2009: The theory that everyone
in the world is six friendships away from everyone else is regarded by
many as a myth. Read
more
6 May 2009: Cognitive scientists have shown that when aware
of both a negative and positive stereotype related to performance,
women will identify more closely with the positive stereotype, avoiding
the harmful impact the negative stereotype unwittingly can have on
their performance. Read
more
6 May 2009: Deception in computer-mediated environments: Why
people are better at lying online. Read
more
5 May 2009: For the first time ever,
researchers in Italy have investigated the health of children born to
imprisoned women. The study examined the clinical diaries of children
who had lived in prison for one and half years between 2003 and 2005. Read
more
5 May 2009: Women who have babies naturally in their 40s or
50s tend to live longer. Now, a new study shows their brothers also
live longer, suggesting it is the genes rather than the social and
environmental factors. Read more
4 May 2009: A groundbreaking DNA
study has revealed our 'Garden of Eden' is likely to be on the South
African-Namibian border, home to the world's most ancient race. Read
more
4 May 2009: 'Climate change' forces Eskimos to abandon
village. Read
more
4 May 2009: A survey: 1,000 college students taking
introductory biology classes. Results showed that the views of majors
and non-majors were similar and revealed that high school biology
teachers influence whether majors and non-majors college students
accept evolution or question it based on creationism. Read more
1 May 2009: Proteins, soft tissue
from 80 million-year-old hadrosaur (duck-billed dinosaur) add weight to
theory that molecules preserve over time. Read more
1 May 2009: African, American, and European researchers
working in collaboration over a 10-year period have released the
largest-ever study of African genetic data--more than 4 million
genotypes--providing a library of new information on the continent
which is thought to be the source of the oldest settlements of modern
humans. Read more
1 May 2009: Researchers develop better treatment for social
fears. Read more
1 May 2009: The story of ancient Persian Empire gets
digitized. Read
more
30 April 2009: High schools in
Finland and New Zealand have the best science results in the world, an
OECD study has showed. Read
more
30 April 2009: A new study provides direct experimental
evidence that a brain region important for reading and word recognition
contains neurons that are highly selective for individual real words,
processing written words as unique 'objects'. Read more
30 April 2009: A new longitudinal study of children's
personality traits and interests tells us that sex-typed
characteristics develop differently in girls and boys. Read more
30 April 2009: Research on social cognition conducted in
animals is now informing research in humans. The effects of oxytocin,
the "love hormone," on human couple interactions. Read more
30 April 2009: Addictive behaviour is determined by
conscious, rapid thought processes, not necessarily by the content of
visual stimuli -- attentional bias -- as previously thought. Read more
29 April 2009: Analysis finds strong
match between molecular, fossil data in evolutionary studies. Why
bother classifying organisms according to their physical appearance,
let alone analyze their evolutionary dynamics, when molecular
techniques had already invalidated that approach? Read more
29 April 2009: A study, of adults over age 50, also found
that women, but not men, get an added health benefit when paired with
someone who is conscientious and neurotic. Read more
29 April 2009: A new gene variant that is highly common in
autistic children, known as CDH10. Researchers discovered that the gene
is most active in key regions that support language, speech and
interpreting social behavior in the fetal brain. Read more
29 April 2009: New scientific evidence suggests that
dinosaurs may have survived the end Cretaceous extinctions in a remote
area of what is now New Mexico and Colorado, USA, for up to half a
million years. Read
more
29 April 2009: Study suggests left-side bias in visual
expertise. 2 specific effects for facial recognition - holistic
processing (in which we view the face as a whole, instead of in various
parts) and left-side bias. Read more
29 April 2009: Researchers have found short-term visual
memories suddenly disappeared, rather than fading. Read more
28 April 2009: Study suggests
Buddhist meditation temporarily augments visuospatial abilities. There
is now evidence that a specific method of meditation may temporarily
boost our visuospatial abilities, allowing practitioners to access a
heightened state of visual-spatial awareness that lasts for a limited
period of time. Read
more
28 April 2009: Major weaknesses in feminist social theories
-- untenable, far too undeveloped, and laden with insoluble internal
problems of logic. Read
more
28 April 2009: Early brain activity sheds new light on the
neural basis of reading. It is unlikely that enough time has elapsed to
allow the evolution of specialized parts of the brain for reading since
there were alphabetic scripts. Read more
28 April 2009: A new statistical model that simulates human
mobility patterns can aid in studying epidemic outbreaks, public
planning. It is the first to represent the regular movement patterns of
humans using statistical data. Read more
27 April 2009: A new study
challenges long-standing expectations that men are promiscuous and
women tend to be more particular when it comes to choosing a mate. Read more
24 April 2009: New Look at the
collapse of the great Maya civilization. Read
more
24 April 2009: A new economy is rapidly emerging: the
"ecological growth economy". It is the precondition for the
continuation of human progress and the survival of millions of other
species on Earth. Read more
24 April 2009: Researchers have found for the first time
that novelty seeking personality types enjoy a stronger “placebo
response”. The study hypothesizes that the anticipation of pain
relief, in this case triggered by the administration of a placebo, is a
special case of reward anticipation. Read more
24 April 2009: Indus script encodes language, reveals new
study of ancient symbols. A computer scientist has led a statistical
study of the Indus script, comparing the pattern of symbols to various
linguistic scripts and nonlinguistic systems, including DNA and a
computer programming language. Read more
24 April 2009: A research is the first of its kind to look
at the link between living abroad and creativity. Read more
23 April 2009: Researchers from the
United States and Canada have found a fossil skeleton of a newly
discovered carnivorous animal, Puijila darwini. New research suggests
Puijila is a "missing link" in the evolution of the group that today
includes seals, sea lions, and the walrus. Read more
23 April 2009: Tyrannosaur 'Missing Link' Among New
Dinosaurs From China: new species of theropod dinosaurs. Read
more
23 April 2009: The first study to document the relative
effects of calories from liquids compared with those of calories from
solid food on weight loss in adults over an extended period. Read more
23 April 2009: A growing appreciation of the links between
anorexia and autism spectrum disorders has uncovered new opportunities
for treating the eating disorder. Read
more
22 April 2009: Archaeologists
exploring an old military road in the Sinai have unearthed four new
temples amidst the 3,000-year-old remains of an ancient fortified city.
Read more
22 April 2009: Thinking your memory will get worse as you
get older may actually be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Negative
stereotypes about aging and memory loss… Read more
21 April 2009: How we feel linked to
both our culture and how we behave. Read
more
21 April 2009: A new study in USA is the first to actually
report that pathological patterns of video game addiction exist in a
national sample of youth, aged 8 to 18 -- nearly 1 in 10 youth gamers. Read more
21 April 2009: The World Digital Library, a website offering
free access to rare books, maps, manuscripts, films and photographs
from across the globe, launches on 21 April 2009 at UNESCO headquarters
in Paris. Read more
20 April 2009: Even low levels of
lead found in the blood during early childhood can adversely affect how
the child's cardiovascular system responds to stress and could possibly
lead to hypertension later in life. Read more
20 April 2009: Dialect Detectives. System that distinguishes
among variants in spoken languages could enhance automated machine
translation. Read
more
17 April 2009: Study explores roots
of ethnic violence – “conflict breaks out when large segments of the
population are excluded from access to government because of their
ethnicity.” Read
more
17 April 2009: TerraWorld, an island in the social
networking website Second Life, is designed to help high school
students to learn geology in an interactive way. It is part of the
larger GeoWorlds project. Read more
17 April 2009: Gambling ban would reverse recession.
Legalized gambling is weighing down the global economy. A new
collection of research renews decades-old calls to outlaw betting. Read more
16 April 2009: 3 Neanderthal
sub-groups confirmed. Whether the Neanderthals constituted a homogenous
group or separate sub-groups. Read
more
16 April 2009: New business theory shows compensation plans
can make or break a firm. Greed has been blamed for most of Wall
Street's woes and the banking sector's recent collapse. What about
envy? Read more
16 April 2009: The discovery of a remarkably well-preserved
monumental temple in Turkey — thought to be constructed during the time
of King Solomon in the 10th/9th-centuries BC -- sheds light on the
so-called Dark Age. Read
more
16 April 2009: Anthropologist Says Tree Climbing
Abilities of Early Hominins Decreased Rapidly in Evolutionary Process. Read more
15 April 2009: Quantum Theory May
Explain Wishful Thinking. While logic and reasoning point in one
direction for making decision, sometimes personal bias or simply
"wishful thinking" counts. Now, scientists have shown that a quantum
probability model can provide a simple explanation for human
decision-making - and may eventually help explain the success of human
cognition overall. Read
more
15 April 2009: Study suggests power of imagination is
more than just a metaphor. Imagination may be more effective than we
think in helping us reach our goals. Read more
15 April 2009: When searching a scene to find an object, we
have a bias toward inspecting new regions of a scene, and avoid looking
for the object in already searched areas. Whether this inhibition of
return is specific for visual search… Read more
14 April 2009: A study examined
breast and prostate cancer survival rates at different geographic
levels, and the results suggest that there are significant societal
factors at the root of cancer-related racial disparities. Read
more
14 April 2009: Psychiatrists and critical care specialists
have begun to tease out what there is about a stay in an intensive care
unit (ICU) that leads so many patients to report depression after they
go home. Read
more
14 April 2009: All African Pygmies, inhabiting a large
territory extending west-to-east along Central Africa, descend from a
unique population who lived around 20,000 years ago. Read
more
14 April 2009: Emotions linked to our moral sense awaken
slowly in the mind. Digital media culture may be better suited to some
mental processes than others. Read more
14 April 2009: Human beings are continuing to evolve as
our genes respond to rapid changes in the world around us. In fact, the
pressures of modern life may be speeding up the pace of human
evolution. Read
more
9 April 2009: More than half of
non-smoking New Yorkers have elevated levels of cotinine in their
blood. Cotinine, a by-product of nicotine breakdown, is a sign of
recent exposure to second-hand smoking. Read more
9 April 2009: Researchers recently completed a comprehensive
comparison of citizen journalism sites (news sites and blogs) and
traditional media Web sites. They found that legacy media are more
comprehensive than citizen media and bloggers. Read more
9 April 2009: A new study reports that one in six
patients receiving therapeutic doses of certain drugs for Parkinson's
disease develops new-onset, potentially destructive behaviors, notably
compulsive gambling or hypersexuality. Read more
9 April 2009: 5 Years after: Portugal's Drug
Decriminalization Policy shows positive results. Read
more
8 April 2009: For attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), in some cases it's even better to teach
skills than prescribe pills, according to a meta-analysis of 174
studies on ADHD treatment. Read more
8 April 2009: Adults have an intuitive understanding of
fractions which are thought to be a difficult mathematical concept to
learn. A study shows that cells in the intraparietal sulcus (IPS) and
the prefrontal cortex — brain regions important for processing whole
numbers — are tuned to respond to particular fractions. Read more
8 April 2009: Quants -- quantitative analysts -- are now
being cast as villains because they devised the financial instruments
and computer programs fueling stock markets' spectacular rise and
collapse. Read more
8 April 2009: Weight discrimination. Overweight and obese
women are significantly underrepresented among the top CEOs in the
United States, while overweight men were actually overrepresented among
top CEOs. Read more
7 April 2009: The stigma of obesity:
a review and update. Read
more
7 April 2009: Empirical research on wisdom is a relatively
new phenomenon, Researchers have compiled the first-ever review of the
neurobiology of wisdom - once the sole province of religion and
philosophy. Read
more
7 April 2009: What effect would thinking about other
people's self-control have on our own thoughts and behavior? Read more
7 April 2009: The legend is that the great rulers of
Canaan, the ancient land of Israel, were all men. But a recent dig
uncovered possible evidence of a mysterious female ruler. Read more
3 April 2009: Psychologist has taken
advantage of a key time when memories are ripe for change to
substantially modify memories of fear into benign memories and to keep
them that way. Read
more
2 April 2009: While we worry about
global warming affecting our future, it will also damage our past.
Archaeological sites from the frozen steppes of Central Asia to the
coast of Greenland are threatened by climate change. Read
more
2 April 2009: Scientists propose new theory of autism
that the brains of people with autism are structurally normal but
dysregulated, meaning symptoms of the disorder might be reversible. Read more
1 April 2009: How do we get more
young people interested in science? Leading the way are a number of
college courses that focus on the science in science fiction.
Superheroes may teach us about the answer to life and the universe. Read more
1 April 2009: Looking for an explanation for recurring
nightmares? New research suggests you can blame the Earth's magnetic
field. Read
more
31 March 2009: The contrast
sensitivity function (CSF) is routinely assessed in clinical evaluation
of vision and is the primary limiting factor in how well one sees. It
can be enhanced through action video game training. Read
more
31 March 2009: Survey experts have identified several
reasons why the Presidential primary 2008 polls, USA, picked the wrong
winners. The study is believed to be the most comprehensive analysis
ever conducted of presidential primary polls. Read more
31 March 2009: Advertising during a recession may yield
increased future earnings. Read more
31 March 2009: Better decisions come from teams that include
a "socially distinct newcomer." That's psychology-speak for someone who
is different enough to bump other team members out of their comfort
zones. Read more
30 March 2009: People make choices
based on their preferences, or choices influence preferences. A new
study backs both sides by identifying a component of the brain's reward
circuitry that seems to keep track of changing preferences. Read
more
30 March 2009: Personality at adolescence predicts
reproductive success later in life. The study findings showed that male
and female teens with socially dominant personalities were more likely
to have children as adults. Read
more
30 March 2009: Individuals with autism spectrum disorders
(ASD) tend to stare at people's mouths rather than their eyes. It is
lip-sync—the exact match of lip motion and speech sound… Read more
27 March 2009: The earliest known
and well-preserved bony fish has been found in southern China. The
fossil sheds light on the history of jawed vertebrates. Research
suggests that there was a split between ray-finned and lobe-finned
fishes which must have happened at least 419 million years ago. Read
more
27 March 2009: The European Commission said US laws
restricting online gambling went against WTO rules, but Brussels would
seek a negotiated solution to the dispute. Read more
27 March 2009: Self-led, self-structured inquiry may be the
best method to train scientists at the college level and beyond, but
it's not the ideal way for all high school students to prepare for
college science. Read
more
26 March 2009: A visual learning
study indicates that viewers can learn a great deal about objects in
their field of vision even without paying attention. Read more
26 March 2009: A new study provides intriguing insights into
mechanisms of cognitive flexibility at the single cell level. The
research may help to explain how we can change our point of view when
faced with conflict. Read more
26 March 2009: Visual learners convert words to pictures in
the brain and vice versa. Read more
25 March 2009: Researchers in Spain
and the UK have demonstrated that stroke patients who have lost part of
their spatial awareness experience enhanced visual awareness when
listening to music that they like. Read
more
25 March 2009: Design revolution. A revolutionary approach
to the design of consumer products - from automobiles to plasma TVs -
could cut manufacturers' warranty costs significantly. Read more
25 March 2009: Silver surfers: New social networking Web
site Genkvetch geared to seniors. Read more
24 March 2009: Groups share
information in workplace, but not the 'right' information. They discuss
information they already know and that "talkier" teams are less
effective. Read
more
23 March 2009: Evolutionary theorist
has published details of 8 patterns of all the humour that has ever
been imagined or expressed, regardless of civilization, culture or
personal taste. Read
more
23 March 2009: Scientists examine how social networks
influence behavior. Studying who the people you know know, and perhaps
also who those people know. Read more
20 March 2009: Other people know
more about what will make us happy than we do. Read more
20 March 2009: Heightened level of amygdala activity may
cause social deficits in autism. Read more
20 March 2009: Domestic and international influences shape
the politics of R&D and innovation. Read more
19 March 2009: Information warfare
in the 21st century: Ideas are sometimes stronger than bombs. Read more
18 March 2009: Money management
websites promising to save the Internet generation from financial
disaster. Read more
18 March 2009: A new study has found: Romantic love can last
a lifetime and lead to happier, healthier long-term relationships. Read more
18 March 2009: Study gives more proof that intelligence
is largely inherited. Read more
18 March 2009: Marriage's effect on lesbian and gay
couples studied. Read
more
17 March 2009: Perinatal environment
influences aggression in children. It's a well-documented fact that
children from zero to two can be spontaneously aggressive. Read
more
17 March 2009: Children exposed to a multi-year programme of
music tuition involving training in increasingly complex rhythmic,
tonal, and practical skills display superior cognitive performance in
reading skills compared with their non-musically trained peers. Read more
16 March 2009: The human brain’s
sensitivity to unexpected outcomes plays a fundamental role in the
ability to adapt and learn new behaviors. Read
more
16 March 2009: Reducing suicidal behaviors among adolescent
girls who view themselves as too fat. Read
more
16 March 2009: Geo-engineering solutions to carbon problem
studied. Ideas such as creating artificial trees to absorb carbon
dioxide, or reflecting sunlight away from the Earth, are under
consideration. Read
more
16 March 2009: Rising global temperatures may lead to
increased disparities between rich and poor countries, according to a
recent MIT economic analysis of the impact of climate change on growth.
Read more
16 March 2009: When it comes to achieving well-being, gender
plays a role. Men are much less likely to feel and express gratitude
than women, according to a research. Read more
16 March 2009: The rise of agriculture 10,000 years ago
meant the end of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle for which human beings
had been optimized by millions of years of evolution. Read more
12 March 2009: New techniques
suggest the remains of so-called Peking Man - a batch of Homo erectus
fossils found in the 1920s in China - are 200,000 years older than
previously calculated. About 770,000 years ago, it was a glacial period
on Earth. Read more
12 March 2009: The world's first Map of Science—a
high-resolution graphic depiction of the virtual trails scientists
leave behind when they retrieve information from online services. Read more
12 March 2009: Stimulus-reward pairing can elicit visual
learning in adults, rather than the prevailing assumption that one must
pay attention to something in order to learn it. Read more
12 March 2009: What I was doing vs. what I did: How verb
aspect influences memory and behavior. The way a statement is phrased
(and specifically, how the verbs are used), affects our memory of an
event being described and may also influence our behavior. Read more
12 March 2009: Who was Jesus? The historical person Jesus of
Nazareth. His proclamation of the forgiveness of sins is the key to
understanding how he perceived his own identity. Read more
12 March 2009: Ageism is still rampant in America, and many
old people themselves trade in unflattering stereotypes of the elderly,
including helplessness and incompetence. Young, healthy people who
stereotype old people may themselves be at risk of heart disease many
years down the road. Read more
11 March 2009: Suicide in the
workplace 'contagious' Read
more
11 March 2009: Study Rules Out Fröhlich Condensates in
Quantum Consciousness Model. Scientists don't fully understand how
consciousness works, and, so far, no classical theories can explain
consciousness in the brain. Read more
11 March 2009: A new study may explain why children
with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) move around a lot
- it helps them stay alert enough to complete challenging tasks. Read more
10 March 2009: Online abuse of the
world's top brands is rising. Cyber-squatting rose by 18% in 2008… Read more
10 March 2009: A skeleton exhumed from a grave in Venice is
being claimed as the first known example of the "vampires" widely
referred to in contemporary documents. Read
more
9 March 2009: Ancient groundwater
being tapped by Jordan, one of the 10 most water-deprived nations in
the world, has been found to contain twenty times the radiation
considered safe for drinking water. Read
more
9 March 2009: Gestures lend a hand in learning mathematics;
hand movements help create new ideas. Read
more
9 March 2009: Neuroscientists have identified the neural
systems involved in forming first impressions of others. The findings
show how we encode social information and then evaluate it in making
these initial judgments. Read more
9 March 2009: Economists say copyright and patent laws are
killing innovation; hurting economy. Read more
9 March 2009: Psychologist explores perception of fear in
human sweat. Given that more than one sense is typically involved when
humans perceive information, psychologist studied whether the smell of
fear facilitates humans' other stronger senses. Read more
6 March 2009: High novelty-seeking
and low avoidance of harm contribute to alcohol dependence. Read
more
6 March 2009: A market economy in which inventors can buy
and sell shares of the key components of their discoveries actually
beats out the winner-takes-all world of patent rights as a motivating
force. Read more
6 March 2009: Study finds that students benefit from depth,
rather than breadth, in high school science courses. Read more
5 March 2009: What is science
diplomacy? It is 'the use and application of science cooperation to
help build bridges and enhance relationships between and amongst
societies. Read
more
5 March 2009: Believing in God can help block anxiety and
minimize stress, according to new University of Toronto research that
shows distinct brain differences between believers and non-believers. Read more
5 March 2009: According to maritime archaeologist , ancient
Egyptians, best known for building pyramids, were pretty good sailors,
too. Read more
5 March 2009: A new study explores how and when
politicians can use fear to manipulate the public into supporting
policies they might otherwise oppose. Read more
5 March 2009: Contrary to popular belief, researchers found
that pride not only leads individuals to take on leadership roles in
teams, but also fosters admiration, as opposed to scorn, from
teammates. Read
more
5 March 2009: A new investigation studies the link between
emotions and health. The research proves that positive emotions are
critical for upkeep of physical health for people worldwide. Read more
5 March 2009: Transportation, transformed. Multidisciplinary
research will go way beyond the car. Read
more
4 March 2009: Lack of ability does
not explain women's decisions to opt out of math-intensive science
careers. They want the flexibility to raise children. Read more
4 March 2009: How multiple childhood maltreatments lead to
greater adolescent binge drinking. Read more
4 March 2009: Geologic Findings Undermine Theories of
Permian Mass Extinction Timing. Read more
4 March 2009: New Forensic Method Aims to Predict What a
Person Looks Like from DNA Sample. Read more
4 March 2009: New study reveals: Gifted children shape their
personalities according to social stigma. They usually choose to study
applied sciences. Read
more
4 March 2009: Study examines the role of gender in the
stigma of mental illness. The stereotypes are so powerful: Mental
patients are either violently dangerous or docile and incompetent. We
fear the first and disdain the latter. Read more
4 March 2009: It appeared that teens were sacrificing real
relationships for superficial cyber-relationships with total strangers.
But now social scientists are coming to believe that the psychological
benefits of Internet may now outweigh the detrimental effects. Read more
3 March 2009: Material success and
social failure? More unequal societies are bad for almost everyone
within them — the well-off as well as the poor. Read more
3 March 2009: The first systematic investigation of
the effects of gender and race on children's beliefs about moral
behavior, both in the virtual world and the real world, and the
relationship between the two. Read more
3 March 2009: The growing trend to move miles away from
hometowns and family for work is leaving many women feeling 'ignorant
and ill-equipped' to cope with pregnancy and childbirth. Read more
2 March 2009: Which facial feature
do humans look at to distinguish the faces of people? -- the eyes. What
may come as a surprise, however, is that our fellow primates, monkeys,
do the same thing. Read
more
2 March 2009: The argument over whether an outcrop of rock
in South West Greenland contains the earliest known traces of life on
Earth has been reignited. Read
more
2 March 2009: Alcohol types and socioeconomic status are
associated with Barrett's esophagus risk. Read more
2 March 2009: Doodling while listening can help with
remembering details, rather than implying that the mind is wandering as
is the common perception. Read more
27 February 2009: Psychologists shed
light on origins of morality. A link between moral disgust and more
primitive forms of disgust related to poison and disease. Read more
27 February 2009: 1.5 million-year-old fossil humans walked
on modern feet. Read
more
27 February 2009: Youths are most influenced by negative
family members and by positive adults outside the family. Read more
27 February 2009: Scientists show that language shapes
perception. Cognitive neuroscience have shown that what our eyes see
and what our brain interprets are two different things. Read more
27 February 2009: British researcher says Facebook a brain
drain. "As a consequence, the mid-21st century mind might almost be
infantilized, characterized by short attention spans, sensationalism,
inability to empathize and a shaky sense of identity." Read more
26 February 2009: Obesity in late
adolescence carries the same risk of premature death as smoking more
than 10 cigarettes a day. Read
more
26 February 2009: Don't flatter yourself: Why survey
research can be flawed. Read
more
26 February 2009: The question about the hobbit-sized people
who lived on the Indonesian island of Flores until about 13,000 years
ago is among the most hotly debated in archaeology. Read
more
26 February 2009: Stages of sleep have distinct influence on
process of learning and memory. Read more
25 February 2009: Re-shaping the
family: What happens when parents seek siblings of their
donor-conceived children. Read
more
25 February 2009: A report is the first to show that
gestures not only help recover old ideas, they also help create new
ones. The information could be helpful to teachers. Read more
24 February 2009: Understanding
speech in context: an opportunistic, proactive brain at work. Rrecent
studies of brain waves and linguistic interpretation… Read
more
24 February 2009: When dreaming is believing: dreams
affect people's judgment and behavior. From cultures all over the
world, people continue to believe that dreams contain important hidden
truths. Read
more
24 February 2009: Can different languages be analyzed using
the same model? A new analysis model from a comparison between
Spanish and Russian languages can also be applied to other languages. Read more
23 February 2009: Neural circuitry
of near-misses may explain the allure of gambling. Read
more
23 February 2009: People with serious mental illnesses
should receive greater guidance about sexual health, including the risk
of HIV. Read
more
23 February 2009: New anti-graffiti coating has been
developed to protect cultural heritage caused by graffiti attack. Read
more
23 February 2009: Educational video games effective in
classroom if certain criteria are met. Playing and studying are not
incompatible activities. Read
more
23 February 2009: Abuse in early childhood can
dramatically alter the way the brain copes with stress in adulthood. Read
more
23 February 2009: Researchers from Massey University have
developed a new way to predict stock markets that has been recognised
with an award from New Zealand finance specialists. Read more
23 February 2009: How we think before we speak: Making sense
of sentences. Read
more
23 February 2009: Researcher investigates how the gestures
of the blind differ across cultures. Read more
20 February 2009: The world-famous
La Brea Tar Pits and their surrounding area, Los Angeles —one of the
richest sources of life in the last Ice Age, approximately 40,000 to
10,000 years ago, is to be uncovered. Read
more
19 February 2009: Insights on
economic choices from game theory and cognitive psychology. Read
more
19 February 2009: Scientists Model Words as Entangled
Quantum States in our Minds. When you hear the word “planet,” do you
automatically think of the word’s literal definition, or of other
words, such as “Earth,” “space,” “Mars,” etc.? Read more
19 February 2009: The power of suggestion:
Researchers look at why suggestive therapy may prompt false
memories…compared with more natural recollections. Read more
19 February 2009: ‘ iTunes university' better than the real
thing. Read
more
18 February 2009: For the victim
(and indeed the perpetrator), bullying can have a significant impact on
a child's physical and mental health. Results from a trial carried out
by experts in the UK and US indicate that CAPSLE ('Creating a peaceful
school learning environment') could be a method that may reduce or even
eliminate this destructive behaviour. Read
more
18 February 2009: Genetic diseases and genetically mixed
populations can help researchers understand human diversity and human
origins. Read
more
18 February 2009: Differences in language-related brain
activity affected by sex? Men show greater activation than women in the
brain regions connected to language. Read more
17 February 2009: Six-year vitamin E
supplementation decreased mortality by 41% in elderly male smokers who
had high dietary vitamin C intake, but increased mortality by 19% in
middle-aged smokers who had high vitamin C intake. Read
more
17 February 2009: New research by the Carbon Disclosure
Project (CDP) revealed that three-quarters factor climate change
information into their investment decisions and asset allocations. Read
more
16 February 2009: Researchers have
some new answers to the perennial question of what men and women want
in a partner. Education and money attract a mate; chastity sinks in
importance. Read
more
16 February 2009: Tracking the digital traces of social
networks. Virtual games players stick close to home where researchers
have found a gold mine of networking data. Read
more
16 February 2009: Computerized writing aids make writing
easier for persons with aphasia which affects the ability to understand
and use spoken language. Read
more
16 February 2009: Social isolation affects how people
behave as well as how their brains operate. Read more
16 February 2009: Using synchrotron X-rays to tease the
hidden secrets of dinosaurs and old documents. The famous fossil, the
Thermopolis specimen of Archaeopteryx lithographica -- an
evolutionarily hybrid creature, a dinosaur on its way to becoming a
bird… Read more
16 February 2009: A new research platform soon to be
available at the leading UK science facility, Diamond Light Source,
will help uncover ancient secrets that have been locked away for
centuries. Read
more
16 February 2009: Internet emerges as social research tool.
The Web is moving to a virtual world where social interaction and
communities can inform social science and its applications in the real
world. Read more
13 February 2009: Psychoactive
compound activates mysterious receptor. Researchers have discovered a
hallucinogenic compound used in shamanic rituals, which regulates a
mysterious protein that is abundant throughout the body. Read more
13 February 2009: High-tech tests allow anthropologists to
track ancient hominids across the African landscape, helping to
illuminate the evolution of human diets. Read more
12 February 2009: People worldwide
have, more often than not, failed to follow through on scheduled plans.
An international group of researchers has published their answers. Read
more
12 February 2009: Deducing diet of prehistoric hominid
with mathematical models. Read
more
12 February 2009: Vatican view of Darwinism evolves into a
compatible theory. A leading official declared yesterday that Darwin's
theory of evolution was compatible with Christian faith. Read
more
12 February 2009: True or false? How our brain processes
negative statements. Read more
12 February 2009: Study shows males are more tolerant of
same-sex peers. Read
more
12 February 2009: Compete.com has crowned Facebook the most
popular social networking website, saying it racked-up nearly 1.2
billion visits in January 2009. Read more
12 February 2009: Expectations for teenage girls to be
brainy, athletic, nurturing, and look like supermodels are fueling a
generational mental health crisis. Read more
12 February 2009: Research reveals best paths for success as
microfinance sector grows. Roughly 40-to-80 percent of the populations
in most developing economies lack access to formal banking services. Read more
11 February 2009: The European Union
has signed a pact with 17 social networking providers including
Facebook, MySpace and Google to improve safeguards against the bullying
of teenagers online. Read more
11 February 2009: Researchers have confirmed one thing: When
men and women talk through technology, it's the women who are more
expressive. Read
more
11 February 2009: Multilingualism brings communities closer
together. Read more
10 February 2009: A study of 18,000
biology, chemistry and physics students has uncovered notable gender
bias in student ratings of high school science teachers. Read
more
10 February 2009: Professor analyzes if Montreal
Canadians are a hockey team or religion. Read more
9 February 2009: Pygmies in Western
Central Africa may have evolved from a common ancestral group. The rise
of farming may have caused formation of diverse groups. Read
more
9 February 2009: What colour most improves brain performance
and receptivity to advertising, red or blue? Read
more
9 February 2009: How Darwin's ideas were twisted into
'social Darwinism' which was invoked to defend the practice of
eugenics: enhancing the "quality" of the human race by weeding out --
persons deemed feeble of mind, body or both. Read more
9 February 2009: How to create less selfish societies? There
3 forces of evolution: mutation, natural selection, and cooperation. Read more
5 February 2009: Teens who 'sext'
racy photos charged with porn. Teenagers' habit of distributing nude
self-portraits electronically - often called "sexting" if it's done by
cell phone. Read
more
5 February 2009: Xenophobia, for men only. We do have an
evolved mental readiness to be fearful of certain things in our world. Read more
4 February 2009: New EU-funded
research sheds new light on how diet shaped the evolution of an early
human-like species. Scientists explain how the sturdy facial bones of
Australopithecus africanus enabled it to crack into large nuts and
seeds. Read
more
4 February 2009: New evidence from excavations in Arcadia,
Greece, supports theory of 'Birth of Zeus'. Read
more
4 February 2009: Computerized writing aids make writing
easier for persons with aphasia. Read more
4 February 2009: Boys have greater psychological well-being
than girls, due to a better physical self-concept. Read more
4 February 2009: A unique laboratory combines psychology
with technology to focus on the interaction between humans and complex
systems. Read more
3 February 2009: Scientists have
developed a computer game called “Gorge” - designed to help children
understand artificial intelligence through play, and even to change it.
It can also improve the children’s social interaction skills. Read more
3 February 2009: The irony of harmony: why positive
interactions may sometimes be negative. Read more
3 February 2009: Gender bias found in student ratings of
high school science teachers. Read more
2 February 2009: It is common belief
that a child’s intelligence and cognitive skills are predetermined by
genetic factors. Few realize that there is room for empowering young
brains and intellects through social interaction, intellectual
training, mental stimulation, physical and emotional security,
nutritious diets, and healthy family environments. Read
more
2 February 2009: Six Ways to Boost Brainpower. The adult
human brain is surprisingly malleable: it can rewire itself and even
grow new cells. Read
more
2 February 2009: Malaysian archaeologists have announced the
discovery of stone tools they believe are more than 1.8 million years
old and the earliest evidence of human ancestors in Southeast Asia. Read more
2 February 2009: Innovation: The cellphone economy. Read
more
30 January 2009: Sedentary, obese
older adults appear to improve their functional abilities and reduce
insulin resistance through a combination of resistance and aerobic
exercises. Read
more
29 January 2009: As technology has
played a bigger role in our lives, our skills in critical thinking and
analysis have declined, while our visual skills have improved. Read more
29 January 2009: Marching to the beat of the same drum
improves teamwork. When people engage in synchronous activity together,
they become more likely to cooperate with other group members. Read more
28 January 2009: The FEMAGE project
evaluated how third country immigrant women cope with obstacles and
strengthen their economic and social integration in Europe. The project
partners assessed the women's experiences, expectations and living
conditions over a two-year period. Read
more
28 January 2009: Danube Delta holds answers to 'Noah's
Flood' debate. Did a catastrophic flood of biblical proportions drown
the shores of the Black Sea 9,500 years ago, wiping out early Neolithic
settlements around its perimeter? Read
more
28 January 2009: A new psychodynamic approach to bullying in
schools has been successfully trialled -- CAPSLE (Creating a Peaceful
School Learning Environment) is a groundbreaking method focused more on
the bystander. Read
more
28 January 2009: The teaching of languages could be
revolutionised following ground-breaking research about the best way to
learn a language which is through frequent exposure to its sound
patterns--even if you haven't a clue what it all means. Read more
28 January 2009: Does Smokeless Tobacco Help Smokers Quit
Cigarettes? While not without health risks, smokeless tobacco is less
harmful than cigarettes. Read more
28 January 2009: Video game conditioning spills over into
real life. Read
more
27 January 2009: A team of
University of Hertfordshire philosophers is conducting a three-year
research project to explore conscious experiences that contemporary
science still cannot explain.
Read more
27 January 2009: Websites 'must be saved for history'. The
British Library's head says that deleting websites will make job of
historians harder. Read
more
27 January 2009: Security blankets: Materialism and death
anxiety lead to brand loyalty. Materialistic people tend to form strong
connections to particular product brands when their level of anxiety
about death is high. Read more
27 January 2009: Can't help being the life of the party?
Maybe you were just born that way. Researchers from Harvard University
and the University of California, San Diego have found that our place
in a social network is influenced in part by our genes. Read more
26 January 2009: The Un-favorite
Child: Adults Who Perceived Parents as Being Lenient with Siblings
still Happy Later In Life. Read
more
26 January 2009: Video Games Linked to Poor Relationships
with Friends and Family. Read
more
26 January 2009: Link between Social Rejection and
Aggressive Behavior Explained. Read
more
26 January 2009: European researchers have developed the
most advanced spontaneous language understanding (SLU) system for both
Polish and Italian. In fact, it is the first one. Read more
26 January 2009: Researchers have shown that deficits in
non-verbal expressivity in schizophrenia are linked to poor social
skills and an unawareness of the thoughts and intentions of others. Read more
26 January 2009: Why some people can't put two and two
together. People with dyscalculia, also known as mathematics disorder,
can be highly intelligent and articulate. Read
more
23 January 2009: Osteoporosis? Look
out for depression. Read
more
23 January 2009: Pacific people spread from Taiwan. New
research into language evolution suggests most Pacific populations
originated in Taiwan around 5,200 years ago. Read more
23 January 2009: Researchers have discovered there are
differing taste pathways for nicotine, more than just the brain's
pleasure pathways. Read
more
23 January 2009: A study has shown that individuals with
high levels of trust in the mass media tend to be healthier. Read more
22 January 2009: Temporal
relationships established within archaeological complexes. Read
more
21 January 2009: Political
prediction markets accurately predicted Barack Obama's 2008 victory.
Now Northwestern University researchers have determined that these
markets behave similar to financial markets, except when traders'
partisan feelings get in the way. Read
more
21 January 2009: Language in humans has evolved
culturally rather than genetically. By modelling the ways in which
genes for language might have evolved alongside language itself, the
study showed that genetic adaptation to language would be highly
unlikely. Read more
21 January 2009: Altered brain activity in schizophrenia
may cause exaggerated focus on self. Study links schizophrenia to
key 'default mode' in brain. Read
more
20 January 2009: A group of Austrian
and British researchers estimate the extinction date of the huge cave
bear Ursus spelaeus that once inhabited Europe to be 27 800 years ago,
coinciding with the Last Glacial Maximum, a key period of climate
change. Read
more
16 January 2009: As many as 1
million working-age men died due to the economic shock of mass
privatization policies followed by post-communist countries in the
1990s. Read more
15 January 2009: Brain imaging
studies under fire. Social neuroscientists criticized for exaggerating
links between brain activity and emotions. Read
more
15 January 2009: New research reveals the brain activity
that underlies our tendency to “follow the crowd.” How human behavior
can be guided by the perceived behavior of other individuals. Read more
15 January 2009: Contraceptive use may be safe, but
information gaps remain. Read more
15 January 2009: Novels help to uphold social order. WHY
does storytelling endure across time and cultures? Perhaps the answer
lies in our evolutionary roots. Read
more
14 January 2009: A Czech design
company and producer of earth science and environmental instrumentation
has announced it is developing a new detector that may help relax
security regulations at airports, in particular those targeting the
transportation of liquids. Read
more
14 January 2009: Thinking that we have a limited amount of
time remaining to participate in an activity makes us appreciate the
activity more and motivates us to make the most of it. Read
more
14 January 2009: Education professor dispels myths about
gifted children. Read
more
13 January 2009: Defying the
Integration Models – the Second Generation in Europe. The research
reveals that there is unlikely to be a single politically-driven
answer. Read
more
13 January 2009: Behavioral Difficulties at School May
Lead to Lifelong Health and Social Problems. Read
more
13 January 2009: Scholars have long struggled with questions
about when and where the majority of some medieval manuscripts
originated. Now a researcher is using genetics to develop techniques
that will shed light on the origins of these important cultural
artifacts. Read
more
13 January 2009: Why we procrastinate and how to stop. Read more
13 January 2009: For 30 years, scientists have been studying
stone-handling behavior in several troops of Japanese macaques to catch
a unique glimpse of primate culture. By watching these monkeys acquire
and maintain behavioral traditions from generation to generation, the
scientists have gained insight into the cultural evolution of humans. Read more
13 January 2009: Researchers Show Why Peer Discussion
Improves Student Performance on 'Clicker' Questions. Read more
13 January 2009: Goth subculture may protect vulnerable
children. Read
more
12 January 2009: Online Racial
Discrimination Linked To Depression, Anxiety In Teens. Read
more
12 January 2009: Treatment with a pharmacological version of
the drug ecstasy makes PTSD patients more receptive to psychotherapy,
and contributes to lasting improvement. Read
more
9 January 2009: European researchers
have conducted a study which showed that while life expectancy is
increasing in the EU Member States, living longer is not always
synonymous with ageing well. Another mystery they unveiled is the age a
person will live to in good health. Read
more
9 January 2009: Lifelong Gender Difference In Physical
Activity Revealed. Females of all ages are less active than their male
peers. Read
more
9 January 2009: To make children happier, we may need to
encourage them to develop a strong sense of personal worth. This
research shows that children who feel that their lives have meaning and
value and who develop deep, quality relationships - both measures of
spirituality - are happier. It would appear, however, that their
religious practices have little effect on their happiness. Read more
9 January 2009: Teasing is good for you! The use of insults
at a young age improves social skills and helps children develop a
sense of humour. Read
more
9 January 2009: An analysis of an 18,000-year-old fossil,
described as the remains of a diminutive humanlike creature, proves
that genuine cave-dwelling "hobbits" once flourished in Southeast Asia.
Read more
8 January 2009: Access to modern
forms of energy does not guarantee a reduction in poverty. Contrary to
what current macroeconomic studies would have us believe… the key
factor is an efficient network with links to urban areas. Read more
7 January 2009: Researchers in the
UK and US have found that exercise levels vary between genders at all
ages. Boys were found to be more physically active than girls on the
playground, and in the over-70 group men exercised more intensively
than women. Read
more
7 January 2009: Researchers in the EU-funded HERMES
('Cognitive care and guidance for active aging') project are using
information and communication technology (ICT) to develop a
user-friendly system that will both support older people when their
memories fail and offer memory-boosting exercises. HERMES has been
funded from the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). Read
more
7 January 2009: It is not easy to predict stock market
trends. Two financial researchers at BI Norwegian School of Management
have identified a target indicator that can predict future return on
shares. Read
more
7 January 2009: New research by a Rice University
psychologist clearly identifies the parts of the brain involved in the
process of choosing appropriate words during speech. Read more
6 January 2009: How the Lowly Text
Message May Save Languages That Could Otherwise Fade. Read
more
6 January 2009: The mystery of why ancient South American
peoples who created the mysterious Nazca Lines also collected human
heads as trophies has long puzzled scholars who theorize the heads may
have been used in fertility rites. Read more
6 January 2009: Scientists determine Viking trade routes by
the metal in their swords. Read more
5 January 2009: A new study finds
that the onset of physical disability boosts marital happiness more
often than not. Read
more
5 January 2009: Religion May Have Evolved Because Of Its
Ability To Help People Exercise Self-control. Read
more
5 January 2009: Ancient African Exodus Mostly Involved
Men, Geneticists Find. Read
more
5 January 2009: Archaeological Discovery: Earliest
Evidence Of Our Cave-dwelling Human Ancestors at the Wonderwerk Cave in
South Africa. Read
more
5 January 2009: Did Atlantis and Lemuria really
exist? Read
more
5 January 2009: Microscopic meteorites found in
Scotland have unveiled major clues about a catastrophic event which
dramatically altered the Earth’s surface nearly 500 million years ago. Read more
5 January 2009: Research by a team led by Professor
Derek Clements-Croome at the University of Reading has shown a direct
association between the environmental conditions in classrooms and
pupils' cognitive performance. Read more
5 January 2009: Electronic gaming machines have a
detrimental impact upon the lives of those who use them and their
associates, according to new research. Read more
5 January 2009: European researchers are pushing online
culture and heritage research way beyond Google by using a smart search
system that is multilingual, multimedia and optimised for cultural
heritage. Better yet, this promising system has wide application in
other fields. Read
more
5 January 2009: A groundbreaking study of popularity
by a Michigan State University scientist has found that genes elicit
not only specific behaviors but also the social consequences of those
behaviors. Read
more
5 January 2009: Invention: Vision amplifier. The
search for a technological solution to the problem has led to growing
interest in "bionic eyes". Read
more
22 December 2008: Going digital –
new challenges for community radio. Community broadcasting, which is
owned and managed by citizen groups and members of civil society, has
gained foothold on local FM and AM radio across Europe since the 1980s.
Read
more
22 December 2008:
Wellcome Trust researchers have developed a new form of psychotherapy
that has been shown to have the potential to treat more than eight out
of ten cases of eating disorders in adults. Read
more
22 December 2008: God Or Science? A Belief In One Weakens
Positive Feelings For The Other. A person's unconscious attitudes
toward science and God may be fundamentally opposed. Read
more
22 December 2008: Urbanization: 95% Of The World's
Population Lives On 10% Of The Land. A new global map released by
the European Commission's Joint Research Centre measures urbanisation
from the new perspective of Travel Time to 8,500 Major Cities. Read
more
22 December 2008: Ancient African exodus mostly involved
men, geneticists find. Modern humans left Africa over 60,000 years ago
in a migration. Read
more
22 December 2008: Nearly 50 years after one of the most
controversial behavioral experiments in history, a social psychologist
has found that people are still just as willing to administer what they
believe are painful electric shocks to others when urged on by an
authority figure. Read
more
22 December 2008: Evolution of the Mind: 4 Fallacies of
Psychology. Read more
19 December 2008: Research and
debate at the "European Diversities - European Identities" conference
in Strasbourg on October 8-9 has reinforced the importance of
humanities research in helping to deliver social policy in the next few
years. Read
more
19 December 2008: Girls Have Superior Sense Of Taste To
Boys. The findings of the world’s largest study so far on the ability
of children and young people to taste and what they like have now been
published. Read
more
19 December 2008: Did the ancestors of birds walk on water
before they took to the air? This intriguing idea is known as the Jesus
Christ dinosaur hypothesis. The earliest known "bird", Archaeopteryx… Read
more
18 December 2008: Over half of the
world's population now lives within an hour of a major city, but just
10% of the world's land area is more than 48 hours away from an urban
centre. These are just two of the findings from a new global map of
urbanisation produced by the European Commission's Joint Research
Centre (JRC) for the World Bank's World Development Report 2009. Read
more
18 December 2008: Are there discrepancies in the rate of
poverty between EU Member States? The European Centre for Social
Welfare Policy and Research says there are. Latest data show that the
rate of poverty varies between 10% and 23% between States. Read
more
18 December 2008: People who have a sibling with a mental
illness are more likely to suffer episodes of depression at some point
in their lives. Read
more
18 December 2008: 'Hobbit' fossils represent a new species,
concludes University of Minnesota anthropologist. Read more
18 December 2008: The more you take the more you lose. In
everyday social exchanges, being mean to people has a lot more impact
than being nice. Read
more
18 December 2008: Selflessness, core of all major world
religions, has neuropsychological connection. All spiritual experiences
are based in the brain. Read more
18 December 2008: Interracial and interethnic interactions
can often be awkward and stressful for members of both majority and
minority groups. Read
more
18 December 2008: Autism and schizophrenia share common
origin, according to an extensive literature study. Read more
17 December 2008: Global challenges and global
collaborations – lessons learnt from global change. Read
more
17 December 2008: Rare Lead Bars Discovered Off The Coast Of
Ibiza May Be Carthaginian Munitions. They may originate from the third
century before Christ. Read
more
17 December 2008: Effects Of Unconscious Exposure To
Advertisements. The new research shows why direct exposure to repeated
ads initially increases a consumer’s preference for promoted products. Read
more
17 December 2008: Predecessor of Cows, The Aurochs, Were
Still Living In The Netherlands Around AD 600. Read
more
17 December 2008: The year the Web changed politics. The
White House campaign of Barack Obama has ensured that things will never
be the same again. Read
more
17 December 2008: Study: Older brains filter out
unpleasant memories. Read
more
17 December 2008: Medscape Physician Connect, the online
social network designed for physicians to engage other physicians, has
attracted more than 100,000 physicians since launching just this past
April. Read
more
17 December 2008: Economists: Ancestral history explains
roots of income inequality. Two Brown University economists have
created a new data set explaining differences in the world's current
per capita gross domestic products (GDPs). Read more
17 December 2008: To identify sustainable economic models
to provide access to the ever-growing amount of digital information in
the public interest. A report details systemic pitfalls in developing
economic models for sustainable access to digital data. Read more
17 December 2008: More companies use social media for
marketing. According to Forrester Research, the number of social media
"spectators" - people who read or watch social media - has increased
from 48 percent last year to 69 percent of people who venture online. Read more
16 December 2008: Dietary treatment
for obesity. In patients with obesity, low-fat diets seem to result in
a weight loss of 3–4 kg at 3 years, but long-term data are limited. Read
more
16 December 2008: Many products have numbers attached. A new
study in the Journal of Consumer Research shows that consumers are
heavily influenced by quantitative specifications, even meaningless
ones. Read more
16 December 2008: God or science? A belief in one weakens
positive feelings for the other. Read more
16 December 2008: Grid technology developed by European
researchers offers a new way to do business, with partners working
simply, seamlessly and ‘virtually’ around a common goal. Read more
15 December 2008: How My Country
Influences My Behaviour. HumVIB, the first EUROCORES programme in the
social sciences, kicks off. Read
more
15 December 2008: More Than Just Being A Sentimental Fool:
The Psychology Of Nostalgia. Only recently have psychologists begun
focusing on the positive and potentially therapeutic aspects of
nostalgia. Read
more
15 December 2008: It is estimated that more than 1 billion
individuals worldwide in 2005 had presbyopia, or age-related difficulty
in seeing objects nearby. Read
more
15 December 2008: Ecological Impact Of African Cities.
African cities are growing faster than anywhere else in the world. This
is having a major impact. Read
more
15 December 2008: The Vatican hardened its opposition Friday
to using embryos for stem cell research, cloning and in-vitro
fertilization. But in a major new document on bioethics, it showed
flexibility on some forms of gene therapy. Read
more
15 December 2008: While Western countries tend to be heavy
users of such media hardware as DVD players and gaming consoles,
next-generation devices like video-enabled handsets are more popular in
up-and-coming markets, particularly in Asia. Read
more
15 December 2008: Pictures you are observing can now be
recreated with software that uses nothing but scans of your brain. It
is the first "mind reading" technology to create such images from
scratch. Read
more
12 December 2008: Blue streetlights
are believed to be useful in preventing suicides and street crime. Read more
12 December 2008: In a pioneering, interdisciplinary
study combining law and neuroscience, researchers at Vanderbilt
University peered inside people’s minds to watch how the brain thinks
about crime and punishment. Read
more
12 December 2008: More than 2000 children die every day as a
result of an unintentional, or accidental injury, and every year tens
of millions more worldwide are taken to hospitals with injuries that
often leave them with lifelong disabilities, according to a new report
by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF. Read
more
12 December 2008: Unique archaeological discovery in Balkan:
world’s first Illyrian trading post found. Read
more
12 December 2008: YouTube Usage Decoded. Why are certain
videos on YouTube watched millions of times while 90 percent of the
contributions find only the odd viewer? Read
more
12 December 2008: Throughout history, human beings have used
the whistle for everything from hailing a cab to carrying a tune. Now,
an orangutan's spontaneous whistling is providing scientists at Great
Ape Trust of Iowa new insights into the evolution of speech and
learning. Read more
12 December 2008: A new study found that adults in their 60s
and 70s can improve a number of cognitive functions by playing a
strategic video game that rewards nation-building and territorial
expansion. Read
more
12 December 2008: Living in a household with several
generations of relatives triples a woman's risk of serious heart
disease. Read more
12 December 2008: Airline pilots who have flown for many
years may be at risk of DNA damage from prolonged exposure to cosmic
ionising radiation. Read
more
12 December 2008: Deciphering honeybee dances and stock
market swings. Grad student's model brings order to complex systems
through math. Read
more
11 December 2008: Homeless people in
Western countries have substantially higher rates of mental health
problems than the general population. Read
more
11 December 2008: Thinking like a president: How power
affects complex decision making. Having power may lead people to
automatically think in a way that makes complex decision-making easier.
Read more
11 December 2008: US schoolchildren have improved their
performances in mathematics and science in the past decade, but are
still outpaced by youngsters in Asia and Europe. Read more
11 December 2008: A new study in Psychology of Women
Quarterly finds that women who present themselves as confident and
ambitious in job interviews are viewed as highly competent but also
lacking social skills. Read more
11 December 2008: Lack of vitamin D causes weight gain and
stunts growth in girls. Read more
11 December 2008: A first of its kind study,
"Socioeconomic Conditions Along the World's Tropical Coasts: 2008,"
reports on the social and economic ramifications of healthy coral reefs
in 27 tropical nations. Read more
10 December 2008: Teenagers are
healthier, happier and better fed than their counterparts seven years
ago. Read
more
10 December 2008: Psychologists report that a gender gap
in spatial skills starts in infancy. Men tend to perform better than
women at tasks that require rotating an object mentally. Read more
10 December 2008: It is widely accepted that Upper
Paleolithic early modern humans spread westward across Europe about
42,000 years ago, displacing and absorbing Neanderthal populations in
the process. Read
more
10 December 2008: Can we teach everybody to be fast
learners? Yes, Wii can. A Rice University research project is making
use of Nintendo's popular video game technology to codify learning
systems in ways that can be used in a range of human endeavors, from
sports to surgery. Read
more
10 December 2008: MySpace teams up with Google to connect
more users. Read
more
10 December 2008: Scientific progress on the positive side
of human functioning lags woefully behind strides on the negative side
of health assessment, treatment and research. Read more
10 December 2008: We all know how infants can act up during
their terrible twos, but when these behaviors are accompanied by
developmental setbacks, they could point to something more
serious…regressive autistic spectrum disorder (RASD). Read more
9 December 2008: Do Stereotypes
About Social Groups Bias Personnel Decisions? Frank J. Landy questions
research that is said to demonstrate that stereotypes about social
groups bias personnel decisions. Read
more
9 December 2008: Men really are the weaker sex, say
scientists. The male gender is in danger, with incalculable
consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific
research from around the world reveals. Read
more
9 December 2008: Men are red, women are green, researcher
finds… this color difference in an analysis of dozens of faces. They
determined that men tend to have more reddish skin and greenish skin is
more common for women. Read more
9 December 2008: Harm-reduction cigarettes are more toxic
than traditional cigarettes, study finds. Read more
9 December 2008: Researcher finds link between
aggression, status and sex. Read more
8 December 2008: A new report
describes a vision of the perfect environment to promote innovation and
entrepreneurship in Europe's SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises).
Entitled 'Dreaming of EUtopia: constructing a vision of an
entrepreneurial idyll', the report was produced by the Association for
Competitive Technology (ACT), which represents the interest of SMEs
working in the ICT (information and communication technologies) sector
worldwide. Read
more
8 December 2008: Canadian researchers have found more
evidence that older adults aren't able to filter out distracting
information as well as younger adults. Read
more
8 December 2008: Happiness Is 'Infectious' In Network Of
Friends: Collective -- Not Just Individual – Phenomenon. Happiness is
also a collective phenomenon that spreads through social networks like
an emotional contagion. Read
more
8 December 2008: Scientists at the University of Rochester
Medical Center have found that women exposed to second hand smoke,
either as adults or children, were significantly more likely to face
fertility problems and suffer miscarriages. Read
more
8 December 2008: The UK must delete the DNA and
fingerprint records of innocent people from its police databases, the
European Court of Human Rights ordered today in a landmark ruling. Read
more
8 December 2008: Both Facebook and Google announced an
extension to their services known as “connect” – this means taking your
online identity with you all over the web. Read
more
8 December 2008: Children under the age of one are at
most risk of being abused in New Zealand, which has one of the highest
rates of child maltreatment deaths in the developed world. Read
more
8 December 2008: When it comes to the world of the very,
very small — nanotechnology — Americans have a big problem: Nano and
its capacity to alter the fundamentals of nature, it seems, are failing
the moral litmus test of religion. Read more
5 December 2008: Does gender play a
key role in determining whether someone will follow a science and
technology (S&T) career? To tackle this burning question, the GAPP
('Gender awareness participation process') project, funded under the
EU's Sixth Framework Programme with EUR 808,380, investigated gender
differences in the choice of a science career. Read
more
5 December 2008: Measles deaths have plummeted by 74
percent globally this decade thanks to a concerted effort to vaccinate
children in Africa and other hard-hit regions. Read
more
5 December 2008: Past religious diversity and intolerance
have profound impact on genetics of Iberian people. Read more
5 December 2008: Coerced medication used in psychiatric
care despite lack of clinical evidence. Read more
5 December 2008: Professor, former student share prestigious
award for problem-solving theory, a mathematical methodology called the
"Reformulation-Linearization Technique" (RLT). Read more
4 December 2008: Young Europeans are
shunning science degrees in greater numbers than ever before. If this
trend continues, the EU will start to lag behind China and India in
scientific research and development, threatening European
competitiveness and prosperity. Read
more
4 December 2008: New Online Test For Depression. predictD, a
new universal test to predict the risk of someone succumbing to major
depression has been developed by UCL (University College London)
researchers. Read
more
4 December 2008: New Cognitive Telerehabilitation Program
Uses Virtual Realityfor treating people with cognitive deficits caused
by acquired brain damage. Read
more
4 December 2008: Researchers work on developing sign
language for cell phones. To use cell phones to communicate, it's no
different for the deaf and hard-of-hearing who sign. Read more
4 December 2008: Researchers study 'self-embedding disorder'
among teens…a new form of self-mutilating behavior in which teenagers
intentionally insert objects into their flesh. Read more
4 December 2008: Learning by blogging. Many students learn
best working together on structured, self-directed projects. European
researchers have created software that links student blogs and other
social software tools into a virtual collaborative learning
environment. Read
more
4 December 2008: EEGs (electroencephalographs) show brain
differences between poor and rich kids. Read more
3 December 2008: Academic
cooperation with industrialised countries in North America and
Asia-Pacific: EU launches new round of projects. Read more
3 December 2008: Using Challenging Concepts To Learn
Promotes Understanding Of New Material. Is it better for children to
learn gradually, starting with easy examples and slowly progressing to
more challenging problems? Read
more
3 December 2008: Scientists produce illusion of
body-swapping. Cognitive neuroscientists at the Swedish medical
university Karolinska Institutet (KI) have succeeded in making subjects
perceive the bodies of mannequins and other people as their own. Read more
3 December 2008: Is empty nest best? Changes in marital
satisfaction in late middle age. An empty nest may have beneficial
effects on the parents' marriage. Read more
3 December 2008: Evidence from dirty teeth: Ancient
Peruvians ate well. Starch grains preserved on human teeth reveal that
ancient Peruvians ate a variety of cultivated crops including squash,
beans, peanuts and the fruit of cultivated pacay trees. Read more
3 December 2008: Cardiovascular disease causing increasing
inequity between rich and poor. A cardiovascular disease based
epidemic is gaining pace among many low- and middle-income countries
(LMIC), exemplified at its worst in the world's largest populated
countries – China and India. Read more
2 December 2008: The EU-funded
project SHARE ('Survey of health, ageing and retirement in Europe') has
shown, among other things, that women live longer than men, especially
in southern European countries, and that men are not sick as often as
women, especially in the North. Read
more
2 December 2008: Globally every year, obese people waste
billions of pounds on food products that 'imply' that they aid weight
loss, but are totally ineffective. Read
more
2 December 2008: Oetzi's last supper. From the analysis of
the intestinal contents of the 5,200-year-old Iceman from the Eastern
Alps, Professor James Dickson from the University of Glasgow in the UK
and his team have shed some light on the mummy's lifestyle and some of
the events leading up to his death. Read more
2 December 2008: Internet boosts reports of child
pornography. Reports presented at the Third World Congress against
Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents underlines the fact
that the sexual exploitation of minors has transcended national borders
and is becoming an increasingly serious problem. Read more
2 December 2008: Social factors, not mental illness, to
blame for high male suicide rate. The popular assumption that most
suicides are the result of depression or other mental illness has been
challenged by a study of male suicide. Read more
2 December 2008: Research shows for the first time that a
group-based psychological treatment, Mindfulness Based Cognitive
Therapy (MBCT), could be a viable alternative to prescription drugs for
people suffering from long-term depression. Read more
2 December 2008: Latina women have a lower risk of breast
cancer than European or African-American women generally, but those
with higher European ancestry could be at increased risk. Read more
1 December 2008: Sociologists say
fear of being unable to afford gifts may drive competitive shopping.
While greed may seem an obvious motive for crowds that stampede
retailers in search of bargains at this time of year, experts say fear
also plays a significant role. Read more
1 December 2008: What the data miners are digging up about
you. Read
more
26 November 2008: Using water to
understand human society – from the industrial revolution to global
trade. Water shapes societies, but it is a factor only just beginning
to be appreciated by social scientists. Read
more
26 November 2008: Applying ‘Supply and Demand’ busisness
principles to treat infectious diseases worldwide. Treating infectious
diseases while meeting escalating costs to do so continues to pose
worldwide challenges. Read
more
26 November 2008: Why C is not G: How we identify letters.
How do you recognize these words? Substantial research has shown that
while reading, we recognize words by their letters and not by the
general shape of the word. However, it was largely unknown how we
differentiate one letter from another. Read more
26 November 2008: How to improve email communication:
Developing strategies to mimic face-to-face interactions. How we use
emoticons, subject lines, and signatures to define how we want to be
interpreted in email. Read more
26 November 2008: Playing doctor on the Web often leads
people to mistakenly believe that they are suffering from rare
illnesses, according to a study by researchers at Microsoft. Read more
26 November 2008: The value of the underground Internet
economy in fraud and stolen goods topped $276 million in the period
between July 2007 and June 2008, according to a report published
Monday. Read more
26 November 2008: 'Embryo adoption' service seeks to give
infertile couples a chance to have a family. Read more
26 November 2008: Britain's government-run National Health
Service (NHS) opened its first clinic devoted exclusively to treating
problem gamblers. Read
more
25 November 2008: Tobacco use is
more prevalent and smoking cessation less likely among persons with
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (A.D.H.D.). Read
more
25 November 2008: Bittersweet milestones: Depression in
adults 100 years old and over is poorly understood. For many of the
elderly, the golden years are anything but…While research is emerging
to help this group understand and treat the problem, another group -
centenarians - has been left largely in the dark. Read more
25 November 2008: Archeology of homelessness. Archaeology
isn't really about finding ancient temples or golden idols. It's about
the day-to-day "stuff"— the material culture—of people's lives. Read more
20 November 2008: Sleep helps the
mind learn complicated tasks and helps people recover learning they
otherwise thought they had forgotten over the course of a day, research
at the University of Chicago shows. Read
more
20 November 2008: Social networks MySpace and Facebook and
video-sharing site YouTube are being used as powerful new tools by
extremist groups to spread a message of hate. Read
more
20 November 2008: An international team that included
Montreal's McGill University has found a cause for male-pattern
baldness -- a genetic glitch that increases a man's risk sevenfold. Read
more
20 November 2008: Students are creating idealized versions
of themselves on social networking websites — Facebook and MySpace are
the most popular — and using these sites to explore their emerging
identities, UCLA psychologists report. Read more
20 November 2008: No less than one quarter of
second-generation immigrants in the Netherlands drops out of school.
This is the most alarming result of a recent survey conducted among the
second generation of Turkish and Moroccan descent in the two largest
Dutch cities – Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Read more
19 November 2008: Proper spacing of
lessons, the researchers report, can dramatically enhance learning. And
larger gaps between study sessions result in better recall of facts. Read more
19 November 2008: A team led by a Texas A&M
University anthropologist has discovered a group of primates not seen
alive in 85 years. The pygmy tarsiers, furry Furby/gremlin-looking*
creatures about the size of a small mouse and weighing less than 2
ounces, have not been observed since they were last collected for a
museum in 1921. Read
more
18 November 2008: People are
different, both physically and mentally, but genetically everyone is
very similar. That's been the thought of scientists for decades now.
But with population research becoming more and more common, the
University of Alberta's Tim Caulfield is concerned that genetic
research could awaken racist attitudes. Read more
18 November 2008: Scientists have identified a relationship
between two proteins in the brain that has links to both nicotine
addiction and autism. The finding has led to speculation that existing
drugs used to curb nicotine addiction might serve as the basis for
potential therapies to alleviate the symptoms of autism. Read more
14 November 2008: An EU-funded study
of approximately 360,000 individuals in 9 European countries has shown
that having a very large waistline almost doubles the risk of premature
death, even in individuals with a 'normal' body mass index. Read
more
14 November 2008: Although members of the same species share
more than 99 percent of their genetic makeup, individuals often have
small differences, such as in their appearance, susceptibility to
disease, and life expectancy. Another difference, one that has gone
overlooked from the evolutionary perspective, is personality variation.
Even identical twins can have personality types at opposite ends of the
spectrum. Read more
14 November 2008: Women rate attractiveness differently
after menopause. Scientists have discovered yet another change that
happens with the menopause - the way women judge attractiveness. Read more
13 November 2008: Norway has topped
a league of countries in closing the gender gap, followed by three
other Nordic nations, a survey by the World Economic Forum says. Read more
13 November 2008: Thanks to our ability to learn and to
remember, we can perform tasks that other living things can not even
dream of. However, we are only just beginning to get the gist of what
really goes on in the brain when it learns or forgets something. What
we do know is that changes in the contacts between nerve cells play an
important role. But can these structural changes account for that
well-known phenomenon that it is much easier to re-learn something that
was forgotten than to learn something completely new? Read more
13 November 2008: A new study in the journal Mind, Brain,
and Education reveals that certain types of thinking are best suited to
solving certain types of problems. Specifically, geometry problems are
best solved by a combination of verbal and spatial strategies, but not
shape-based imagery strategies. Read more
13 November 2008: How warfare shaped human evolution. For
the first time, anthropologists, archaeologists, primatologists,
psychologists and political scientists are approaching a consensus. Not
only is war as ancient as humankind, they say, but it has played an
integral role in our evolution. Read
more
12 November 2008: Brain scans of
people with an abnormality that is a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease
are strengthening the notion that greater education levels somehow
protect against this common form of dementia. Read
more
12 November 2008: Egypt's chief archaeologist has
announced the discovery of a 4,300-year-old pyramid in Saqqara, the
sprawling necropolis and burial site of the rulers of ancient Memphis. Read more
11 November 2008: Macular
degeneration is one of the leading causes of blindness in people over
the age of 60 and a trans-Atlantic study may have found the culprit
behind this problem. Researchers from the University of Southampton in
the UK and the University of Iowa in the US believe the Serping 1 gene
is responsible for age-related macular degeneration (AMD). This
discovery is expected to help scientists find better treatments and
improve screening processes for patients. Read
more
11 November 2008: Scientists have identified the first gene
that is associated with a common childhood language disorder, known as
specific language impairment (SLI). The gene – CNTNAP2 – has also been
recently implicated in autism, and could represent a crucial genetic
link between the two disorders. Read
more
11 November 2008: Infant boys are more likely to die than
infant girls in industrialized countries, although the disparity has
narrowed since the 1970s, U.S. researchers said on Monday. Mortality
data spanning 15 countries -- 11 in Europe plus Canada, the United
States, Japan and Australia -- showed this gap was at its widest in
1970 when boys had about a 30 percent higher chance than girls to die
by age 1, the researchers said. Read
more
11 November 2008: POVERTY can cause poor health by altering
a person's genes, a new study suggests. The finding, a first in
children with asthma, could help explain why social disadvantage is
linked to greater vulnerability to sickness and death in many
diseases. Read
more
11 November 2008: With social-networking services,
personal and professional contacts know what you're doing, when you're
doing it. When Stephanie Sherwood graduated from Texas Christian
University, she went looking for a job with a time-tested approach: She
tapped her network. The line of attack wasn't new. But the medium was. Read more
10 November 2008: Why do some of us
always do the right thing while others only seem to be out for
themselves? Research by the universities of Exeter and Bristol offers a
new explanation as to why such a wide range of personality traits has
evolved in humans and other social species. Read
more
10 November 2008: Our DNA determines a lot about who we
are and how we play with others, but recent studies of social animals
(birds and bees, among others) show that the interaction between genes
and behavior is more of a two-way street than most of us realize. Read
more
10 November 2008: A gene that helps the brain make
connections may underlie a significant number of autism cases,
researchers in the United States reported on Tuesday. Disruptions in
the gene, called contactin 4, stop the gene from working properly and
appear to stop the brain from making proper networks, the researchers
reported in the Journal of Medical Genetics. Read
more
10 November 2008: Document Found Older Than Dead Sea
Scrolls. Archaeologists discovered a pottery shard inscribed with
Hebrew text written a thousand years earlier than the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Read
more
7 November 2008: Are males becoming
an endangered species? That's the question scientists and researchers
have been pondering since alarming trends in male fertility rates,
birth defects and disorders began emerging around the world. More and
more boys are being born with genital defects and are suffering from
learning disabilities, autism and Tourette's syndrome, among other
disorders. Male infertility rates are on the rise and the quality of an
average man's sperm is declining, according to some studies. Read
more
7 November 2008: Lannguage, according to the American
neurobiologist William Calvin, is "the defining feature of human
intelligence". With due respect to the communication skills of
dolphins, chimpanzees, birds and bees, Homo sapiens is the only
existing species with the power of speech. It seems to be among the
qualities that separates us from other animals, that makes us human. Read
more
7 November 2008: Is stuttering in our DNA? Bruce Willis,
Marilyn Monroe, and Carly Simon all suffered from stuttering. Today,
three million Americans do, too. Most are able to overcome the
handicap, which afflicts 5% of all children ― but childhood suffering
from stuttering can be traumatic, producing educational, social, and
occupational disadvantages. Read more
7 November 2008: Children born to mothers with
pregnancy-related diabetes run twice the risk of language development
problems, according to a research team directed by Professor Ginette
Dionne of Université Laval's School of Psychology. Read more
7 November 2008: Growth hormone treatment may significantly
increase final height in children diagnosed with short stature, even in
cases where the child is not growth hormone deficient, according to a
new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal
of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Read more
6 November 2008: If your teen can’t
pass a driver’s test, it might not mean more time in driver’s ed is
needed. It might be due to ADHD. Researchers from Tel Aviv University
caution that ADHA, an attention deficit disorder common in teens, is a
serious driver’s disability. Read
more
6 November 2008: It seems that our brain can correct speech
errors in the same way that it controls other forms of behaviour. Niels
Schiller and Lesya Ganushchak, NWO researchers in Leiden, made this
discovery while studying how the brain reacts to verbal errors. This
research can contribute to improvements in the treatment of people who
have problems with speaking or in understanding language. Read
more
6 November 2008: Violent video game feed aggression in kids
in Japan and U.S. It's not just American kids who become more
aggressive by playing violent video games. A new study -- presented
last month at the inaugural seminar sponsored by Iowa State
University's Center for the Study of Violence -- showed effects of
violent video games on aggression over a 3-6 month period in children
from Japan as well as the United States. Read
more
5 November 2008: Research published
November 3, 2008 reveals for the first time that the different roles of
mothers and fathers are influenced by genetics. The study, by the
Universities of Exeter and Edinburgh, shows how variation in where
males and females put their parenting effort reflects different genetic
influences for each sex. Read
more
5 November 2008: In another sign pointing to an inherited
component to autism, a study released on Monday found that having a
schizophrenic parent or a mother with psychiatric problems roughly
doubled a child's risk of being autistic. Read
more
5 November 2008: The brain can store a vast number of
memories, so why can't we find these memories when we need to? A new
study provides insights into this question. Read
more
4 November 2008: A system of
presumed consent for organ donation -- where people have to opt out of
donating their organs when they die -- is the best way to tackle a
growing waiting list for transplant. Read
more
4 November 2008: Normal-weight women who carry out lots
of vigorous exercise are approximately 30% less likely to develop
breast cancer than those who don't exercise vigorously. Read
more
4 November 2008: PREGNANT women should keep consumption
of coffee, tea and cola to a minimum, according to a new study that
sees a link between caffeine intake and low birthweight among babies. Read
more
4 November 2008: In groundbreaking research that surprised
everyone, CNN reported today that a new study links violent video games
to childhood aggression. This story was listed directly underneath
another about how anonymous blogging anger was running rampant on the
internet. The message is clear. Technology is responsible for making
everyone mad. Read
more
4 November 2008: Lefties face a daily battle with a world
designed for right-handers. Now it seems that left-handed people face a
similar struggle in the mental sphere: behavioural research suggests
they are prone to inhibition and anxiety. Read
more
3 November 2008: The question
whether a common European position on advance directives, or “living
wills” is ethically required and practically feasible was discussed at
a recent workshop organised by the European Science Foundation (ESF).
Just as a conventional will allows people to specify how they would
like their property to be distributed after their death, so a living
will is supposed to determine what medical treatment people would like
to receive in the event of illness when they are still alive but of
unfit mind to decide at the time. Read
more
3 November 2008: Adolescents may have more in common with
their smoking parents than previously thought, a new study conducted by
researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital finds. These adolescents
may also share a tendency to act impulsively, a trait that could be
linked to a decision to become a smoker. Read
more
3 November 2008: The line of work Dr. Mike Hershfield has
pursued for most of his 32-year research career at Duke University is
basically scientific social service. He adopts orphans. Specifically,
he takes on so-called orphan diseases -- afflictions so rare that the
big pharmaceutical companies have no financial incentive to develop
treatments. Read
more
3 November 2008: Here's an advice for parents! Pester your
child to learn at least two to three languages, for a new study says
that it could be beneficial for the toddler’s mental health later in
life. An international team, led by researchers at Tel Aviv University,
has carried out the study and found that knowing multiple languages
protects the children's brain against the effects of ageing in old age.
Read
more
3 November 2008: An individual's level of commitment to
religious rituals like praying and attending service is directly linked
to their sense of personal control in life, according to new University
of Toronto research. Read more
31 October 2008: Neuroscientists at
The University of Queensland have discovered a new way to explain how
emotional events can sometimes lead to disturbing long term memories. Read
more
31 October 2008: For many women, including the growing
number who choose later-in-life pregnancy, predicting their biological
clock's relation to the timing of their menopause and infertility is
critically important. Read
more
31 October 2008: The 5,300 year old human mummy – dubbed
Öetzi or 'the Tyrolean Iceman' – is highly unlikely to have modern
day relatives, according to new research published today. Read more
30 October 2008: Pakistan's
Education and Research Network (PERN) now has access to GÉANT,
the world's largest multi-gigabit computer network dedicated to
research and education, thanks to an agreement between the EU-funded
Trans-Eurasia Information Network (TEIN3) and the TransPAC network of
the US National Science Foundation (NSF). This marks a significant move
forward in the EU's goal to decrease the divide between developing and
developed countries. Read
more
30 October 2008: New research has shown that culture and
geographical location play a huge role in the drinking behaviour of
young people. Backed by the International Center for Alcohol Policies
(ICAP), researchers have found that it is the social group teens belong
to and the country they live in - not sex and age factors - that
determine whether young people drink and get drunk. Read
more
30 October 2008: Conscientious people live longer,
according to a study by University of California, Riverside researchers
that appears in the latest issue of Health Psychology (vol. 27, 2008),
the journal of the American Psychological Association. Read more
30 October 2008: 'Menopausal' men could get sexual boost
from HRT. TIREDNESS, depression and lack of libido all seem inevitable
parts of male ageing, but what if an age-related lack of testosterone
is at the root of all these symptoms? Increasingly, doctors say such an
"andropause" exists and that its effects may go beyond feeling a bit
tired - obesity and diabetes also appear to be linked. The good news is
that testosterone supplements might help treat the problem. Read
more
29 October 2008: The ability to make
fire millennia ago was likely a key factor in the migration of
prehistoric hominids from Africa into Eurasia, a researcher at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Institute of Archaeology believes on
the basis of findings at the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov archaeological site
in Israel. Read
more
29 October 2008: “Eyes on the future” is the mantra of the
‘World Sight Day’ held this month to raise awareness of blindness and
vision impairment. New technologies, developed by European researchers
offering the visually impaired greater independence, live up to this
vision. Read
more
29 October 2008: Kids who drink or use drugs before the age
of 15 are more likely than their peers to develop a range of problems
by adulthood, including drug dependence, research suggests. In a study
that followed more than 1,000 New Zealanders for 30 years, researchers
found that those who started experimenting with drugs or alcohol before
they were 15 were at greater risk of drug or alcohol dependence. Read
more
29 October 2008: The availability of hundreds of television
channels runs the risk of viewers retreating into their own narrow
"media ghettos" to the detriment of broader society, the head of the
ABC has warned. The new media landscape, which will include more
multi-channelling and internet content delivered on televisions, has
the potential to change society. Read
more
29 October 2008: Centenarians—those who live past age
100—may help researchers find the key to living longer, healthier
lives. The reason, say scientists who study this elite group:
centenarians may possess genes that protect them from disease into old
age. Read
more
28 October 2008: A recent study
shows that genetic differences in Central Europe appear smaller than
between and even within North European populations. Read
more
28 October 2008: Learning a second language is usually
difficult and often when we speak it we cannot disguise our origin or
accent. However, there are important differences between individuals
with regard to the degree to which a second language is mastered, even
for people who have lived in a bilingual environment since childhood. Read
more
28 October 2008: Vigorous physical activity can help even
people genetically prone to obesity keep the weight off, U.S.
researchers said on Monday. They said a study among a group of Amish
people found those who had an obesity-related gene called FTO but were
very physically active weighed about the same as others who did not
carry the gene. Read
more
28 October 2008: In the largest ever genetic study of
transsexuals, Australian researchers have discovered a DNA variation
linked to male-to-female transsexualism. The finding strengthens the
view that there is a biological reason why some people feel they are
living in the wrong body. Read
more
28 October 2008: Elderly people who have a positive
outlook, lower stress levels, moderate alcohol consumption, abstention
from tobacco, moderate to higher income and no chronic health
conditions are more likely to thrive in their old age. Read more
24 October 2008: In a prospective
study of over 1800 interviewed young Finnish twins, early-onset
depressive disorders at age 14 significantly predicted daily smoking,
smokeless tobacco use, frequent illicit drug use, frequent alcohol use
and recurrent intoxication three years later, even among those
adolescents who were not users at baseline. Read
more
24 October 2008: Study finds genomic changes in the brains
of people who commit suicide. Are genes destiny? Alternatively, are we
simply the products of our environment? There is a growing sense that
neither of these two possibilities fully captures the essence of the
risk for psychiatric disorders. New light is being shed on the complex
interaction of genetic and environmental factors as the result of
growth in the field of epigenetics. Read more
24 October 2008: Births by Caesarean section have reached
record levels in the West – almost 30% of babies in the US are born
this way. A new patent application says that software could monitor the
progress of a woman's labour and help doctors decide more safely when
to perform a C-section. Read
more
23 October 2008: The European
Commission welcomes today's vote in the European Parliament in favour
of establishing the second phase of Erasmus Mundus (2009-2013)
programme. Erasmus Mundus is a European action programme for the
enhancement of quality in higher education and the promotion of
intercultural understanding through co-operation with third countries. Read more
23 October 2008: A new study shows that people who are
physically active before suffering a stroke may have less severe
problems as a result and recover better compared to those who did not
exercise before having a stroke. Read
more
23 October 2008: The 1918 flu pandemic killed more than
40 million people worldwide and affected persons of all age groups.
While it is difficult to predict when the next influenza pandemic will
occur or how severe it will be, researchers at the Georgia Institute of
Technology have developed models to help organizations like the
American Red Cross and Georgia Department of Education prepare
emergency response plans. Read
more
23 October 2008: Facebook is to blame for 'friendship
addiction', a leading psychologist warned today. David Smallwood, an
addictions expert with the Priory, says the social networking site is
fuelling insecurity in users. Women are particularly vulnerable because
their self-worth stems from relationships with others and Facebook
compels them to 'acquire' hundreds of friends. Read
more
23 October 2008: Obsessive compulsive disorder is a
thief. It steals time, joy and rationality. It can steal entire
childhoods. Read
more
22 October 2008: Experts say youth
identity is shaped by a number of factors, like education, economy and
social contacts. But researchers at the Academy of Finland Research
Programme on Social Capital and Networks of Trust (SoCa) postulate that
how children spend their leisure time can also affect the formation of
their youth identity. Read
more
22 October 2008: The breathing and heart rates and cortisol
levels of women with metastatic breast cancer can be used to predict if
they'll suffer from chronic insomnia and sleep disruptions, a common
complaint from patients who want to maintain their quality of life,
according to a study by scientists at the University of Rochester
Medical Center. Read
more
22 October 2008: New studies conducted by April Benasich,
professor of neuroscience at Rutgers University in Newark, and her
colleagues reveal that gamma wave activity in the brains of children
provide a window into their cognitive development, and could open the
way for more effective intervention for those likely to experience
language problems. Read
more
21 October 2008: Social environment
may play a greater role in the disparity between the numbers of African
Americans living with hypertension compared to non-Hispanic whites with
the disease. A study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health found that the disparity was substantially
reduced when comparing groups of African Americans and non-Hispanic
whites living in similar social environments. Read more
21 October 2008: Hi-tech brings families together.
Technology is helping families stay in touch like never before, says a
report. Read
more
20 October 2008: Memantine has
beneficial effects on language skills in Alzheimer’s disease patients
compared to placebo. As a result, patients remain independent for
longer and therefore stay integrated in social life, also reducing the
burden of care. Read
more
17 October 2008: Using positron
emission tomography (PET) to track tracer doses of methamphetamine in
humans’ brains, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE)
Brookhaven National Laboratory find that the addictive and long-lasting
effects of this increasingly prevalent drug can be explained in part by
its pharmacokinetics — the rate at which it enters and clears the
brain, and its distribution. Read
more
17 October 2008: People talk to exchange information. Yet
understanding another person involves far more than just the content of
the message. Only with the correct intonation and facial expression
does the message acquire meaning… The extra layer of information that
you add to a message when speaking is called prosody. Read
more
17 October 2008: Kaixin001, the latest newcomer to the
Facebook clone wars in China, is China’s fastest growing social network
having amassed a staggering 7.5 million users in the first 5 months
since it launched in May 2008. Read
more
15 October 2008: Drinking low to
moderate amounts of alcohol, which may protect people against from
heart disease, doesn’t slow the normal brain shrinkage that comes with
aging and could accelerate the process, a study said. Read
more
13 October 2008:
The
Nobel Assembly on 6 October awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or
Medicine
for 2008 to Harald zur Hausen for his discovery of human papilloma
viruses
(HPV) causing cervical cancer and to Françoise
Barré-Sinoussi and Luc
Montagnier for their discovery of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
The
German and French laureates will share the SEK 10 million (EUR 1.03
million)
prize. Read
more
10 June 2008: Cancer incidence and mortality in young people decreases with increasing deprivation. Read more
10 June 2008: Projects
tackling the current societal preoccupations of terrorism and car
pollution
were the winners of this year's EUREKA Lynx and
3 June 2008: EU contributes EUR 40 million to fight against infectious diseases. Read more
27 May 2008: Policy Reforms May Increase Petty Corruption. Read more
27 May 2008: High
Unemployment Insurance Benefits Employment and the Economy. Read more
23 May 2008: Parliament calls for greater gender parity in science. Read more
16 May 2008: EU observatory to guide policymakers on nanotechnologies. Read more
16 May 2008: ICT
to the rescue of
16 May 2008: Scientists
identify molecule behind fat deposition and insulin release. Read
more
16 May 2008:
15 May 2008: Accounting
practices ultimately affect global economy. Read more
6 May 2008: Free
knowledge and technology conference,
17 December 2007: A conference entitled 'Impact assessment for better governance of regional innovation policies' will be held in Bilbao, Spain, on 29 to 30 January. Read more
11 December 2007: German-American
collaboration in the
field of radio astronomy is set to get a boost thanks to a new
agreement
between
5 December 2007: Researchers
who study severe weather and climate change joined forces to study the
effects of global warming on the number of severe storms in the future
and discovered a dramatic increase in potential storm conditions for
some parts of the
5 December 2007: Electric and hybrid cars could act as energy stores for the power grid while not being driven, say US researchers. Read more
28 November 2007: A
conference on new migration
dynamics: regular and irregular activities on the European labour
market, will
be held in
22 November 2007: Climate change may be one of the most significant threats facing humankind. A new study shows that long-term climate change may ultimately lead to wars and population decline. Read more
23 October 2007: A group of 56 EU-funded Networks of Excellence (NoEs), representing more than 13,000 researchers, has drafted an opinion paper calling for action from the European Commission to secure the long-term future of the most successful integrated networks. Read more
2 October 2007: An international team of researchers including an MIT graduate student has demonstrated for the first time that genes exert influence on people's behavior in a very common experimental economic game. Read more
17
September: A conference on 'peace processes in community
conflicts: from
understanding the roots of conflicts to conflict resolution' will be
held in
17
September: The importance of cooperation at all levels was
emphasised by EU
Justice, Freedom and Security Commissioner Franco Frattini at the
inaugural
meeting of the European Security Research and Innovation Forum (ESRIF).
Read
more
23 August 2007: Pounded and strained by
heavy traffic and weakened by missing bolts and cracking steel, the
failed Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River also faced a
less obvious enemy: pigeons. Read more
23 August 2007: U.S. technology product imports
exceeded exports for the first time in 2002 starting a trend that left
a $38.3 billion trade deficit in 2006 after reaching a high of $44.4
billion in 2005. Read more
22 August 2007: A research dive will begin Wednesday
to recover a cannon and other artifacts from a sunken ship some believe
belonged to the pirate Blackbeard. Read more
22 August 2007: Besides leaving the hospital with a
birth certificate and a clean bill of health, baby Mila Belle Howells
got something she won't likely use herself for several years: her very
own Internet domain name. Read more
22 August 2007: In response to federal banking
regulators' concern about community banks' increased participation in
commercial real-estate lending, a University of Arkansas researcher has
developed a system that allows banks to perform stress tests on their
commercial real-estate portfolios. Read more
21 August 2007: The long-held notion that girls
prefer pink while boys prefer blue may hold some truth, suggests a new
study. And moreover, there might be a biological basis for why women
prefer pink or at least more reddish colours than men, say
researchers. Read more
21 August 2007: Could a computer predict your next
move in a game of strategy based only on observations of your past
behaviour? The US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
certainly hopes so. It has funded a project led by computer scientist
H. Van Dyke Parunak to explore the idea. Read
more
21 August 2007: A Swiss woman who fell off her
bicycle has yielded a unique insight into how auditory hallucinations
are generated. Read more
21 August 2007: Egyptian archaeologists have found what they
said could be the oldest human footprint in history in the country's
western desert, the Arab country's antiquities' chief said on Monday. Read more
16 August 2007: Australian scientists have discovered
a giant underwater current that is one of the last missing links of a
system that connects the world's oceans and helps govern global
climate. Read more
10 August 2007: The Portuguese Deputy Minister for the
Economy has called for
collaboration between ministries and the dismantling of barriers to
innovation
in order to meet the
16 July 2007: Research
Fellowship in Courts and Public
Policy. Due:
13 July 2007: Innovation is seen
by many as an important driver of economic growth. Recognising this, EU
Member
States have in recent years stepped up their efforts to implement
policies
aimed at raising their innovation performance. These policies are now
being to
bear fruit. Read
more
9
July 2007:
In research that will be presented at
the annual meeting of the American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB)
in
20 June 2007: The Member Forum ‘ESF Member Organisations in Central and Eastern Europe’ (MOCEE) bring together ESF member organisations in CEE countries : Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovak Republic and Slovenia to develop a ‘catching up’ strategy for the social sciences in Central and Eastern Europe. The aims of the Forum are: to study the research needs of CEE countries in the social sciences ; to promote the dialogue between CEE and other European scientific communities; and to develop a ‘catching up’ strategy, including effective use of the instruments of ESF, the EU and others. read more
19 June 2007: 'The competition for creative people, innovative companies, young researchers - the assets which are key to innovation capacity - is taking place today at the regional and sometimes local levels,' EU Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Hübner told participants at the IANIS+ annual conference in Spain on 15 June. read more
31 May 2007: A
seminar on the Framework Programmes and the European Social Fund for
Education
and Employment in
31 May 2007: A new EU-funded project is using robots to help disabled children learn how to play. Playing is an important part of childhood; through play, children learn about the physical and social environment, the self and how to develop social relationships. However, children with cognitive, developmental or physical disabilities may find it harder to play. This affects their learning potential and can result in them becoming socially isolated. read more
30 May 2007: As a
growing number of baby boomers retire, our society will have more older
adults
than ever before, so it is crucial to determine what predicts quality
of life
in older age. A joint study from the
30 May 2007: The Centre for Ethics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs offers visiting fellowships to scholars engaged in an area of philosophy relevant to the work of the centre (this requirement is broadly interpreted). Fellowships are open to all suitably qualified people, but are intended primarily for professional philosophers and social or political theorists on study leave from their own institutions. Fellows are expected to take part in centre activities that take place during their tenure of the fellowship. In addition, fellows will participate in and contribute to research seminars in the Department of Moral Philosophy. read more
30 May 2007: Funded
by the European Commission, the Max Weber Programme is the largest
postdoctoral
programme in the social sciences in
28 May 2007: A
conference on the role of science and scholarship in intercultural
dialogue and
the development of modern
23 May 2007: The International Graduate College at the University of Jena (Germany), supported and financed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, awards three Fellowships for Doctoral Students starting October 1, 2007 (tenable for up to 3 years). The International Graduate College was established in 2001 as a collaboration of research from four European centres in the area of intergroup relations: Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Germany, University of Kent at Canterbury and University of Sussex, United Kingdom, and the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium. The scope of the research program is concerned with the antecedents, underlying processes and effects of change in the relations between social groups. The change perspective covers such fundamental issues as outgroup devaluation, intergroup discrimination and cooperation, tolerance towards outgroups and multicultural diversity. read more
21 May 2007: The
European Regional Economic Forum (EREF) will take place from 31 May to
2 June
in Nova Gorica,
18 May 2007:
18 May 2007: The
AAH is offering up to ten Fellowships to improve the capacity of
Australian
scholars to conduct research in all parts of the world. Travelling
Fellowships
of up to $4,000 for short-term research abroad in the coming year, are
available to permanent resident scholars in
17 May 2007: Promoting active citizenship has become an increasingly important issue on the political agenda at local, national and EU levels. With the growth of immigrant populations in recent years, more attention has been given to better engaging immigrants and ethnic minorities in governance activities and other participatory processes. read more
16 May 2007: Finding consensus is the way forward, a collection of scientists and ethicists from developing and developed countries agreed, following discussions on the complex issues of informed consent and double standards in science at a conference on ethics, research and globalisation on 14 May. read more
15 May 2007: The European Commission's Directorate General for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities has issued a call for tenders for a study on labour mobility within the EU in the context of enlargement and the functioning of transitional measures. read more
14 May 2007: The
future success of the
10 May 1007: EU
Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Hübner homed in on one
specific sentence in
the
9 May 2007: The
EU's new EUR7 billion Lifelong Learning Programme was given the go
ahead at a
conference organised by the German EU Council Presidency in
8 May 2007: The
Government of Wallonia, the French-speaking region of
7 May 2007: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has published a set of principles and guidelines designed to make access to publicly funded research data easier. read more
4 May 2007: Identifying the benefits of Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) and promoting their development is the goal of a new Communication adopted by the European Commission on 2 May. The right to the protection of personal data is enshrined in Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, and the Data Protection and ePrivacy Directives set out in detail the obligations of the data controller as well as what happens if a data subject's rights are breached. read more
4 May 2007: 'How?' was the focus of an open hearing on the proposed European Institute for Technology (EIT) in the European Parliament on 2 May. Joining the hearing at the end, European Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth, Ján Figel' applauded this shift away from 'whether', and said that he is hoping for a common orientation agreement on the EIT within the Council in June. read more
3 May 2007: Ministers
attending an informal meeting of the Competitiveness Council have
called for
political consensus on the establishment of the European Institute of
Technology (EIT) by the end of
3 May 2007: Nicholas Negroponte's much hyped 'One Laptop Per
Child'
(OLPC) scheme inspires or infuriates according to taste. The idea of
revolutionizing
education by distributing millions of '$100 laptops' to children in the
world's
poorest countries can be seen as Soviet-style social engineering or as
visionary
1 May 2007: South
African science is on the up. Thanks to strong support from the highest
levels
of government, in the last few years the science budget has increased
dramatically, and the country has set itself the goal of become a
preferred
destination for science and technology. Earlier this year the South
African
Government announced plans to further boost its science budget to €331
million,
and the country hopes to be spending 2% of GDP on science by 2017. At
an event
in
1 May 2007: The
Lord Kelvin/Adam Smith Scholarships have been established to enable the
28 March 2007: 'Unity in diversity': the motto of the present day European Union, which aims to defend common values such as freedom, peace, and solidarity in a Union made up of diverse cultures and languages. But how well is the EU living up to this challenge? LANMOB, a completed EU funded project, examined the role that the EU plays in protecting and promoting language diversity, particularly regional minority languages and those of immigrant minority groups. read more
14 March 2007: An information day on the topic 'Social platform on cities and social cohesion' of the 'Socioeconomic sciences and humanities' (SSH) thematic priority of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) will take place on 23 March in Brussels, Belgium. read more
9 March 2007: Europe's first woman astronaut, Claudie Haigneré, has been in Brussels as the Chair of jury charged with selecting the winner's of this year's Descartes Prize for Excellence in Scientific Research. On the eve of International Women's Day, CORDIS News took the opportunity to speak to her about the women in science, a subject about which she knows plenty. read more
6 March 2007: The
EU has gone to great lengths to reach out to women interested in
science
careers, however rules and regulations come up short when dealing with
ethics
committees reviewing research applications, a new study claims. The
study, published
in the Journal for Medical Ethics, reviewed current practices across
23 January 2007: Although more women are studying engineering in the UK, few go on to take up a career in the sector; those that do adopt a range of strategies for coping in such a male-dominated environment, according to new research from the UK's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). read more
20 December 2006: The European Commission's DG Research is organising a Proposer's Day exclusively devoted to the calls in the areas of 'Science in society' and 'Socio-economic sciences and humanities', which will be held in Brussels, Belgium, on 22 January. read more
13 December 2006: More should be done to make scientific careers more attractive to French women, and to remove the 'glass ceiling' preventing them from attaining senior positions in research and high education institutes. These are just some of the issues highlighted in a recently published report by a ministerial committee for professional gender equality in research and higher education.
1 December 2006: EU Member States' finance ministers, meeting in the Ecofin Council in Brussels on 28 November, have described the overall progress towards meeting the Lisbon objectives as 'encouraging', but have urged more to be done, particularly in fostering private research and development (R&D) investment. read more
23 November 2006: As Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, made her way through the crowds of delegates at the official opening of the IST2006 conference and exhibition in Helsinki on 21 November, a 16-year old Finnish girl by the name of Mikaela quietly followed close behind. read more
21 November 2006: 'While regional policy has always been our main instrument for reducing social and economic disparities across the regions of the Union, it is now also recognised as a key pillar of the strategy to promote growth, jobs and competitiveness,' said EU Regional Policy Commissioner Danuta Hübner on a visit to the UK on 17 November. read more
