“Happy”
Humor done right helps in the classroom, 99% of students report. Bad humor hurts
In news today: people still like jokes.
Recents studies show how coffee is good for your health
The idea that coffee is good for you is not a new one.
Peer to your peers for motivation, not your teachers, if you actually want to study
Surprisingly, getting neither isn’t that bad for your results.
Shaky science: 9 Retracted Studies That Left a Big Mark
Scientific publishing is a competitive environment, under heavy scrutiny from reviewers, editor and peers. Over the years, some studies get retracted, and that’s not a bad thing in itself; a study can be retracted because more data is available, disproving it, or because a human or technical error snuck in – that’s perfectly understandable, and the review and correction process
Be careful, kids – high grades are contagious
Highschool students whose friends have higher grades than them have a significant tendency to raise their own grades over the course of a year, a study conducted by Hiroki Sayama from Binghamton University and his collaborators from Maine-Endwell High School in Endwell, New York, including 4 high school students. Previous research had already shown that a student’s social network can
Increase Your Memory… With a Pill?
What if you could increase your ability to remember with a pill? This may not be an idea just for science fiction novels. Scientists have discovered a method that could strengthen long-term memories. A protein called PKR functions to maintain a relatively low level of excitability by enhancing GABA synaptic transmission. GABA is an inhibitory neurotransmitter; it decreases synaptic stimuli
Caffeine consumption linked to hallucinations
You can’t believe everything people say, but you sometimes can’t even believe what you hear, especially if you’ve had 3 or more cups of coffee. Australian researchers from La Trobe University have just published a study suggesting that people on a major coffee buzz are prone to hear and seethings that aren’t there. The thins is that this might raise
The colour red increases speed and strength of reactions
What can possibly link together speed, strength, and the colour red ? Nope, it’s not a brand new Ferrari – it’s your muscles ! A new groundbreaking study published in the journal Emotion shows that if you see red, your reactions become faster, more powerful, and you won’t even realize it. Science and sports Of course, due to the crazy
Study shows one in five drivers would fail written test
If every driver in the US would be required to take the test today, almost 20% of them would fail, according to results of the 2011 GMAC Insurance National Driver’s Test. That’s 36.9 million American drivers, who technically speaking, shouldn’t be on the road, due to their lack of knowledge. Come to think about it, this isn’t such a big
Monkeys have regrets too
Much like humans, monkeys too exhibit signs of regret, and they wonder themselves what might have been, according to a recent study published by researchers from Yale. The study, published in the Neuron journal, suggests that aside from regrets, monkeys often wonder about how different actions would lead to different outcomes; as researchers state, aside from being extremely interesting in
1 in 5 young adults suffering from high blood pressure in the US
Researchers at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill have found that more and more young adults are suffering from a condition that has traditionally been the problem of older adults – high blood pressure. The researchers believe that general problems, such as an unbalanced diet, coffee, and obesity are the main causes for this surge in heart related issues amongst
Research unveils increased rate of autism
Autism is still yet poorly understood, and researchers are just starting to figure out the mechanisms behind this strange condition which seems to affect more and more children (and not only) with each passing year. A 6 year autism study The ambitious six year effort attempted to gauge the rate of autism in a South Korean city, and the results
Antarctica threatened by alien species invasion
First of all, don’t think of alien species as extraterrestrials; if you came here wanting to hear about that – sorry. Thankfully, the sci-fi scenario is not upon us. I’m talking about species which haven’t originated from Antarctica – seeds, fungi, microorganisms, they go wherever they are taken, and wherever people take them. If you have researchers or some tourists,
Lap dance study yields surprising results
This is one of those studies which makes you realize that being a researcher definitely has some unexpdected perks; it was funded by ERSC, and let me tell you, to get a grant from them, you really have to have a solid project, because the approval rate is somewhere around 17%. What they concluded from the study was worth it,
Justice served cold before lunch time: hungry judges less likely to grant parole
Law is a highly demanding field, in which its practitioners are required to have an objective and stoic approach at all times, but a recently published very interesting study shows that court judges can be just as biased as any of us and their rulings, however rational we’d love them to be, are influenced by moods and swings, and …
Approximately 1 in 50 researchers falsifies or modifies data in studies
The topic of modification of data in scientific research is definitely a hot one; the frequency at which researchers fabricate or falsify data is extremely hard to quantify and make a statistic from it. Many different studies or surveys have tried to do this, but the results varied greatly and were difficult to compare and synthesize. I read a study
Girls aren’t good at math: the stereotype
Girls like pink, boys like blue. Girls have long hair, boys have short hair. And so on, so on – my mom says this is all common sense, I say this is social programming that propagates stereotypes, and the latest research relating to this is a study called Math–Gender Stereotypes in Elementary-School Children recently published in Child Development that refers
Researchers look at hibertnating bears for the first time
Bears are some of the most amazing and loved animals out there, and to find out that up until a few months ago nobody made a thorough study about their hibernating was really sad for me. Until this, almost everything we knew about hibernating was that… well, bears do it’; they go into their dens and come out a few
Antimatter captured at CERN
For physicists, antimatter is probably the most valuable substance ever; the slightest bit of it could provide extremely valuable information that can help clear out some of the most stressing issues in modern physics. However, the thing is these little gifts are pretty hard to wrap. However, the ALPHA project at CERN achieved this remarkable feat and took a huge