Research news: Concrete examples don't help students learn math

The News:
Concrete examples don't help students learn math, study finds
COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study challenges the common practice in many classrooms of teaching mathematical concepts by using “real-world,” concrete examples.
Researchers led by Jennifer Kaminski, researcher scientist at Ohio State University’s Center for Cognitive Science, found that college students who learned a mathematical concept with concrete examples couldn’t apply that knowledge to new situations.
But when students first learned the concept with abstract symbols, they were much more likely to transfer that knowledge, according to the study published in the April 25 issue of the journal Science.
“These findings cast doubt on a long-standing belief in education,” said Vladimir Sloutsky, co-author of the study and professor of psychology and human development and the director of the Center for Cognitive Science at Ohio State.
“The belief in using concrete examples is very deeply ingrained, and hasn’t been questioned or tested.”
Kaminski and Sloutsky conducted the study with Andrew Heckler, assistant professor of physics at Ohio State.
Teachers often use real-world examples in math class, the researchers said. In some classrooms, for example, teachers may explain probability by pulling a marble out of a bag of red and blue marbles and determining how likely it will be one color or the other.
But students may learn better if teachers explain the concept as the probability of choosing one of n things from a larger set of m things, Kaminski said. Read on...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal Science.

Help For Insomnia Patients? Different Processes Govern Sight, Light Detection

The News:
Help For Insomnia Patients? Different Processes Govern Sight, Light Detection
ScienceDaily (Apr. 28, 2008) — A Johns Hopkins University biologist, in research with implications for people suffering from seasonal affective disorder and insomnia, has determined that the eye uses light to reset the biological clock through a mechanism separate from the ability to see.
The findings suggest that patients with trouble sleeping or seasonal depression — disorders that can be linked to lack of exposure to daylight — could benefit from development of easier, more available tests to determine if they are able to detect light properly for functions distinct from normal sight, said Samer Hattar, assistant professor of biology in the university's Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.
"It seems that even if individuals have normal sight, they might be having a malfunction that is contributing to their inability to detect light, which can adversely affect their biological clocks," Hattar said. Read on...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal Nature.

Research News: T. Rex tasted like chicken?

The News:
T. Rex tasted like chicken?
A protein found in the dinosaur's bones boosts the theory that birds are the closest descendants.
By Rick Weiss The Washington Post
Article Last Updated: 04/25/2008 03:42:23 AM MDT
WASHINGTON — Protein retrieved from a 68-millon-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex bone closely resembles the main protein in chicken and ostrich bones and is only distantly related to lizards', strengthening the popular idea that birds, and not reptiles, are the closest living descendants of dinosaurs.

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal Science.

Research News: Beetle Infestation Compounds Effects of Warming

The News:
Beetle Infestation Compounds Effects of Warming
by John Nielsen
NPR's Morning Edition April 24, 2008 · In western Canada, tree-infesting beetles are flourishing due to warmer temperatures caused in part by global warming. But a new study in the journal Nature argues that these pests may also be compounding the effects of climate change by destroying the trees that suck key pollutants out of the atmosphere.

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal Nature.

Research News: Roadkill Study Finds Many Croaked Amphibians

The News:
Roadkill Study Finds Many Croaked Amphibians
By Thomas H. Maugh IILos Angeles Times
Article Launched: 04/20/2008 01:00:00 AM MDT
Death by car could be a major contributor to the decline of many amphibian species, according to the first comprehensive survey of roadkill, Purdue University researchers said last week. The biologists found animals from more than 65 species killed along 11 miles of road in suburban Tippecanoe County outside West Lafayette, Ind. Nearly 95 percent of the dead were frogs and other amphibians, and three-quarters of the deaths occurred along a 1-mile stretch of Lindberg Road that crosses a wetland known as Celery Bog.

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal Herpetological Conservation & Biology.

Research News: New clues to preemies' chances

The News:
New clues to preemies' chances
A new study might help parents decide whether to try to save a very premature infant.
By Mike Stobbe The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 04/17/2008 12:58:12 AM MDT
ATLANTA — Doctors now have a better way of helping parents make an agonizing decision — whether to take heroic steps to save a very premature baby. The number of weeks in the womb has generally been the chief factor. But a new study shows others are important, too — including whether the infant is a girl and whether the fetus gets lung-maturing steroids shortly before birth. Those extra factors can count as much as an extra week of pregnancy.

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Research news: Flowers' fragrance diminished by air pollution

The News:
Flowers' Fragrance Diminished By Air Pollution, Study Indicates
ScienceDaily (Apr. 11, 2008) — Air pollution from power plants and automobiles is destroying the fragrance of flowers and thereby inhibiting the ability of pollinating insects to follow scent trails to their source, a new University of Virginia study indicates. This could partially explain why wild populations of some pollinators, particularly bees -- which need nectar for food -- are declining in several areas of the world, including California and the Netherlands.
"The scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment, such as in the 1800s, could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 meters; but in today's polluted environment downwind of major cites, they may travel only 200 to 300 meters," said Jose D. Fuentes, a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and a co-author of the study. "This makes it increasingly difficult for pollinators to locate the flowers." read more...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal Atmospheric Environment.

Research news: Models look good when predicting climate change

The News:
Earth Observatory Media Alerts
April 2, 2008
MODELS LOOK GOOD WHEN PREDICTING CLIMATE CHANGE
The accuracy of computer models that predict climate change over the coming decades has been the subject of debate among politicians, environmentalists, and even scientists. A new study by meteorologists at the University of Utah shows that current climate models are quite accurate and can be valuable tools for those seeking solutions on reversing global warming trends. Most of these models project a global warming trend that amounts to about 7 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 100 years.
The study titled "How Well do Coupled Models Simulate Today's Climate?" is due to be published this Friday in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. In the study, co-authors Thomas Reichler and Junsu Kim from the Department of Meteorology at the University of Utah investigate how well climate models actually do their job in simulating climate. Read more...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.

Research news: Drug seems to protect against radiation

The News:
Drug seems to protect against radiation
In an early stage of research, mice and monkeys survived lethal amounts of radiation.
By Lauran Neergaard The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 04/11/2008 12:30:38 AM MDT
WASHINGTON — Scientists mimicked one of cancer's sneaky tricks to create a drug that promises to prevent a serious side effect of cancer treatment — radiation damage — or offer an antidote during a nuclear emergency.
A single dose of the experimental drug protected both mice and monkeys from what should have been lethal doses of radiation, researchers report in today's edition of the journal Science. A study to see whether the compound is safe in people could begin as early as this summer.
It's still early-stage research, and other efforts to create radiation protectants haven't yet panned out. But specialists are closely watching the work — and the government is helping to fund it — because it's a new approach to protecting the body's most radiation-sensitive tissues from being blasted.
"It has important implications for radiation exposure," said Dr. David Kirsch, a Duke University radiation oncologist who wasn't involved in the drug research.
Radiation is a powerful tool to destroy cancer cells. But certain healthy tissues are especially sensitive to it, too — particularly the bone marrow and gastrointestinal tract. That vulnerability can limit how much radiation physicians can give cancer patients.
And when it comes to radiation emergencies, such as the Chernobyl accident, full-body exposure to high doses can cause an extremely lethal "GI syndrome" that has no treatment.
It turns out that radiation doesn't kill healthy cells in the same way it kills cancer cells. Read more...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal Science.

Research news: Newly Discovered Fundamental State Of Matter, A Superinsulator, Has Been Created

The News:
Newly Discovered Fundamental State Of Matter, A Superinsulator, Has Been Created
ScienceDaily (Apr. 9, 2008) — Superinsulation may sound like a marketing gimmick for a drafty attic or winter coat. But it is actually a newly discovered fundamental state of matter created by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory in collaboration with several European institutions. This discovery opens new directions of inquiry in condensed matter physics and breaks ground for a new generation of microelectronics.
Led by Argonne senior scientist Valerii Vinokur and Russian scientist Tatyana Baturina, an international team of scientists from Argonne, Germany, Russia and Belgium fashioned a thin film of titanium nitride which they then chilled to near absolute zero. When they tried to pass a current through the material, the researchers noticed that its resistance suddenly increased by a factor of 100,000 once the temperature dropped below a certain threshold. The same sudden change also occurred when the researchers decreased the external magnetic field. Read more...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal Nature.

Research news: Language sways dyslexia's effect

The News:
Language sways dyslexia's effect
A study of kids raised reading Chinese or English means different tacks may be needed.
By Randolph E. Schmid The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 04/08/2008 12:20:21 AM MDT
WASHINGTON — Dyslexia affects different parts of children's brains depending on whether they are raised reading English or Chinese.
That finding, reported in Monday's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, means that therapists may need to seek different methods of assisting dyslexic children from different cultures.
"This finding was very surprising to us," said lead author Li-Hai Tan, a professor of linguistics and brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Hong Kong. "Our finding yields neurobiological clues to the cause of dyslexia."
Millions of children worldwide are affected by dyslexia, a language-based learning disability that can include problems in reading, spelling, writing and pronouncing words.
Reading an alphabetic language such as English requires different skills than reading Chinese, which relies less on sound representation, instead using symbols to represent words.
Past studies have suggested that the brain may use different networks of neurons in different languages, but none has suggested a difference in the structural parts of the brain involved, Tan said. Read on...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Research news: Medical missteps touch one in 15 kids, study finds

The News:
Medical missteps touch one in 15 kids, study finds
By Lindsey Tanner The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 04/06/2008 11:49:50 PM MDT
CHICAGO — Medicine mixups, accidental overdoses and bad drug reactions harm roughly one out of every 15 hospitalized children, according to a new study.
That number is far higher than earlier estimates and bolsters concerns already heightened by well-publicized cases such as the accidental drug overdose of actor Dennis Quaid's newborn twins in November.
"These data and the Dennis Quaid episode are telling us that . . . these kinds of errors and experiencing harm as a result of your health care is much more common than people believe. It's very concerning," said Dr. Charles Homer of the National Initiative for Children's Healthcare Quality. His group helped develop a new detection method used in the study.
Researchers found a rate of 11 drug-related harmful events for every 100 hospitalized children. That compares with an earlier estimate of two per 100 hospitalized children, based on traditional detection methods. The rate reflects the fact that some children experienced more than one drug-treatment mistake.
The new estimate translates to 7.3 percent of hospitalized children, or about 540,000 children each year, a calculation based on government data. Read on...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal Pediatrics.

Research news:Computer Taught To Recognize Attractiveness In Women

The News:
Computer Taught To Recognize Attractiveness In Women
ScienceDaily (Apr. 5, 2008) — "Beauty," goes the old saying, "is in the eye of the beholder." But does the beholder have to be human?
Not necessarily, say scientists at Tel Aviv University. Amit Kagian, an M.Sc. graduate from the TAU School of Computer Sciences, has successfully "taught" a computer how to interpret attractiveness in women. But there's a more serious dimension to this issue that reaches beyond mere vanity. The discovery is a step towards developing artificial intelligence in computers. Other applications for the software could be in plastic and reconstructive surgery and computer visualization programs such as face recognition technologies.

"Until now, computers have been taught how to identify basic facial characteristics, such as the difference between a woman and a man, and even to detect facial expressions," says Kagian. "But our software lets a computer make an aesthetic judgment. Linked to sentiments and abstract thought processes, humans can make a judgment, but they usually don't understand how they arrived at their conclusions." read on...

The Research:
Read the research behind this report in the journal Vision Research.

Research news: Fossilized Feces Tell Tale of Earliest Americans

The News:
Fossilized Feces Tell Tale of Earliest Americans
All Things Considered, April 3, 2008 · Archaeologists are abuzz over the discovery of several 14,000-year-old pieces of fossilized human excrement found in Oregon.
These coprolites, as they're called by experts, are remarkable for several reasons. For one thing, they're older than most artifacts left by the earliest Americans. For another, they contain DNA, which gives scientists a rare opportunity to learn about the first people to arrive in North America.
Ancient Camp Site
Archaeologists knew about Oregon's Paisley Caves back in the late 1930s. These shallow caves were carved into a hillside by a prehistoric lake. Inside, they found animal bones, stone tools and other signs that humans camped or lived there. But in 2002, a team dug deeper and found what you might call pay dirt, says archeologist Dennis Jenkins. read on...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal Science.

Research news: Neglect or abuse seen in 1 in 50 babies in U.S.

The News:
Neglect or abuse seen in 1 in 50 babies in U.S.
By Mike Stobbe The Associated Press
Article Last Updated: 04/04/2008 06:49:35 AM MDT
ATLANTA — About 1 in 50 infants in the U.S. have been neglected or abused, according to the first national study of the problem in that age group.
Nearly a third of the victims were 1 week old or younger when the maltreatment was reported, government researchers said Thursday. The study focused on children younger than 1.
Most of these cases involved neglect, not physical abuse. In the case of the newborns, experts said, the data suggest drug abuse by the mother might have been the cause for reports of neglect, but they couldn't be certain.
Maternal drug abuse is often discovered through blood tests while newborns are in the hospital, said researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"That is the story here," said Dr. Howard Dubowitz, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
The researchers counted more than 91,000 infant victims of abuse and neglect during the study period — Oct. 1, 2005, to Sept. 30, 2006. About 30,000 of those cases were newborns 1 week old or younger.
The information came from a national database of cases verified by protective services agencies in 45 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. more...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Research news: Climate change a moving target, experts note

The News:
Climate change a moving target, experts note
Earlier estimates misjudged renewable-energy use, so more must be done, they say.
By Katy Human The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 04/03/2008 02:38:10 AM MDT
Renewable energy is not replacing fossil fuels as quickly as scientists forecast — leading to a serious underestimation of what still needs to be done to stabilize the world's climate, according to a new analysis.
"Enormous advances in energy technology will be needed to stabilize atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentrations at acceptable levels," said Roger Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado at Boulder and his colleagues, writing in today's edition of Nature.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore, expected that people around the world would be using more renewable energy, reducing global dependence on the fossil fuels
Those gases trap the sun's heat in the atmosphere and have been linked to rising global temperatures.
Instead, people are using more oil, gas and coal than ever before, pumping more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, said Tom Wigley, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder and a co-author of the Nature article. more...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the journal Nature.

Research news: Children fed diet of poor nutrition on Saturday morning television

The News:
Children Fed Diet of Poor Nutrition on Saturday Morning Television
ScienceDaily (Apr. 2, 2008) — Nine out of ten food advertisements shown during Saturday morning children's television programming are for foods of poor nutritional quality, according to researchers at the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the University of Minnesota.
During a sample of 27.5 hours of shows aimed at pre-school and elementary school-aged children, 91 percent of food ads were for foods or beverages high in fat, sodium or added sugars or were low in nutrients, according to the study. Forty-nine percent of the 4.08 hours of advertisements shown were for food (281 food ads out of 571 total). The sample, taken from a 2005 review by the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies, included major broadcast and cable networks that had Saturday morning programming. more...

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association.

Research news: Gold jewelry discovery in Peru a "complete shock"

The News:
Gold jewelry discovery in Peru a "complete shock"
Denver Post Wire Report
Article Last Updated: 04/01/2008 12:46:47 AM MDT
WASHINGTON — The earliest known gold jewelry made in the Americas has been discovered in southern Peru. The gold necklace, made nearly 4,000 years ago, was found in a burial site near Lake Titicaca, researchers report in today's issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The discovery "was a complete shock," said Mark Aldenderfer, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona.In the past, it had been assumed that a society needed to be settled to produce agricultural surpluses that can support activities such as making ornamental objects, he explained. But the people living in this region at the time were still primarily hunter-gatherers, he said.

The Research:
Read the research behind this story in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.