News Articles

Is there still a gender gap in math?  There is if you are selling cultural drama but in actuality, not so much.  Complaints aside, the No Child Left Behind program accomplished its mission; by focusing on the same sort of educational system other countries use that allowed them to beat American kids in standardized tests - namely, teaching to the test - American children performed better in each international test and for the first time in history boys and girls achieved math parity.  That's a win.But perceptions die hard - some people still insist Republicans are more anti-science than Democrats, for example, and some (not surprisingly the same people) use words like 'dismal' and 'failure' about American girls and math.  

BMC Neurology has published the results of the HYPNOS I clinical trial demonstrating the sedative action of the Cefaly medical device (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22035386).
The results show, in a statistically highly significant manner using four clinical measurement methods, a pronounced reduction in vigilance induced by the action of the Cefaly(R) Hypnos medical device, by comparison to a placebo.
This sedative action on the central nervous system is observed after application for 12 minutes in 83% of individuals whose mean increase in tiredness was of 73%.

36% of post-menopausal women who are treated for estrogen-sensitive breast cancer quit using drugs that help prevent the disease from recurring after four years.Why? The first study to actually ask the women themselves reports those women quit early because of the medications' side effects, which are more severe and widespread than previously known. A new Northwestern Medicine survey reveals a big gap between what women tell their doctors about side effects and what they actually experience.

Babies love to communicate and they're great listeners, even early on.  New research shows that during the first year of life, when babies spend so much time listening to language, they're actually tracking word patterns that will support their process of word- learning that occurs between the ages of about 18 months and two years.

A common belief among club-going men is that women choose less attractive friends to make themselves look better. See this clip from that important anthropological documentary "Hall Pass" for context:Not so, says a group of scientists who have observed the opposite strategy in the Trinidadian guppy, a species of small freshwater fish  - instead, the uglier friends are choosing the prettier females to avoid unwanted male attention. 

Cellebrite, a developer and manufacturer of mobile forensic solutions, has rejected claims in the recent WikiLeaks "Spy Files" exposé that it is among companies that develop and supply equipment to governments and dictators "to spy on their citizens via mobile devices and computers." 
 The WikiLeaks page referring to Cellebrite states, "The Spy Files (open) thousands of pages and other materials exposing the global mass surveillance industry."

A new species of horned dinosaur, Spinops sternbergorum, was announced today by an international team of scientists nearly 100 years after the initial discovery of the fossil.

Queue the 'life on other planets' media buzz.  NASA's Kepler Mission has discovered the first super-Earth orbiting in the habitable zone of a star similar to our Sun.

Research on muscle fatigue has largely been confined to the muscle itself. That makes sense, where there is burn, there is fire.  But motivation and will power turns out to have a greater impact on muscle fatigue than previously believed, according to a joint research project between the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich has shifted the focus to brain research. The researchers discovered neuronal processes for the first time that are responsible for reducing muscle activity during muscle-fatiguing exercise. The third and final part of this series of experiments, which was conducted by Lea Hilty as part of her doctoral thesis at the University of Zurich, has now been published in the European Journal of Neuroscience.

Kinect for Xbox 360 has an update coming today that brings voice control to living room entertainment. 

 They are launching an all-new Xbox 360 experience including the first group of new, custom applications from world leading TV and entertainment content providers on Xbox LIVE. 
 You Say It, Xbox Finds It 
How long does it take you to search and find your favorite movie or TV show? Do you find yourself searching hundreds of channels and multiple services and TV inputs? What if the entertainment you craved was simple, discoverable and exactly what you wanted at that particular moment?

The controversy over whether or not violent video games are potentially harmful to players has been debated for many years, even making it to the Supreme Court in 2010. There has been little scientific evidence demonstrating that the games have a prolonged negative neurological effect but sustained changes in the region of the brain associated with cognitive function and emotional control were found in young adult men after one week of playing violent video games, according to study results presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

The debate over the actual benefit of antioxidants may be ongoing but the studies keep coming in. Regardless of cardiovascular disease medical history, Swedish women who ate an antioxidant-rich diet had fewer strokes, shows the results of a new survey.Oxidative stress is an imbalance between the production of cell-damaging free radicals and the body's ability to neutralize them. It leads to inflammation, blood vessel damage and stiffening.Antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, carotenoids and flavonoids can inhibit oxidative stress and inflammation by scavenging the free radicals. Antioxidants, especially flavonoids, may also help improve endothelial function and reduce blood clotting, blood pressure and inflammation.