News Articles

A new article concludes that early intervention for young people with delinquency problems may help prevent the development of crime, alcoholism and risky sex behaviors, especially among those with low incomes. The study in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry set out to examine the influence of delinquency behavior in late childhood development.   The adolescent and young adults (800 people, ages 10 to 24, from low- and middle-income backgrounds) completed self-report assessments - so calibrate that accordingly - which included questions on delinquent involvement, alcohol use, and sexual activity in late childhood; delinquency and alcohol use in adolescence; and crime, AUDs, and risky sex in early adulthood.

An argument in the business world is how happy you can make employees while still maintaining a job standard.   JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater cursed out a passenger, grabbed two beers and exited through the plane's emergency exit earlier this week, and a new report in Perspectives on Psychological Science suggests his attitude may be a sign of trouble for JetBlue and other large companies.  It may also be a sign of trouble just for airlines, where flight attendants seem to think passengers exist to give them a reason to collect a paycheck.  Or it may mean nothing.

A long-standing argument for public schools over home-schooling and more kids versus one is the social aspect.  Honestly, sending kids to school so they can learn to feel bad about their clothing is not that great, despite well-funded union public relations campaigns to that effect.   And being an only child is not so bad either, new research suggests.  A study of more than 13,000 middle and high school students across the country found that 'only children' were selected as friends by their schoolmates just as often as were peers who grew up with brothers and sisters.

Obesity rates have leveled off and even started to decline for many adolescents, but not certain racial and ethnic minorities, according to a new study. The study says it is the first to find significant differences in obesity trends over time by race and ethnicity and this evidence of increasing racial disparities for obesity underscores the need for more tailored intervention programs and policies that target high-risk groups, the authors conclude.

Coal isn't popular everywhere these days, particularly in Africa.  Driven by economic growth and demand, electricity within sub-Saharan Africa is rapidly approaching supply capacity and in many countries exceeding it. The demand for new generation capacity is boosting growth in the steam turbine market for the region. 
 The sub-Saharan African steam turbine market is expected to grow considerably due to the cost efficiencies in power production attained from coal-fired power plants in coal-rich countries, according to Frost Sullivan research. The emergence of combined cycle technologies and development of the geothermal power industry in East Africa are also likely to open up new market opportunities. 

Citizen scientists are doing big things in astronomy in 2010.   A few days ago, three amateurs discovered PSR J2007+2722, a neutron star that rotates 41 times per second and a recent Science article highlights V407 Cyg in the constellation Cygnus, which is 9,000 light-years away and is a symbiotic binary containing a compact white dwarf and a red giant star about 500 times the size of the sun.On March 11, amateur astronomers Koichi Nishiyama and Fujio Kabashima in Miyaki-cho of Saga Prefecture in Japan imaged a dramatic change in the brightness of V407 Cyg - 10 times brighter than an image they had taken three days earlier.

A few months ago, Google opened the Android Market to allow anyone to load software but now studies show that an average of one in every five applications had access to personal information , which could lead to all sorts of viruses, spyware, and malware being created to attack users.  

The majority of "fused" people, those who view themselves as completely immersed in a group, are willing to commit extreme acts for the good of their compatriots, says research soon to appear in  Psychological Science.In the study, the researchers recruited 506 college students at the Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia in Spain. Based on the students' answers in online questionnaires, the researchers identified 38 percent of the participants as "fused" as compared to "non-fused," with Spain. They then measured their self-sacrificial behaviors.

If you want to really get back to nature, it still involves meat.  A team of researchers has discovered evidence that human ancestors were using stone tools and consuming the meat and marrow of large mammals 1 million years earlier than previously documented.While working in the Afar region of Ethiopia, the Dikika Research Project (DRP) found bones bearing unambiguous evidence of stone tool use - cut marks made while carving meat off the bone and percussion marks created while breaking the bones open to extract marrow. The bones date to roughly 3.4 million years ago and provide the first evidence that Lucy's species, Australopithecus afarensis, used stone tools and consumed meat. 

One solution to the heart risk caused by obesity, although an obtuse one, is to add things to the junk food industry instead of taking away some junk food.Researchers at Imperial College London writing in the American Journal of Cardiology suggest fast food vendors provide statin drugs free of charge.  Statins reduce the amount of unhealthy LDL cholesterol in the blood, and trial data has shown them to be highly effective at lowering a person's heart attack risk.In the study, Dr. Darrel Francis and colleagues calculate that the reduction in cardiovascular risk offered by a statin is enough to offset the increase in heart attack risk from eating a cheeseburger and a milkshake.

The odd shape of NGC 4696, the largest galaxy in the Centaurus Cluster (galaxy cluster Abell 3526), leads to fundamental science questions.  First, why is it such a strange shape? And what are the odd, capillary-like filaments that stretch out of it? What is the role of a large black hole in explaining its odd appearance?

RESTON, Virginia, August 11, 2010 -- comScore, Inc. , a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a report on Twitter.com growth worldwide. The study found that in June, nearly 93 million Internet users visited Twitter.com, an increase of 109 percent from the previous year, as the social networking site achieved strong gains across all global regions. Indonesia reported the highest penetration, with 20.8 percent of Internet users in the country visiting Twitter.com that month, followed by Brazil and Venezuela, with Venezuela's growth fueled in large part by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's decision to join Twitter in late April.