Author Archives: Guest Post

War, Plague No Match for Deforestation in Driving CO2 Buildup

Stanford, CA —  Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes had an impact on the global carbon cycle as big as today’s annual demand for gasoline. The Black Death, on the other hand, came and went too quickly for it to cause much of a blip in the global carbon budget. Dwarfing both of these events, however, has been the historical trend towards increasing deforestation, which over centuries has released vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as crop and pasture lands expanded to feed growing human populations. Even Genghis Kahn couldn’t stop it for long. (more…)

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comScore Releases December 2010 U.S. Online Video Rankings

*VEVO Rakes in 50 Million Viewers One Year After Its Launch* 

RESTON, VA, January 21, 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 172 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in December for an average of 14.6 hours per viewer. The total U.S. Internet audience engaged in nearly 5.2 billion viewing sessions during the course of the month.  (more…)

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Amazon’s Kindle Digital Text Platform Extends 70 Percent Royalty Option to Books Sold to Canadian Customers

*Authors and publishers can now earn more money on every book sold to Canadian customers Kindle Digital Text Platform changes name to Kindle Direct Publishing*

SEATTLE, Jan 21, 2011 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon.com, Inc. today announced that the popular Kindle Digital Text Platform (DTP) is extending the 70 percent royalty option to include books sold to Canadian customers. This royalty option is available for books sold to Canadian customers from the Kindle Store for Kindle, Kindle 3G, Kindle DX, or one of the Kindle apps for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch, BlackBerry, PC, Mac, Windows Phones and Android-based devices. Kindle Digital Text Platform is also changing its name to Kindle Direct Publishing. (more…)

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Writing About Anxiety Helps Students Ace Exams

*Research says test performance improves when students write about their worries*

Sian Beilock, lead author of a new study that appears on January 13 in the journal Science, says writing about test-related worries for ten minutes immediately before taking an exam is an effective way to improve test scores in classroom settings.

“By writing down one’s negative thoughts, students may come to realize that the situation is not as bad as they thought or that they are prepared to take it on,” said Beilock, an associate professor of Psychology at the University of Chicago. “As a result, they worry less during the test.” (more…)

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Email Evolution: Web-based Email Shows Signs of Decline in the U.S. While Mobile Email Usage on the Rise

*Growing Number of Communication Channels Prompts Shift in Consumers’ Email Behavior*  

RESTON, VA, January 20, 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released results from a study on U.S. consumers’ evolving email behaviors using data from its comScore Media Metrix and MobiLens services. The study found that in November 2010, the number of visitors to web-based email sites declined 6 percent compared to the previous year, while email engagement declined at an even greater rate. During the same time period, the number of users accessing email via their mobile devices grew by 36 percent as an increasingly complex digital environment influenced consumers’ communication habits.  (more…)

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