EAST LANSING, Mich. — Late-preterm babies – those born between 34 and 36 weeks – are at an increased risk for cognitive and emotional problems, regardless of maternal IQ or demographics, according to new research published by Michigan State University researchers in the current edition of the journal Pediatrics. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Every year about this time, on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that traditionally begins the holiday shopping season, early-morning consumers stand in long lines eager to purchase some sought after prize. From the outside, it looks as if these holiday shoppers can’t wait to plunk down their cash, but Ross School marketing professor Scott Rick says consumers often behave differently than they would ideally like to behave.
“Some consumers chronically spend more than they would like, and some consumers chronically spend less than they would like,” he said. “Where an individual falls within the range of desiring to spend more or less largely determines whether he or she is a tightwad or a spendthrift, characteristics that determine quite a bit about a person’s spending habits.” (more…)
The National Science Foundation has signed a five-year, $34.5-million agreement with the University of Wisconsin-Madison to operate a unique telescope–a cubic kilometer in volume–buried in the Antarctic ice sheet between 1,400 meters and 2,400 meters deep.
The collaborative agreement covers the cost of operating the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, located in the ice under the U.S. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. The observatory records the rare collisions of neutrinos, elusive sub-atomic particles, with the atomic nuclei of the water frozen into ice. Neutrinos come from the sun, cosmic rays interacting with the Earth’s atmosphere, and dramatic astronomical sources such as exploding stars in the Milky Way and other distant galaxies. Trillions of neutrinos stream through the human body at any given moment, but they rarely interact with regular matter, and researchers want to know more about them and where they come from. (more…)
*New app helps customers instantly compare in-store prices to the low prices from Amazon.com and other online merchants*
SEATTLE, Nov 22, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) — Amazon.com today announced a new price comparison app for the iPhone that provides customers the easiest way yet to compare in-store prices with the low prices from Amazon.com and other online merchants. Across all categories of products – from toys to consumer electronics – customers can use the app to scan a barcode, snap a picture, or say or type a product name to receive instant prices for that item from Amazon.com and other online merchants. Customers will then have the ability to, with one-click, purchase the item and have it delivered directly to their doorstep.
“This app makes it incredibly easy to quickly compare prices on millions of items before making a purchase,” said Sam Hall, director of Amazon Mobile. “We’ve worked hard to have low prices at Amazon, and we like it when customers comparison shop so they know they’re getting a good deal. We hope this app will empower customers to shop with confidence this holiday and any other day.” (more…)
*IBM’s POWER7 systems replace HP servers*
MOSCOW, – 22 Nov 2010: IBM today announced that Russian pharmaceutical distributor PROTEK has switched to 
IBM POWER7 systems for its data processing center. The new systems from IBM replace the previous servers from HP, enabling PROTEK to improve the performance of critical business applications while reducing power consumption and increasing return on investment.
PROTEK is one of Russia’s largest pharmaceutical companies, distributing medicines to 44,000 pharmacies and health-care institutions across the Russian Federation. PROTEK’s rapid business growth and the implementation of a new ERP system across all of its offices resulted in a sharp increase in workload for the company’s IT infrastructure. PROTEK’s legacy IT system, based on HP SuperDome servers, failed to meet its growing performance requirements. In an effort to avoid further delays in critical business data processing, PROTEK’s management board decided to switch to a new server platform. (more…)
Successfully treating and reversing the effects of multiple sclerosis, or MS, may one day be possible using a drug originally developed to treat chronic pain, according to Distinguished Professor Linda Watkins of the University of Colorado at Boulder. (more…)
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Bob Woodward ’65 discussed “Secrets: Uncovering Mysteries in the 21st Century” during a conversation with Steven Brill ’72, LAW ’75, founder of the Yale Journalism Initiative, and Paul Needham ’11, journalism scholar and former editor-in-chief of the Yale Daily News. (more…)
Adrianna Mendrek. Image credit : University of Montreal
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder that differs between the sexes in terms of age at onset, symptomatology, response to medication, and structural brain abnormalities. Now, a new study from the Université de Montréal shows that there is gender difference between men and women’s mental ability – with women performing better than men. These findings, published recently in, Schizophrenia Research, have implications for the more than 300 000 affected Canadians.
“We are the first to report sex differences in brain function of schizophrenics,” says Université de Montréal professor, Adrianna Mendrek a researcher at the Centre de Recherche Fernand-Seguin, Hospital Louis-H Lafontaine. “We chose to study a task involving mental rotation of a three dimensional image because in healthy men and women, this consistently elicits differences in terms of reaction time and performance accuracy.” (more…)
