Author Archives: Guest Post

Dating violence impedes victims’ earnings

Dating violence in adolescence not only takes a physical and emotional toll on young women, it also leads to less education and lower earnings later in life, according to a first-of-its-kind study led by a Michigan State University researcher.

A young woman’s educational performance may be hindered by her partner’s actions, such as destroying books or homework or causing injuries that prevent her from going to school. (more…)

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NASA’S Mars Curiosity Debuts Autonomous Navigation

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity has used autonomous navigation for the first time, a capability that lets the rover decide for itself how to drive safely on Mars.

This latest addition to Curiosity’s array of capabilities will help the rover cover the remaining ground en route to Mount Sharp, where geological layers hold information about environmental changes on ancient Mars. The capability uses software that engineers adapted to this larger and more complex vehicle from a similar capability used by NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity, which is also currently active on Mars. (more…)

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The artistry of bees

A story about bees at a world famous art museum.

Bees are artists

Patrons at the Weisman Art Museum (WAM) on the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus are in little danger of being stung by honeybees, despite their close proximity to 100,000 of them. Bees basically mind their own business, and they have much to attend to. (more…)

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Real-time Monitoring Pays Off for Tracking Nitrate Pulse in Mississippi River Basin to the Gulf of Mexico

Cutting edge optical sensor technology is being used in the Mississippi River basin to more accurately track the nitrate pulse from small streams, large tributaries and ultimately to the Gulf of Mexico.

Excessive springtime nitrate runoff from agricultural land and other sources in the Mississippi drainage eventually flows into the Mississippi River. Downstream, this excess nitrate contributes to the Gulf of Mexico hypoxic zone, an area with low oxygen known commonly as the “dead zone.” NOAA-supported researchers reported that the summer 2013 dead zone covered about 5,840 square miles, an area the size of Connecticut. (more…)

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Fukushima: Die Katastrophe setzt sich fort

Ein neues Leck am Kernkraftwerk Fukushima verseucht die Umwelt deutlich schlimmer als bisher angenommen. Mit 300 Tonnen ausgelaufenem radioaktiven Wasser ist es der bisher größte Störfall seit der Katastrophe vom März 2011.

Einer von hunderten Tanks auf dem AKW-Gelände, die zur Aufbewahrung des Kühlwassers dienen, ist leck geschlagen. Hatte Tepco, der Betreiber des Atomkraftwerks, anfangs noch 120 Liter ausgelaufenes Wasser gemeldet, musste er am Mittwoch seine Aussage berichtigen: Die 2.500-fache Menge radioaktiv verseuchtes Wasser war aus dem Leck getreten. “Wie viel Inkompetenz und Vertuschung von Tepco toleriert die japanische Regierung noch?”, kommentiert Heinz Smital, Atomexperte bei Greenpeace, die Fehlinformation. (more…)

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How sleep helps brain learn motor task

Sleep helps the brain consolidate what we’ve learned, but scientists have struggled to determine what goes on in the brain to make that happen for different kinds of learned tasks. In a new study, researchers pinpoint the brainwave frequencies and brain region associated with sleep-enhanced learning of a sequential finger tapping task akin to typing, or playing piano.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — You take your piano lesson, you go to sleep and when you wake up your fingers are better able to play that beautiful sequence of notes. How does sleep make that difference? A new study helps to explain what happens in your brain during those fateful, restful hours when motor learning takes hold. (more…)

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Competition Changes How People View Strangers Online

On Sites Like eBay, Strangers No Longer Seen as ‘Just Like You’

COLUMBUS, Ohio – An anonymous stranger you encounter on websites like Yelp or Amazon may seem to be just like you, and a potential friend.  But a stranger on a site like eBay is a whole different story.

A new study finds that on websites where people compete against each other, assumptions about strangers change.

Previous research has shown that people have a bias toward thinking that strangers they encounter online are probably just like them. (more…)

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