COLUMBUS, Ohio – The aging forests of the Upper Great Lakes could be considered the baby boomers of the region’s ecosystem.
The decline of trees in this area is a cause for concern among policymakers and ecologists who wonder whether the end of the forests’ most productive years means they will no longer offer the benefits they are known for: cleansed air, fertile soil, filtered water and, most important to climate change analysts, carbon storage that offsets greenhouse gas emissions. (more…)
*Newspapers/Magazines and Product Packaging Most Likely Source of QR Code*
*QR Code Users Most Likely to Scan Code while at Home or Store*
RESTON, VA, August 12, 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released results of a study on mobile QR and bar code scanning based on data from its comScore MobiLens service. A QR (“Quick Response”) code is a specific matrix bar code (or two-dimensional code) that is readable by smartphones. The study found that in June 2011, 14 million mobile users in the U.S., representing 6.2 percent of the total mobile audience, scanned a QR or bar code on their mobile device. The study found that a mobile user that scanned a QR or bar code during the month was more likely to be male (60.5 percent of code scanning audience), skew toward ages 18-34 (53.4 percent) and have a household income of $100k or above (36.1 percent). The study also analyzed the source and location of QR or bar code scanning, finding that users are most likely to scan codes found in newspapers/magazines and on product packaging and do so while at home or in a store. (more…)
*Saving motives a major factor in increased household savings*
COLUMBIA, Mo. – With the global economy in a state of unrest, saving money seems to be an obvious strategy for households to protect themselves. But are global households saving enough? Researchers at the University of Missouri have compared savings habits of households from two of the world’s most powerful economies: China and the United States. Rui Yao, an assistant professor in the personal financial planning department in the College of Human Environmental Sciences at the University of Missouri, found that urban Chinese households, on average, save much more than American households. She says the difference stems from saving motives.
“Saving is one of the critical tools that households utilize to achieve financial goals and to improve financial well-being,” Yao said. “By looking at saving motives for households in each country, we hope to explain the difference in saving rates across these two countries.” (more…)
EAST LANSING, Mich. — A repellant for sea lampreys could be the key to better controlling one of the most destructive invasive species in the Great Lakes, says a Michigan State University researcher.
Scientists have seen the effect alarm cues have on lampreys. When scents from dead sea lampreys are poured into a tank of live ones, the lampreys’ efforts to escape are dramatic. In the past, these reactions were simply dismissed as novel. But Michael Wagner, MSU assistant professor of fisheries and wildlife, sees this reaction as a potential game changer. (more…)
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Skipping doses of medicine or taking it at the wrong times can worsen a patient’s condition and lead to costly complications — even organ rejection in patients who have undergone a kidney transplant.
A consortium of researchers in the United States and Canada, including at the University of Florida, has received a $2.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to test techniques that may increase medication adherence in perhaps the most challenging population of patients:teenagers. (more…)
*Despegar-Decolar Sites Ranks as Top Online Travel Destination*
Bogotá, Colombia, August 11, 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released the latest results from a study on the online travel market in Colombia. The study found that in the past year visitation to the Travel category increased 25 percent to reach 3.2 million unique visitors in Colombia, as more online users utilized the web to research and purchase travel. Despegar-Decolar Sites led as the top travel destination in Colombia reaching 453,000 unique visitors in June, followed by Expedia Inc. and Avianca.com.
“Nearly 1 in 4 online users in Colombia visited a travel site in June,” said Alejandro Fosk, comScore senior vice president for Latin America. “Travel sites have witnessed rapid visitor growth in the past year as more consumers embrace the online channel for their travel needs while brands continue to improve the user experience by upgrading site features. Given that more mature online markets around the globe see upwards of half of their online population frequenting travel sites, there is much potential for continued growth in Colombia’s online travel sector.” (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A radical new approach to thwarting Internet censorship would essentially turn the whole web into a proxy server, making it virtually impossible for a censoring government to block individual sites.
The system is called Telex, and it is the brainchild of computer science researchers at the University of Michigan and the University of Waterloo in Canada. They will present it Aug. 12 at the USENIX Security Symposium in San Francisco. (more…)
Washington, D.C.— Meteorites hold a record of the chemicals that existed in the early Solar System and that may have been a crucial source of the organic compounds that gave rise to life on Earth. Since the 1960s, scientists have been trying to find proof that nucleobases, the building blocks of our genetic material, came to Earth on meteorites. New research, published next week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicates that certain nucleobases do reach the Earth from extraterrestrial sources, by way of certain meteorites, and in greater diversity and quantity than previously thought.(more…)
