“Japan will recover from the catastrophe that has hit its shores,” says Bernard Bernier, director of the Université de Montréal Department of Anthropology. “This will not be a turning point in the country’s history.” (more…)
Male monkeys looking for a good time might benefit from spending a bit longer getting to know a potential mate, according to a new study published online in the scientific journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
The time males spend around a prospective mate might be the key to detecting subtle sexual signals that show which females are fertile and which are not, according to the study, co-authored by an international team of biologists and psychologists. (more…)
*Study shows daily malleability on a long-term question*
Social scientists are struggling with a perplexing earth-science question: as the power of evidence showing manmade global warming is rising, why do opinion polls suggest public belief in the findings is wavering? Part of the answer may be that some people are too easily swayed by the easiest, most irrational piece of evidence at hand: their own estimation of the day’s temperature.
In three separate studies, researchers affiliated with Columbia University’s Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED) surveyed about 1,200 people in the United States and Australia, and found that those who thought the current day was warmer than usual were more likely to believe in and feel concern about global warming than those who thought the day was unusually cold. A new paper describing the studies appears in the current issue of the journal Psychological Science. (more…)
Conventional wisdom suggests that average citizens hate politics, loathe hyper-partisan gridlock, balk at voting even in presidential election years and are, incidentally, woefully ill-informed.
Given that, the thinking goes, it’s reasonable to conclude that citizens want less, not more, involvement in politics.
But that widely accepted theory does not survive empirical scrutiny, a team of researchers that includes a University of Colorado Boulder political scientist found. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Biologically diverse streams are better at cleaning up pollutants than less rich waterways, and a University of Michigan ecologist says he has uncovered the long-sought mechanism that explains why this is so.
Bradley Cardinale used 150 miniature model streams, which use recirculating water in flumes to mimic the variety of flow conditions found in natural streams. He grew between one and eight species of algae in each of the mini-streams, then measured each algae community’s ability to soak up nitrate, a nitrogen compound that is a nutrient pollutant of global concern. (more…)
*More Turkish Viewers Watch Online Video on Facebook Than YouTube*
London, UK, April 7, 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today announced the launch of Video Metrix 
in Turkey. This online video measurement service, which was the first to market in the U.S. more than four years ago, has been developed to enable comScore’s clients to succeed in the online video marketplace. The debut Video Metrix report in Turkey showed that nearly 3 billion online videos were viewed by 20.2 million unique viewers in February 2011.
“At Nokta, we are firm believers in the value of transparency – not just to our business, but to the marketplace as a whole […],” says Tümay Asena, CEO at Nokta Medya. ”After a quick and easy tag implementation process, we are now looking forward to being able to showcase the full value of our video offering in ways that suit both the targeting needs of media planners, and the Nokta business model. The introduction of Video Metrix, comScore’s video measurement service, will make a true difference to the Turkish market.” (more…)
A pixel is worth a thousand words? Not exactly how the saying goes, but in this case, it holds true: scientists at Berkeley Lab’s Molecular Foundry have pioneered a new chemical mapping method that provides unprecedented insight into materials at the nanoscale. Moving beyond traditional static imaging techniques, which provide a snapshot in time, these new maps will guide researchers in deciphering molecular chemistry and interactions at the nanoscale—critical for artificial photosynthesis, biofuels production and light-harvesting applications such as solar cells.
“This new technique allows us to capture very high-resolution images of nanomaterials with a huge amount of physical and chemical information at each pixel,” says Alexander Weber-Bargioni, a postdoctoral scholar in the Imaging and Manipulation of Nanostructures Facility at the Foundry. “Usually when you take an image, you just get a picture of what this material looks like, but nothing more. With our method, we can now gain information about the functionality of a nanostructure with rich detail.” (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Since 2003, the antiwar movement in the United States has had much to protest with Americans fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Libya, but the movement—which has dropped off sharply the past two years—may be more anti-Republican than antiwar, says a University of Michigan researcher.
A new study by U-M’s Michael Heaney and colleague Fabio Rojas of Indiana University shows that the antiwar movement in the United States demobilized as Democrats, who had been motivated to participate by anti-Republican sentiments, withdrew from antiwar protests when the Democratic Party achieved electoral success, first with Congress in 2006 and then with the presidency in 2008. (more…)
