TORONTO, ON – A new study published by the Social Science Research journal reveals that second-generation Chinese and South Asian immigrants in the US, Canada, and Australia are more successful than the respective mainstream populations (third- and higher-generation whites).
Jeffrey G. Reitz and Naoko Hawkins from the University of Toronto and Heather Zhang from McGill University examined survey and census data from these countries to compare the achievements of immigrants and their offspring. (more…)
New Offering Allows Quality Web Publishers to Generate Incremental Advertising Revenue
SUNNYVALE, Calif. & AUSTIN, Texas — Yahoo! and Media.net today announced a long-term agreement to launch Yahoo! Bing Network Contextual Ads, powered by Media.net. The program aims to provide web publishers with a powerful and effective new solution for earning advertising revenue. Publishers can now use the Media.net platform to create and customize ad units that display relevant text ads from across the Yahoo! Bing Network.
“Since its inception, Media.net has invested tremendous resources — people, capital and time — to build what Yahoo! identifies to be a terrific monetization solution for web publishers,” said Al Echamendi, Vice President, Business Development, Yahoo!. “During our evaluation process, we recognized Media.net as a technology and innovation leader, with a strong management team that has a significant business track record and industry experience.” (more…)
Research finds infants classify faces by gender, race
Long before babies can talk — even before they can sit up on their own — they are mentally forming categories for objects and animals in a way that, for example, sets apart squares from triangles and cats from dogs, psychologists say.
Now, research conducted by the University of Delaware’s Paul Quinn, professor of psychology, and others indicates that babies as young as 3 months are also classifying faces by race and gender, showing a visual preference for the category they see most often in their daily lives, and that by 9 months they have difficulty recognizing the faces of people from less-familiar races. (more…)
Blanket bogs, which provide vital habitats for a unique range of plants, birds, small mammals, reptiles and amphibians, are at risk of declining as a result of climate change.
Research by the Universities of Exeter and Bristol in the UK and Macquarie University in Australia, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows for the first time how rising temperatures will threaten these sensitive ecosystems.
The study highlights the urgency of developing a plan to protect these important habitats.
Found in wet, coastal areas of high latitude regions, blanket bogs cover around 700,000 hectares of land in the UK, much of it designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Blanket bogs are found in the north and west of the UK, extending from Devon in the south to Shetland in the north, and it has been estimated that 10 to15 per cent of the world’s blanket bog occurs in Britain. As well as being crucial in supporting wildlife, blanket bogs also capture and store large amounts of carbon, helping to mitigate against climate change, and reduce the risk of flooding, by slowing down water flow. With some blanket peat being over 9,000 years old, they also hold historically-significant archaeological material. (more…)
The extent of sea ice in the Arctic has reached a record low, according to data released Aug. 26 by the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC).
A University of Delaware marine scientist can confirm some of that ice loss firsthand. In a short video he produced, Andreas Muenchow, aboard the Canadian icebreaker Henry Larsen, shows the ice-free sea off Petermann Fjord that he and his colleagues were sailing in — an area that for ages had been covered by floating ice shelves. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Loss of biodiversity appears to impact ecosystems as much as climate change, pollution and other major forms of environmental stress, according to a new study from an international research team.
The study is the first comprehensive effort to directly compare the impacts of biological diversity loss to the anticipated effects of a host of other human-caused environmental changes.
The results highlight the need for stronger local, national and international efforts to protect biodiversity and the benefits it provides, according to the researchers, who are based at nine institutions in the United States, Canada and Sweden. (more…)
Massive detector homes in on cosmic ray production
IceCube, an international collaboration involving University of Delaware scientists, is shedding new light on cosmic ray production.
Although cosmic rays were discovered 100 years ago, their origin remains one of the most enduring mysteries in physics. Now, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory, a massive detector in Antarctica, is homing in on how the highest energy cosmic rays are produced. (more…)
The United States is stronger and more secure than it was prior to 9/11, but threats from overseas remain and must be proactively managed, said Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, who visited campus April 16 for a public talk sponsored by the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations.
In a globalized world, international cooperation is the key to identifying those who intend to do harm, she said, adding that threats to the global supply chain, the activities of drug and human smuggling organizations, and the prevalence of cyber-criminals who attempt to steal information and intellectual property and disrupt critical networks are among the major challenges facing the Department of Homeland Security. (more…)
