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Fact checking politicians gets results

By Guest PostOctober 26, 2013Politicsamerican politicians, behaviour, brendan nyhan, dartmouth college, democratic accountability, fact checking politicians, factcheck, jason reifler, politicians in us, politifact, state legislators, university of exeter

New research indicates that American politicians are affected by the practice of fact-checking, thereby reducing the risk of misinformation and strengthening democratic accountability.

Fact-checkers such as PolitiFact and Factcheck.org scrutinise politicians in the US by examining the public statements given to and reported by news organisations.

This practice is born out of concern that traditional media rarely evaluates the accuracy of the politicians statements, resulting in political figures being frequently allowed to make misleading comments in the press without challenge. (more…)

Prehistoric climate change

By Guest PostSeptember 7, 2013Environment, Scienceboundary layers, canada, comet in quebec, corossal crater, cosmic crash, dartmouth college, dry climate, environmental stress, environmental transformation, global climate shift, hypothesis, malcolm lecompte, mark demitroff, mastodons, mukul sharma, natufians, North America, prehistoric climate change, saber toothed cats, university of delaware, younger dryas period

Cosmic crash in Canada may have caused global climate shift 12,900 years ago

A dramatic global climate shift may be linked to the impact of an asteroid or comet in Quebec, according to researchers from the University of Delaware, Dartmouth College and Elizabeth City State University.

The findings appear in the Sept. 2 online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). (more…)

Study of microcredit finds generally positive, but not transformative, impacts

By Guest PostMay 16, 2013Economyanti poverty initiatives, bank, bill, central mexico, compartamos banco, credito mujer, dartmouth college, dean karlan, economist, grameen bank, jonathan zinman, manuela angelucci, market capitalization, melinda gates foundation, Mexico, microcredit, microcredit program, muhammad yunus, nobel peace prize, poverty, poverty action, sonora state, ultra poor, university of michigan, yale university

Microcredit generally benefits borrowers, according to new research focused on Mexico’s biggest for-profit microlender — but it’s not lifting people out of poverty.

In a multi-year, randomized evaluation of microloans provided by Compartamos Banco, Yale University economist Dean Karlan, with collaborators Manuela Angelucci of the University of Michigan and Jonathan Zinman of Dartmouth College, show there are generally positive effects on average and find little evidence that some borrowers end up worse off while others end up better off. However, the canonical story that microcredit leads to higher enterprise income did not bear fruit. (more…)

Understanding Angelman syndrome: Study in Mice Yields Angelman Advance

By Guest PostFebruary 25, 2013Scienceangelman mice, angelman syndrome, arc, bdnf, ben philpot, brain, brain derived, brown university, clinical therapy, cn2097, cong cao, crystal yu, dartmouth college, dennis goebel, development of synapses, electrophysiological tests, flaws in gene, gene defect, growth factor, hippocampal tissue, hippocampus, john marshall, learning, long-term potentiation, ltp, mark spaller, memory, memory function, mengia rioult pedotti, negative effects, neural functions, neurological processes, neurotrophic factor, north Carolina, paolo migani, peptide like compound, protein, psd 95, study in mice, synaptic protein, ube3a, understanding angelman syndrome, university, wayne state university

In the journal PLoS Biology, a team of scientists reports experiments showing how the gene defect of Angelman syndrome disrupts neurological processes that may be needed for memory and learning. In tests in mice, the team showed that a novel compound could restore the healthy processes.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — In a new study in mice, a scientific collaboration centered at Brown University lays out in unprecedented detail a neurological signaling breakdown in Angelman syndrome, a disorder that affects thousands of children each year, characterized by developmental delay, seizures, and other problems. With the new understanding, the team demonstrated how a synthesized, peptide-like compound called CN2097 works to restore neural functions impaired by the disease. (more…)

Discovery Places Turtles Next to Lizards on Family Tree

By Guest PostJuly 22, 2011Nature, Sciencebirds, body armor, classify the strange animals, creatures' shells, crocodiles and birds, dartmouth college, evolutionary tree, harvard university, lizards and snakes, paleobiologist, retractable heads, systematics, turtles, tyler lyson, yale university

Where do turtles belong on the evolutionary tree? For decades, the mystery has proven as tough to crack as the creatures’ shells. With their body armor and retractable heads, turtles are such unique creatures that scientists have found it difficult to classify the strange animals in terms of their origins and closest relatives.

“We know turtles evolved from a common ancestor along with birds, lizards and snakes about 300 million years ago, but who modern-day turtles are most closely related to is one of the biggest and most controversial questions in the field of systematics,” said Tyler Lyson, a Yale University graduate student who studies the evolutionary relationships between different animal groups. (more…)

NSF/NASA Scientific Balloon Launches From Antarctica

By Guest PostDecember 24, 2010Scienceantarctic summer, balloon array, dartmouth college, NASA, new mexico state university, sandwich wrap, scientific balloon, university of maryland, university of pennsylvania

This season’s annual scientific balloon campaign, which is held by NSF and NASA, will conduct varied experiments using ultra-sophisticated instrumentation.

NASA and the National Science Foundation launched a scientific balloon on Monday, December 20, Eastern Standard time, to study the effects of cosmic rays on Earth. It was the first of five scientific balloons scheduled to launch from Antarctica in December.

The Cosmic Ray Energetics And Mass (CREAM VI) experiment was designed and built at the University of Maryland. CREAM is investigating high-energy cosmic-ray particles that originated from distant supernovae explosions in the Milky Way and reached Earth. Currently, CREAM VI is floating 126,000 ft above Antarctica with nominal science operations. (more…)

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