Tag Archives: data

comScore Releases September 2012 U.S. Online Video Rankings

Maker Studios Inc. Climbs Into #3 Position in YouTube Partner Channels Ranking

RESTON, VA, October 29, 2012– comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 181 million U.S. Internet users watched more than 39 billion online content videos in September, while video ad views totaled 9.4 billion.

Top 10 Video Content Properties by Unique Viewers

Google Sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in September with 150.3 million unique viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites with 57.4 million, AOL, Inc. with 53.8 million, VEVO with 50.3 million and Facebook.com with 46.4 million. More than 39 billion video content views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 13.1 billion, followed by AOL, Inc. with 741 million. Google Sites had the highest average engagement among the top ten properties. (more…)

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Another Advance on the Road to Spintronics

Berkeley Lab Researchers Unlock Ferromagnetic Secrets of Promising Materials

Spintronic technology, in which data is processed on the basis of electron “spin” rather than charge, promises to revolutionize the computing industry with smaller, faster and more energy efficient data storage and processing. Materials drawing a lot of attention for spintronic applications are dilute magnetic semiconductors – normal semiconductors to which a small amount of magnetic atoms is added to make them ferromagnetic. Understanding the source of ferromagnetism in dilute magnetic semiconductors has been a major road-block impeding their further development and use in spintronics. Now a significant step to removing this road-block has been taken.

A multi-institutional collaboration of researchers led by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), using a new technique called HARPES, for Hard x-ray Angle-Resolved PhotoEmission Spectroscopy, has investigated the bulk electronic structure of the prototypical dilute magnetic semiconductor gallium manganese arsenide. Their findings show that the material’s ferromagnetism arises from both of the two different mechanisms that have been proposed to explain it. (more…)

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Non-native Plants Show a Greater Response Than Native Wildflowers to Climate Change

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Warming temperatures in Ohio are a key driver behind changes in the state’s landscape, and non-native plant species appear to be responding more strongly than native wildflowers to the changing climate, new research suggests.

This adaptive nature demonstrated by introduced species could serve them well as the climate continues to warm. At the same time, the non-natives’ potential ability to become even more invasive could threaten the survival of native species already under pressure from land-use changes, researchers say. (more…)

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Taking Race Out of the Equation in Measuring Women’s Risk of Osteoporosis and Fractures

For women of mixed racial or ethnic backgrounds, a new method for measuring bone health may improve the odds of correctly diagnosing their risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures, according to a UCLA-led study.

Currently, assessing osteoporosis and the risk of fractures from small accidents like falls requires a bone density scan. But because these scans don’t provide other relevant fracture-related information, such as bone size and the amount of force a bone is subjected to during a fall, each patient’s bone density is examined against a national database of people with the same age and race or ethnicity. (more…)

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Yellowstone Wolf Study Reveals How to Raise Successful Offspring

What are the key ingredients to raising successful, self-sufficient offspring? A new life sciences study using 14 years of data on gray wolves in Yellowstone National Park indicates that cooperative group behavior and a mother’s weight are crucial.

“A female’s body weight is key in the survival of her offspring, and cooperation in the protection and feeding of young pups pays off in terms of the production of offspring,” said Robert Wayne, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UCLA and co-author of the new research, published this week in the online edition of the Journal of Animal Ecology. (more…)

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Among Voters Lacking Strong Party Preferences, Obama Faces 20 Percent Handicap Due to Race Bias

An online study of eligible voters around the country revealed that preferences for whites over blacks among the least politically-partisan voters are strong enough to have substantial impact on their presidential candidate preference.

Among these voters, race biases against Barack Obama could produce as much as a 20 percent gap in the popular vote in a contest that would otherwise be equal. (more…)

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The Right to Vote

A lot is up for grabs this November in America—the presidency of the United States, for one. Not to mention a third of U.S. Senate seats, all seats in the U.S. House, and state-level amendments on issues ranging from voter ID to same-sex marriage (Minnesota has both on the ballot).

But almost six million Americans will sit this one out because of something they’ve done. They’re felons—perpetrators, at some point in their lives, of a serious crime. (more…)

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MU Students Gain Experience with Advanced Weather Tracking Technology

Students use tornado-chasing technology to research rain’s impact on stream

COLUMBIA, Mo. – With advances in meteorology technology, predicting storms is becoming easier than in the past. While most meteorology students learn about these new technologies in the classroom and don’t get a chance to use sophisticated equipment until they are on the job, a group of University of Missouri students were able to test a mobile weather tracking device, Doppler on Wheels (DOW), made famous by shows such as Discovery Channel’s Storm Chasers.

The DOW visiting MU is one of a fleet of radar trucks maintained by the Center for Severe Storm Research. Each radar truck is mounted with a Doppler weather radar dish. The fleet also consists of a support vehicle and three trucks that deploy instruments to track weather patterns in tornadoes and hurricanes. One of the radar trucks was brought to MU so that students could learn about the technology first-hand. (more…)

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