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Crisis in Academic Publishing

By Guest PostJune 18, 2012Economy, Media, Scienceacademic journals, academic publishing, academic spring, arxiv, berlin declaration, bethesda declaration, boycott, commercial publishers, crisis, diane sauve, digital publishing, dominique berube, elsevier, erudit, george lozano, harvard university, internet, jean claude guedon, joanie lavoie, latin america, marie lambert chan, open access, parallel system, personal websites, public funds, springer, taxpayers, université de montréal, vincent lariviere, yves gingras

“In almost every country in the world, research is supported by public funds. When researchers publish their results in academic journals, they do so for free. The results are also reviewed by peers for free. And journals often require researchers to give up their rights to these articles. Then, major publishers or learned societies sell their journals at exorbitant prices to libraries… which are also financed by public funds! It’s a vicious circle in which taxpayers pay for the production and access to researchers while publishers and societies make profits of 30-45% before taxes. It’s outrageous!” exclaimed Jean-Claude Guédon. This professor of comparative literature at the Université de Montréal is far from being the only one to protest. In recent months, more than 11,000 researchers worldwide have expressed their dissatisfaction through a petition calling for a boycott of Elsevier. This academic publishing giant earned profits of more than US $1.1 billion in 2011.

This movement, which many observers have called the “Academic Spring,” was born as a result of Elsevier’s support of the Research Work Act. This U.S. bill would ban open access to academic publications subsidized by the state. “It’s all anecdotal but at least has the benefit of reminding people about the importance of open access,” Guédon said. (more…)

Study Finds Surprising Arctic Methane Emission Source

By Guest PostApril 22, 2012Environmentarctic methane, arctic ocean, arctic region, Arctic sea ice, arctic tundra soil, beaufort seas, carbon monoxide, chukchi, climate, concentration, earth system, eric kort, geologic reservoir, global warming, greenhouse gas, harvard university, hippo, jet propulsion laboratory, marine sediment, methane, NASA, ozone, reservoir, water vapor

The fragile and rapidly changing Arctic region is home to large reservoirs of methane, a potent greenhouse gas. As Earth’s climate warms, the methane, frozen in reservoirs stored in Arctic tundra soils or marine sediments, is vulnerable to being released into the atmosphere, where it can add to global warming. Now a multi-institutional study by Eric Kort of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., has uncovered a surprising and potentially important new source of Arctic methane: the ocean itself. (more…)

UA Professor to Attend Lady Gaga Foundation Launch

By Guest PostFebruary 27, 2012Cultureadult modeling, anti bullying ethos, anti bullying foundation, born this way, bullying, cyberbullying, cynthia germanotta, deepak chopra, drama, foundation, harassment, harvard university, kathleen sebelius, lady gaga, oprah winfrey, secretary, sheri bauman, university of arizona

UA professor Sheri Bauman, an expert in cyberbullying, is among those invited to attend the launch of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way Foundation, a nationwide education and advocacy organization.

University of Arizona researcher Sheri Bauman is a member of a small, but powerful, nationwide contingency invited to participate in the launch of Lady Gaga’s new anti-bullying foundation. (more…)

English Literature Influenced Prize-Winning Paleontologist

By Guest PostJanuary 14, 2012Science21st century, age of reptiles, ancient plant structure, carbon cycle, carboniferous period, cocktail party, dinosaurs, earth, ecology, evolution, excalibur movie, fieldwork, fossil record, giant fungus, harvard university, history of life, ice age, jung eun lee, kevin boyce, knowledge, la brea tar pits, lloyd degrane, los angeles, macroevolution, mammal fossils, michael foote, million years ago, mural, pair of calipers, paleontology, plant fossils, prehistoric life, scanning electron microscope, school, soil moisture, terrestrial ecosystems, vascular plants

For a short time in grade school, Kevin Boyce lived within two blocks of the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles, a place where ice age mammal fossils had been discovered. Above his bed hung a poster of the Yale Peabody Museum’s famous Age of Reptiles mural. But it wasn’t a boyhood fascination with prehistoric life that influenced his interest in paleontology, but rather the medieval literary world of Chaucer that Boyce discovered in college.

“I didn’t think twice about fossils between the ages of 7 and 20,” said Boyce, associate professor in geophysical sciences. Even during his undergraduate studies in literature and biology at the California Institute of Technology in the early 1990s, the deep history of life on Earth was far from his mind. (more…)

‘Tiger Mothers’ Should Tame Parenting Approach

By Guest PostJanuary 11, 2012Cultureacculturation gap, adolescent development, amy chua, battle hymn of the tiger mother, best selling author, chinese immigrant parents, chinese mother, chinese students, chinese tiger mothers, desiree baolian qin, east and west, east lansing, eastern view of parenting, emotionally healthy kids, family, happiness, hardline parenting, harvard university, helena, maladjustment, michigan state university, native china, olivia, parents, piano, ridiculous, self-esteem, success, tiger mother, tiger mother philosophy, tom buffett, united states, violin, washington d c

EAST LANSING, Mich. — The Eastern view of parenting, as defined by best-selling author and self-described “tiger mother” Amy Chua, is that children should be pushed to excel at all costs. Parents needn’t worry about their happiness, she argues, only their success.

But now a Michigan State University scholar is refuting that theory. (more…)

Facebook Helps Researchers See How Friendships Form

By Guest PostDecember 21, 2011Culture, Technologyadvertising, basic building blocks, classical, diffusion, emotional health, Facebook, friends, friendship, harvard university, influence, internet, internet and society, internet relationships, jason kaufman, jazz, kevin lewis, marco gonzalez, mechanisms, national science foundation, network, obesity, online social network, patterns of social segregation, relationships, reproduction of inequality, role, society, sociologists, statistical methods

*Long-term study analyzes social selection and peer influence in online environments*

New research funded by the National Science Foundation and published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by three Harvard University sociologists examines how we select our friends and the role that friendship plays in transmitting tastes and new ideas.

Relationships are basic building blocks of society, and understanding who befriends whom can therefore provide insight into patterns of social segregation, mechanisms for the reproduction of inequality, social support (including mental and emotional health), and access to job opportunities. Some have even viewed these relationships as a means to influence behavior whether to control obesity or target advertising. But is it really that easy, even on the Internet, to make friends with people who have different cultural upbringings, different interests, different backgrounds and different tastes in movies, music and books? (more…)

Abused Students Can Return To School and Thrive With Educator Help, MU Researcher Finds

By Guest PostNovember 9, 2011General, Healthcarol coohey, child protective services, classroom, controlling thoughts and behaviors, counselors, daily management skills, emotions, harvard university, lei hua, lynette renner, motivation, self regulation, stephen whitney, teachers, university of iowa, university of missouri, ying zhang

*Study of math and reading scores indicate daily focus can bring success*

COLUMBIA, Mo. – A new study from the University of Missouri shows that children who are abused can return to school and do well academically if teachers can help them control their emotions, pay attention to detail and stay motivated. (more…)

Diamonds, Silver and the Quest for Single Photons

By Guest PostOctober 21, 2011Scienceambient electromagnetic field environment, crystal lattice, diamond crystals, diamond microchips, electrical engineer, fluorescence intensity, harvard university, imperfections in diamond, jennifer choy, luminescent, magnetometers, marko loncar, memory, nanometer scale, nanowires, nitrogen vacancy color, photon emission, quantum based data, quantum computing, quantum information, quantum networks, Technology, tiny crystal

*Tiny crystal towers enlighten understanding of photon emission, could inspire diamond microchips for quantum computing*

Building on earlier work, scientists and engineers recently developed a manufacturing process that allows them to craft an assortment of miniature, silver-plated-diamond posts that enable greater control of light producing photons at the atomic scale. The research could prove important for future generations of quantum computers.

Prior research demonstrated how nanowires carved in impurity-laden diamond crystal could efficiently emit individual photons, an important discovery for using light to rapidly read and write quantum-based data. (more…)

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