TED Talks, the most popular conference and events website in the world with over 1 billion informational videos viewed, provides academics with increased popular exposure but does nothing to boost citations of their work by [...]
Detour ahead: Cities, farms reroute animals seeking cooler climes
Despite considerable human development, the southeastern United States region could provide some of the Western Hemisphere’s more heavily used thoroughfares for mammals, birds and amphibians on their way to cooler environments in a warming world. [...]
Laughing gas does not increase heart attacks
Nitrous oxide — best known as laughing gas — is one of the world’s oldest and most widely used anesthetics. Despite its popularity, however, experts have questioned its impact on the risk of a heart [...]
Making memories: Practical quantum computing moves closer to reality
Researchers have developed a new way to design quantum memory, bringing quantum computers a step closer to reality. The results will appear June 19 in the journal Nature Communications. Quantum computing may revolutionize information processing, [...]
Parasites affect the food web more than you think
Parasites are ubiquitous. They feed on virtually every animal and even on each other. Yet, for all the parasites’ collective contributions to biomass and biodiversity, conventional food webs don’t account for the presence of these [...]
Scientists find new tool to measure sugar consumption
Scientists at the University of Alaska Fairbanks identified a new tool that can dramatically improve the notoriously inaccurate surveys of what and how much an individual eats and drinks. Their research is published in the [...]
Tea Party: A hidden agenda of Obama’s opposition?
Is the US Tea Party movement a racial backlash against President Obama? A new study by Angie Maxwell from the University of Arkansas, and Wayne Parent from Louisiana State University, assesses whether racial attitudes are [...]
The verdict on tiger-parenting? Studies point to poor mental health
Long before Amy Chua’s provocative 2011 memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, raised the bar for tough-love parenting, psychologists at UC Berkeley were studying the effects of three kinds of child-rearing: authoritarian (too hard), [...]
Surprising turns in magnetic thin films could lead to better data storage
A magnetic phenomenon newly discovered by MIT researchers could lead to much faster, denser and more energy-efficient chips for memory and computation. The findings, reported in the journal Nature Materials, could reduce the energy needed [...]
Exposure to high pollution levels during pregnancy may increase risk of having child with autism
Women in the U.S. exposed to high levels of air pollution while pregnant were up to twice as likely to have a child with autism as women who lived in areas with low pollution, according [...]
Seeing Data: Using visual arts to represent big data
More data are being created, consumed, and transported than ever before, and in all areas of society, including business, government, health care, and science. The hope and promise is that this influx of information—known as [...]