Laura visiting one of ‘her’ school to speak… and she found a rather famous local restaurant.
Here’s what I am reading today:
“Benjamin Blencowe, a professor in the University of Toronto’s Donnelly Centre and Banbury Chair in Medical Research, and his team have uncovered how a small change in a protein called PTBP1 can spur the creation of neurons — cells that make the brain — that could have fuelled the evolution of mammalian brains to become the largest and most complex among vertebrates.
The study is published in the August 20 issue of Science.”
“Dementia is receiving increasing attention from governments and politicians. Epidemiological research based on western European populations done 20 years ago provided key initial evidence for dementia policy making, but these estimates are now out of date because of changes in life expectancy, living conditions, and health profiles. To assess whether dementia occurrence has changed during the past 20–30 years, investigators of five different studies done in western Europe…”
““You may yawn, even if you don’t have to,” said lead researcher Brian Rundle, a doctoral student in psychology and neuroscience in Baylor’s College of Arts and Sciences. “We all know it and always wonder why. I thought, ‘If it’s true that yawning is related to empathy, I’ll bet that psychopaths yawn a lot less.’ So I put it to the test.””
““They were just as able to modulate their emotional responses when they were taught strategies for doing so,” said Kate McLaughlin, a UW assistant professor of psychology and the study’s lead author. “That’s very encouraging.””
“The hippocampus in the brain’s temporal lobe is responsible for more than just long-term memory. Researchers have for the first time demonstrated that it is also involved in quick and successful conflict resolution. The team headed by Dr. Nikolai Axmacher from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), together with colleagues from the University Hospital of Bonn as well as in Aachen and Birmingham, reported in the journal Current Biology.”
“New research from MIT shows that habit formation, at least in primates, is driven by neurons that represent the cost of a habit, as well as the reward. “The brain seems to be wired to seek some near optimality of cost and benefit,” says Ann Graybiel, an Institute Professor at MIT and also a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research.”
“(Phys.org)—German based publishing company Springer has announced on its website that 64 articles published on ten of its journals are being retracted due to editorial staff finding evidence of fake email addresses for peer reviewers. Springer is one of the biggest academic/research publishers in the world, with over 2,200 journals dedicated to printing the results of research efforts.”
“The study was conducted by researchers at the Pennsylvania State University, the University of California, Irvine, and Columbia University, who analyzed nationally representative data for 8,650 children in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort. The study appears in the journal Child Development.
Two-year-olds’ vocabularies were measured via a parent survey, and their academic achievement in kindergarten was gauged via individually administered measures of reading and math. Kindergarten teachers independently rated the children’s behavioral self-regulation and frequency of acting out or anxious behavior.”
2 Comments
Sophie Marsh · December 1, 2015 at 5:26 pm
I have always been aware of the “contagious yawning” phenomenon but I didn’t know that empathy was considered to be a factor behind it. I searched a bit and didn’t find any conclusive research showing the connection, but it is a strong hypothesis. I thought it was fascinating that this led to the study about whether those who have psychopathic characteristics (and therefore lower levels of empathy) are less likely to experience the contagious yawns. I had a friend in high school who would yawn if you even talked about it or said the word “yawn”. I wonder if that is due to heightened empathy or something else?
EricaFinfer · December 2, 2015 at 6:10 pm
The article in regard to larger verbal capacities caught my attention. Over Thanksgiving break I was talking with a family friend on how we teach our children to read later on than necessary. His claim was that children could basically understand reading and speaking at ages around 2 and we wait longer to fully teach our children to read. I think the earlier children are exposed to reading and language, the better as long as there is not a pressure put on the child which makes the experience painful rather than exciting.