Uncategorized
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19415
Other librarians and I regularly discuss illiterate, functional, aliterate, and avid readers. I am pleased that research has begun into what happens in readers’ brains. The study as presented, however, doesn’t seem to control for the individual attention given by the tutors, a factor that may have influenced the results. I hope this research continues. […]
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Words in the Brain: Reading program spurs neural rewrite in kids
Children who are deficient readers show improvement in both reading skills and brain function when given intensive instruction in how written letters correspond to speech sounds, a brain-imaging study finds.
- Humans
A National Science Museum
If you can’t make it to Washington, D.C., to visit the recently opened Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences, check out the museum’s online exhibits. Explore how DNA analysis can catch criminals and stop epidemics, witness the potential effects of global warming, and glimpse the frontiers of scientific research. Go to: […]
- Humans
Letters from the May 8, 2004, issue of Science News
Listen carefully Perhaps Stefan Koelsch’s study should have been limited to trained musicians, rather than exclude them (“Song Sung Blue: In brain, music and language overlap,” SN: 2/28/04, p. 133: Song Sung Blue: In brain, music and language overlap). Word and visual associations in music are vigorously reinforced in movie soundtracks, cartoons, and elsewhere. But […]
- Health & Medicine
Humidity may affect LASIK surgery
High humidity can boost the chances of needing follow-up surgery after LASIK surgery for nearsightedness.
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19414
The study by Hyde and Peretz about people inept at all things musical made me think of my spouse of 20 years. In addition to a lifetime of utter tone deafness, he also nearly didn’t receive his graduate degree because he couldn’t pass a required language course. He was examined by a university psychologist, who […]
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Brain roots of music depreciation
The brains of tone-deaf people may be unable to detect subtle shifts in pitch, which keeps them from learning the basic structure of musical passages.
- Earth
Tracks of dust devils spotted from space
Scientists scanning satellite images of the southern Sahara have detected trails left on the landscape by the whirlwinds commonly known as dust devils.
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Chronic vibrations constrict vessels
Chronic vibrations of the hands can distort and twist some arterial cells to the breaking point, animal research indicates.
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Uganda shows strong gains in war on AIDS
Uganda has shown remarkable progress against HIV, the AIDS virus.
- Physics
Fundamental constant didn’t vary after all
In disagreement with prior findings, an analysis of new quasar observations indicates that alpha, the universal constant that defines the strength of the electromagnetic force, has not varied since the early days of the cosmos.
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Teen Brains on Trial
Scientific opinions differ about whether evidence on delayed maturation of the adolescent brain should be used to argue that teenagers have reduced culpability for crimes and thus should be exempt from the death penalty.
