EurekAlert! - Education

SFU cell biologist Lynne Quarmby will address top-flight American high school science students at AAAS conference in Vancouver

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Simon Fraser University) Lynne Quarmby, a Simon Fraser University cell biologist with a passion for promoting science, will deliver a talk to 30-top flight American high school science students and their teachers about the importance of basic science. Quarmby will be the keynote speaker at the Feb. 16 AJAS meeting at SFU Burnaby. It strategically brings together the crème de la crème of young American science students during the AAAS meeting in Vancouver.

SFU health scientist joins governor general's roundtable at AAAS

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Simon Fraser University) Kate Tairyan, an SFU health scientist and director of public health at Next Generation University, will use a meeting with Canada's governor general at the AAAS conference to promote the world's first free university.

From virginity to Viagra

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Sociologists for Women in Society) Americans will spend more than $17 billion on Valentine's Day, but far less on programs like sex education for adolescents. The editors of the new book, "Sex for Life, From Virginity to Viagra, How Sexuality Changes Throughout Our Lives," argue that not only do our public policies on sex education need to be reevaluated, our entire concept of human sexuality needs to be broadened.

High school students test best with 7 hours' rest

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Brigham Young University) New research finds that 16- to 18-year-olds perform better academically when they shave about two hours off what current guidelines prescribe.

Kids show cultural gender bias

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(University of Alberta) Talk about gender confusion! A recent study by University of Alberta researchers Elena Nicoladis and Cassandra Foursha-Stevenson in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology into whether speaking French influenced how children assigned gender to objects yielded some interesting observations. Nicoladis and Foursha-Stevenson found some differences between the monolingual English children and the bilingual French-English children they surveyed.

Anyone can learn to be more inventive, says UMass Amherst cognitive researcher

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(University of Massachusetts at Amherst) After studying common roadblocks to problem-solving, Anthony McCaffrey has developed a toolkit for enhancing anyone's creativity and inventiveness.

'Dark plasmons' transmit energy

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Rice University) Microscopic channels of gold nanoparticles have the ability to transmit electromagnetic energy that starts as light and propagates via "dark plasmons," according to researchers at Rice University.

Maryland Commission recommends 'common sense' immigration policy

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(University of Maryland) Immigrants to Maryland contribute significantly to the state's economy, and were vital to its workforce expansion in both technical and less-skilled occupations from 2000 to 2010, concludes a new report by a Maryland state commission. During this period, immigrants mostly complemented rather than competed with US-born state residents for jobs, it adds. The Commission, a state panel coordinated by the University of Maryland, evaluated immigrants' economic contributions and the cost of government services for them.

'Flipped classroom' teaching model gains an online community

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Harvard University) Researchers at Harvard University have launched the Peer Instruction Network, a new global social network for users of interactive teaching methods. PI, developed by Eric Mazur, Area Dean for Applied Physics and Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, is an innovative evidence-based pedagogy designed to improve student engagement and success.

Night owls and star gazers to gather at Night of the Open Door Festival

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Arizona State University) ASU's Night of the Open Door shines a spotlight on more than 165 activities to celebrate the sciences, arts, humanities and engineering on March 3 in Tempe, as part of the Arizona SciTech Festival.

Soil resource inventory in US national parks

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(American Society of Agronomy) An important program coordinates data of soil surveys at national parks, preserves, seashores, monuments and other designations. New logistical challenges will expand the soil science frontier.

Europe goes for computing technologies as driver for competitiveness

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(European Network of Excellence on High Performance and Embedded Architecture and Compilation) The HiPEAC 2012 Conference, supported by the European Commission, brings together 500 computing systems stakeholders from all over the world. HiPEAC 2012 is the first computing conference to implement a journal-first publication model, resulting in 50 percent more submissions and three times more delegates.

New study: Adolescents suffering from depression more likely to be bullied

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Arizona State University) A new study provides evidence that adolescents who suffer from depression are more likely to develop difficulty in peer relationships including being bullied at school. It's often assumed that being bullied leads to psychological problems, such as depression, but the study doesn't support this line of thought.

Depression forecasts difficulties with peers in middle childhood

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Society for Research in Child Development) A longitudinal study of children in the middle years of childhood has found that depression forecasts problems in peer relationships, including being victimized by peers and problems being accepted by peers. For the study, researchers looked at 480 youths from fourth through sixth grades and used child, classmate, parent, and teacher surveys to gather data.

Playing school sports affects youths' smoking

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Society for Research in Child Development) A new study of middle schoolers and their social networks has found that teammates' smoking plays a big role in youths' decisions about smoking, but adolescents who take part in a lot of sports smoke less. The study looked at 1,260 ethnically diverse, urban, middle-class sixth through eighth graders and used a new social network method designed by the researchers to examine how participation in sports with teammates who smoked affected adolescents' smoking behavior.

Study examines role of bilingualism in children's development

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Society for Research in Child Development) A Canadian study looked at monolingual and bilingual six year-olds on three verbal tasks and one nonverbal task of executive control. The study found that different factors were responsible for the language- and non-language-related outcomes of bilingualism than found in previous research. This study is also unique in that it controlled for other factors that are often associated with bilingualism, including differences in culture, socioeconomic status, immigration history, and language.

Governor Kasich announces 10-fold boost to Ohio's broadband network

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Ohio Supercomputer Center) Ohio will soon see a ten-fold boost to its broadband network speeds, which will benefit research and job-creating assets statewide. Governor John R. Kasich made the announcement at his State of the State address in Steubenville (Feb. 7), highlighting the first ever state-led initiative that will leverage astonishing network speeds of 100 Gigabits per second to advance research and job growth across Ohio's medical research, higher education, manufacturing, engineering and technology networking corridors.

World class to second class? Confronting the risks to US science and innovation

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Research!America) Research!America 2012 National Health Research Forum is a unique interactive gathering of top policy makers. This discussion brings together heads of federal agencies for health research, as well as nationally recognized leaders from industry, academia and patient advocacy. Two panels will each be followed by Q&A, exploring the current landscape for medical and health research and strategies for maintaining a robust research and development sector in the United States.

EARTH: Unearthing Antarctica's mysterious mountains

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(American Geological Institute) Buried more than a kilometer beneath the East Antarctica Ice sheet, the Gamburstev Subglacial Mountains have proven to be a geological puzzle for more than five decades. How did these mountains form? When did they form? And what makes this ancient mountain range one of the least-understood tectonic features on Earth?

New insights into how to correct false knowledge

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Duke University) The abundance of false information available on the Internet, in movies and on TV has created a big challenge for educators.Students sometimes arrive in classrooms filled with inaccurate knowledge they are confident is correct, indicating it is deeply entrenched in their memory.According to Duke University researchers, educators might be able to help students overcome their misconceptions by correcting inaccurate information then having the students practice retrieving it from memory.

Y-90: Are you ready? -- comprehensive liver tumor treatment course returns

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Society of Interventional Radiology) Y-90: Are You Ready? -- an intensive course examining radiation biology, dosimetry, radiation safety, embolotherapy and clinical office management in the use of yttrium-90 in the treatment of cancer -- is being offered by the Society of Interventional Radiology Feb. 9-12 in Scottsdale, Ariz. The course is designed to provide focused educational opportunities for interventional radiologists, and SIR encourages fellows-in-training to attend. Limited spaces are still available.

Fair to bring future scientists and engineers to UC Riverside

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(University of California - Riverside) What are you really eating when you’re eating chicken? Do different types of wood produce the same heat when burned? Do twins have similar fingerprints? How does sleep affect your memory? Does your eye color matter? Hundreds of K-12 students from 33 local schools will answer these and other intriguing questions at the 23nd annual Science and Engineering Fair at the University of California, Riverside, Feb. 7-9.

Fogarty Institute for Innovation launches advanced endovascular training fellowship

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(WCG) The Fogarty Institute for Innovation announced today that it has launched its Advanced Endovascular Training Fellowship. This unique, year-long clinical training program for postgraduate physicians, which begins July 1, 2012, will provide Fellows with broad exposure to all aspects of endovascular patient care, with an emphasis on interventional training. Fellows will also engage with the Fogarty Institute's early-stage medical device start-up companies and assist in the process of developing technologies to improve patient care.

Do patients pay when they leave against medical advice?

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(University of Chicago Medical Center) There are ways in which patients who leave the hospital against medical advice wind up paying for that decision. Being saddled with the full cost of their hospital stay, however, is not one of them.

SFU scientists seek teaching excitement at AAAS

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 00:00:00 EST

(Simon Fraser University) Thousands of scientists, including many from SFU, will descend upon Vancouver, Feb. 16-20 to not only share research discoveries but also hone their skills as science educators. They will share their teaching trade secrets at the 2012 American Association for the Advancement of Science conference, known as the world's largest science fair. SFU's Faculty of Science is sponsoring 10 faculty members, two staff and two graduate students to attend the AAAS' symposium on education.