Social connection drives learning in bird brain
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Researchers identify a brain circuit that helps a young bird to identify ‘real’ songs its teacher demonstrates.
A new study published in eLife shows that inhibition of p38γ/δ is a potential therapeutic strategy for the treatment of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, but that this strategy has yet to be explored because of the lack of specific inhibitors for these p38 family members.
Social isolation can have devastating health effects, especially for elderly people. A number of studies have shown that art is not only good for the soul, but can also improve both physical and mental well-being. Researchers in Canada investigated whether these art-based benefits could be delivered digitally through virtual museum tours. They found that indeed older adults who attended weekly guided tours online felt less frail – offering a public health model to promote healthy aging.
A simple statistical test shows that contrary to current practice, the “gaps” within DNA protein and sequence alignments commonly used in evolutionary biology can provide important information about nucleotide and amino acid substitutions over time.
Contact tracing programs were deployed around the globe to slow the spread of COVID-19, but these programs could not prevent the multiple waves of transmission and loss of life that have occurred since March 2020. In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin found that a five-day delay between identifying a case and isolating contacts was the Achilles’ heel of a contact tracing program in a large U.S. city.
Birth data, blood lead levels and fourth grade end-of-grade test scores for more than 25,000 children living in North Carolina show how childhood lead exposure and neighborhood racial residential segregation affect early childhood educational outcomes. Identifying the mix of social, environmental and economic factors that create health disparities early could lead to earlier intervention in vulnerable communities, thus narrowing the “achievement gap” that becomes apparent in early childhood and persists or widens with time.
Whenever Corey Webel introduces himself to someone as a math educator, he inevitably receives a passionate story or two about an experience — usually negative — someone had with a certain math class or topic at some point in their educational journey. Now, as the director of the elementary math specialist program in the MU College of Education and Human Development, Webel is passionate about empowering Missouri teachers with strategies to help their students feel more confident and competent when learning various math topics. The elementary math specialist program at MU, which Webel has led since 2015, is a two-year, online graduate certificate program and professional development opportunity designed for Missouri elementary school teachers to enhance their math education teaching skills. Entering its 10th year, the program recently received funding from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, which will fund 100 Missouri elementary school teachers to complete the MU program over the next two years.