news 2013

If you live in Sydney or Melbourne, the University of Sydney wants to know how much you think your wellbeing depends on nature being a part of your daily life. "Does being able to see trees from your office window, or chat to neighbours in a local park make you feel better mentally, physically and socially?" asks Lucy Taylor , a PhD researcher from the University's Faculty of Science who is working on the online survey , which is also inviting residents of Auckland and Wellington to take part.

From infancy, children learn by watching and imitating adults. Even when adults show them how to open a latch or solve a puzzle, for example, children use social cues to figure out what actions are important. But children read these cues differently depending on their age: Older children, interestingly, are more likely, not less likely, to faithfully imitate actions unnecessary to the task at hand, reports Cornell research.

In it together: research reveals the joy of the crowd The rush-hour commute or Oxford Street at Christmas are rarely much fun, but for some the experience of a packed crowd can be highly enjoyable, a research project led by University of Sussex psychologist Dr John Drury has found. The findings, published today (Wednesday 13 November 2013) in the open access journal PLOS ONE , 1 explain why people actually seek out and find pleasure in dense, crowded areas.

12 Nov 2013 Members of the public would prefer to look at human hands or robotic hands rather than prosthetic hands which they view as eerie, a new study by The University of Manchester has shown. Researchers hope their study, published in the Journal Perception, and future work in this area will help improve designs for prosthetic limbs.

A research team that includes Penn State astronomers has discovered a surprising new class of quasars in distant galaxies that even the most current theories had not predicted. This drawing illustrates one possibility, showing the gas of a quasar flowing into the black hole at the center of the disk.

Companies often put a personal face on products in an attempt to reach a deeper connection with consumers. Now new research in the upcoming edition of Psychological Science shows the same idea can be applied to social causes. Putting a human face on the campaign for a social cause actually increases support for it, according to the study from a team of researchers including University of Toronto Scarborough and Rotman School of Management professor Pankaj Aggarwal .

AUSTIN, Texas - A new study correlates a series of small earthquakes near Snyder, Texas between 2006 and 2011 with the underground injection of large volumes of gas, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2) - a finding that is relevant to the process of capturing and storing CO2 underground.

Oxford University researchers have conducted the first academic study into the hidden problem of adolescent to parent violence in the UK. Adolescent to parent violence is not a category currently flagged in police databases. Researchers analysed raw data from the London Metropolitan Police area, revealing that in one year (2009-2010) alone, there were 1,892 reported cases of 13-19-year-olds committing violent assaults against their own parents or other carers.

01 Nov 2013 A new study has found that higher levels of racism in white Americans is associated with having a gun in the home and greater opposition to gun control policies. The research, published in PLoS One, was led by Dr Kerry O'Brien from The University of Manchester and Monash University and used data from a large representative sample of white US voters.

Assessment of of fi cial suicide statistics found that between 1990 and 2005, the proportion of researcher-de fi ned suicides given a verdict of suicide by the 12 coroners studied decreased by almost seven per cent, largely because of the increased use of misadventure/accident verdicts for deaths thought, on clinical review, to be suicides.

Being left-handed has been linked to many mental disorders, but Yale researcher Jadon Webb and his colleagues have found that among those with mental illnesses, people with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia are much more likely to be left-handed than those with mood disorders like depression or bipolar syndrome.

31 Oct 2013 People who suffer from language difficulties as children may continue to suffer from various emotional and behavioural problems as adults, according to new research by The University of Manchester. Childhood language impairment used to be seen as an early years difficulty, with children catching up gradually as they got older.

Being left-handed has been linked to many mental disorders, but Yale researcher Jadon Webb and his colleagues have found that among those with mental illnesses, people with psychotic disorders like schizophrenia are much more likely to be left-handed than those with mood disorders like depression or bipolar syndrome.

Oxford researchers have found internet forums provide a support network for socially isolated young people. However, they also conclude that the internet is linked to an increased risk of suicide and self-harm among vulnerable adolescents. Following what is thought to be the biggest review of existing studies into internet use and young people, the researchers suggest that, in future, clinical assessments of such young people should include questions about the online content they have viewed.

Orphan elephants less socially clued-up decades later, research reveals University of Sussex psychologists studying groups of wild African elephants have shown for the first time how human activities such as culling and relocation have a long-term negative impact on deep-rooted communication skills and social understanding in survivors, paralleling what we know about post-traumatic stress in humans.

Researchers found that the fungus that causes white-nose syndrome in bats can survive under a variety of conditions and can live and grow on most carbon and nitrogen sources in caves. CHAMPAIGN, Ill. After taking an in-depth look at the basic biology of a fungus that is decimating bat colonies as it spreads across the U.S., researchers report that they can find little that might stop the organism from spreading further and persisting indefinitely in bat caves.

The next big earthquake on the Seattle fault could trigger destructive landslides in the city, potentially affecting a much larger area than previously thought, and in areas outside those currently considered to be landslide prone, a new University of Washington-led study shows. "A major quake along the Seattle fault is among the worst-case scenarios for the area, since the fault runs just south of downtown.” said Kate Allstadt, a UW doctoral student in Earth and space sciences.

An innovative new study has been announced aiming to explore and develop new ways of positively transforming the life chances of children and young people in care in Wales over the next 10 years. Commissioned by the Big Lottery Fund, the study could also pave the way for a new £5 million investment which could dramatically improve the outcomes of children in care in Wales.

Researchers at the University of Washington have studied and named a trend lots of people can identify with: the desire to resist constant connectivity and step back from the online world. "We call this 'pushback,'” said Ricardo Gomez , assistant professor in the UW Information School and co-author of a paper to be presented at the iConference in Berlin in early 2014.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Adding prestige in the boardroom can come at a cost, according to researchers at the Penn State Smeal College of Business. Although prestigious directors are often seen as indicative of a firm's quality, Tim Pollock, Farrell Professor of Entrepreneurship, and Abhijith Acharya, recent doctoral graduate and now assistant professor at Singapore Management University, found that adding more prestigious directors wasn't always desirable.