news 2014

You're at a slumber party with your friends. One friend asks "if a guy at school asked you out, but you weren't really attracted to him, would you go?" You laugh and shake your head no: "Why would I, if he's not my type?" Or imagine you're at school, sitting in the cafeteria. A guy who you think is attractive but who has some unsuitable personality traits comes up and asks you out.

Religious affiliation is generally a source of support, fostering resilience during difficult times. But religion doesn't exactly have a reputation as a refuge for young gay people. That reputation may change for the better with new findings from researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, and Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, South Korea.

Variation among preterm infants is the norm One in 10 infants in the United States is born preterm-less than 36 weeks gestation-each year. Infants born early are at a higher risk for long-term health problems and neurodevelopmental and cognitive delays. According to a new study that followed preterm infants in Wisconsin, not all premature infants experience the same challenges.

People are more likely to help someone whose name ends with the "hard e" (/?/) sound; women, in particular, prefer /?/ sounds; and children's behavioral patterns seem to indicate that asking "Mommy?" for help gets better results than "Mom" or "Mother." This according to Cornell-led studies ("Sounds That Make You Smile And Share: A Phonetic Key To Prosociality And Engagement") published this month in the journal, Marketing Letters.

Black patients who have been diagnosed with heart failure are no less likely than white patients to get atrial fibrillation (an irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia), according to a new study led by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania , which was presented today at the 2014 Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association.

Scientists have proven definitively that climate change could not have been responsible for a huge population collapse in Europe at the end of the Bronze Age. Archaeologists and environmental scientists from the University of Leeds, the University of Bradford, University College Cork and Queen’s University Belfast have shown that the changes in climate that scientists believed to coincide with the fall in population in fact occurred at least two generations later.

Neuroscientists have discovered an unexpected benefit of getting older - a more nuanced understanding of social signals, such as the age of others. In a new study published today (Friday 14 November) in the journal Current Biology , University of Glasgow researchers show that older people have richer mental representations of the ageing process.

Latest research shows the females of some mammal species will have many mates to ensure unclear paternity, so that males can't resort to killing their rival's offspring for fear of killing their own. This forces males to evolve to compete through sperm quantity, leading to ever-larger testicles. Scientists find that as testis size increases, infanticide disappears.

On Nov. U.S. President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping made a historic U.S.-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change outlining each country's commitment to strengthen bilateral cooperation on climate change and to announce post-2020 actions in support of the effort to transition to low-carbon economies.

Our structure (research) Impact of our research Postgraduate research 12 Nov 2014 Research on the 2011 Census, carried out by the Centre on Dynamics and Ethnicity at Manchester, found that 47% of mixed ethnicity groups in Wales claimed a Welsh only identity, compared to 37% of Scots counterparts. New research on the 2011 Census reveals that people from 'mixed' ethnic groups in Wales are more likely to claim their national identity than counterparts in Scotland.

I t's already transformed the way we communicate and consume information, and how we buy everything from hangers to homes. Now Harvard scientists hope to use the Internet to change how social scientists investigate human behavior. Launched this year by Assistant Professor of Government Ryan Enos, the Digital Lab for the Social Sciences (DLABSS) is designed to serve as an online clearinghouse where social scientists can find study participants.

Research shows that children who speak more than one language have an advantage over their monolingual playmates when it comes to communication, understanding and social interaction. But the benefits go even further if children can be encouraged to take a formal qualification, such as a GCSE, as this short film describes.

A hammer has many uses - breaking, prying, bending - but we all know that hammers are supposed to be for hammering nails into wood. It turns out we not only learn such cultural conventions when we're very young, we can transmit them, too. A recent Cornell study finds that toddlers notice subtle social clues to figure out what actions of others may be socially or culturally important and then preferentially share this information with others.

Science and social media can coexist, according to a recent study headed by UW faculty. The study found a connection between "h-index" - a measure of the quality of a researcher's work and influence - and social media activity. Illustration: Dusan Petricic for The Scientist Here is an idea worth following: "share" for tenure; "like" to get cited.

Science and social media can coexist, according to a recent study headed by UW faculty. The study found a connection between "h-index" - a measure of the quality of a researcher's work and influence - and social media activity. Illustration: Dusan Petricic for The Scientist Here is an idea worth following: "share" for tenure; "like" to get cited.

A study led by Oxford University shows that, contrary to what is widely supposed, there has been no decline in social mobility in Britain over recent decades but rather than going up as in the past, more of us are moving down the social ladder. The study by Oxford University, with the London School of Economics and Political Sciences, is published in the early online issue of the British Journal of Sociology .

Americans are undergoing a significant shift in thinking about climate change, but rising public awareness of a warming climate has not translated into action, according to new survey research. In the recent 2014 Empire State Poll, 82 percent of New Yorkers say they believe climate change is happening.

New study shows that - even after controlling for subject, degree class, alma mater and occupation - graduates who attended private schools earn on average 6% more than those who attended state schools. If higher education is to be a route to social mobility then the link between family background and adult outcomes must be broken Anna Vignoles New research shows that graduates who went to private schools earn substantially more than those who went to state schools.

A group of ravens is sometimes called a conspiracy. Mythology and folklore have attributed many supernatural features to these large black birds. During the last decades, studies on the cognitive abilities of ravens have indeed revealed that they are exceptionally intelligent. Ravens live in complex social groups and they can gain power in these groups by building social bonds that function as alliances.

More and more people in Switzerland are deciding on their own what to believe and what to practise. Freedom of belief puts pressure on religious communities and forces them to compete with secular leisure activities.