news

Campus - Pedagogy - 28.05.2021

National study of high school students’ digital skills paints worrying portrait, Stanford researchers say
Researchers charged 3,446 American students with vetting news stories and other digital content. Students tried, mostly in vain, to find truth. A new national study by Stanford researchers showing a woeful inability by high schoolers to detect fake news on the internet suggests an urgent need for schools to integrate new tools and curriculum into classrooms that boost students' digital skills, the study's authors say.

Pedagogy - Campus - 28.05.2021

Extra classroom time may do little to help pupils recover lost learning after COVID-19
Adding extra classroom time to the school day may only result in marginal gains for pupils who have lost learning during the COVID pandemic, a study says. Simply keeping all students in school for longer, in order to do more maths or more English, probably won't improve results much Vaughan Connolly The University of Cambridge analysis used five years of Government data, collected from more than 2,800 schools in England, to estimate the likely impact of additional classroom instruction on academic progress, as measured at GCSE.

Life Sciences - Campus - 25.05.2021

Algorithm to compare cells across species
Researchers created an algorithm to identify similar cell types from species - including fish, mice, flatworms and sponges - that have diverged for hundreds of millions of years, which could help fill in gaps in our understanding of evolution. Cells are the building blocks of life, present in every living organism.

Physics - Campus - 25.05.2021

Odd angles make for strong spin-spin coupling
Rice physicists' RAMBO reveals magnetic phenomenon useful for quantum simulation and sensing Sometimes things are a little out of whack, and it turns out to be exactly what you need. That was the case when orthoferrite crystals turned up at a Rice University laboratory slightly misaligned. Those crystals inadvertently became the basis of a discovery that should resonate with researchers studying spintronics -based quantum technology.

Research Management - Campus - 21.05.2021

A New Replication Crisis: Research that is Less Likely to be True is Cited More
Papers that cannot be replicated are cited 153 times more because their findings are interesting, according to a new UC San Diego study Papers in leading psychology, economic and science journals that fail to replicate and therefore are less likely to be true are often the most cited papers in academic research, according to a new study by the University of California San Diego's Rady School of Management.

Campus - Earth Sciences - 21.05.2021

Clues from soured milk reveal how gold veins form
For decades scientists have been puzzled by the formation of rare hyper-enriched gold deposits in places like Ballarat in Australia, Serra Palada in Brazil, and Red Lake in Ontario. While such deposits typically form over tens to hundreds of thousands of years, these "ultrahigh-grade" deposits can form in years, month, or even days.

Social Sciences - Campus - 20.05.2021

Physical activity may help to close the wealth gap in school attainment by improving self-control
Guaranteeing every child the opportunity to participate in certain types of physical activity could support their academic attainment and help to close the achievement gap between wealthy and less-advantaged pupils, new research indicates. In the context of COVID in particular, there may be a real temptation to encourage schools to maximise classroom time to stop children falling behind.

Environment - Campus - 18.05.2021

’Stressed out’ corals thriving thanks to mangroves
Tropical coral reefs are the most biodiverse underwater ecosystem, providing a home to more than a quarter of all marine species. No strangers to environmental stressors and the on-going impacts of climate change, the survival of corals has increasingly been under threat in recent years. A collective of researchers, including from McGill University, have analyzed how environmental factors influence the growth and health of corals and found that more species of corals are living in the mangrove forests than in nearby shallow reefs.

Campus - Environment - 06.05.2021

PCB contamination in Icelandic orcas: a matter of diet
Accurate forecasting of health risks to killer whale populations may depend on looking at individual variations in their diet Image caption: These killer whales may appear healthy, but a new study has found extremely high levels of PCB contamination in some of the whales. There was a 300-fold difference between the levels of PCBs among the most contaminated orcas compared to the least contaminated ones.

Campus - 28.04.2021

How gender bias impacts college career guidance-and dissuades women from certain jobs
Women are twice as likely to receive unprompted info on work-life balance, study finds With job recruiting season in full swing, college students are busy seeking out business professionals who can help them explore potential career choices. As the candidates expand their networks, these informal exchanges can alter career expectations and choices.

Health - Campus - 26.04.2021

Pandemic creates extra challenges for international exchange
Monday, April 26, 2021 — Within the academic world, international exchange students and researchers have been particularly affected by the pandemic. In an opinion article in the journal Ethnobiology and Conservation, Farid Dahdouh-Guebas of the Biology Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Ina Vandebroek of the New York Botanical Garden defend this group and propose some solutions.

Campus - 22.04.2021

New algorithm reveals birdsong features that may be key for courtship
Researchers from McGill University and the University of California, San Francisco have developed a new algorithm capable of identifying features of male zebra finch songs that may underlie the distinction between a short phrase sung during courtship, and the same phrase sung in a non-courtship context.

Environment - Campus - 20.04.2021

Can extreme melt destabilize ice sheets?
Researchers have deciphered a trove of data that shows one season of extreme melt can reduce the Greenland Ice Sheet's capacity to store future meltwater - and increase the likelihood of future melt raising sea levels. Nearly a decade ago, global news outlets reported vast ice melt in the Arctic as sapphire lakes glimmered across the previously frozen Greenland Ice Sheet, one of the most important contributors to sea-level rise.

Health - Campus - 19.04.2021

Cells migrate in a unique way on soft surfaces
Stanford engineers find that cancer cells exhibit a unique mode of migration on squishy materials, which are similar to biological tissues. In contrast, cell movement - a process central to cancer metastasis and other biological processes - is typically studied on very rigid materials. Inside your body, cell movement plays a crucial role in many significant biological processes, including wound healing, immune responses and the potential spread of cancer.

Campus - Astronomy / Space Science - 15.04.2021

Fast radio bursts shown to include lower frequency radio waves than previously detected
Since fast radio bursts (FRBs) were first discovered over a decade ago, scientists have puzzled over what could be generating these intense flashes of radio waves from outside of our galaxy. In a gradual process of elimination, the field of possible explanations has narrowed as new pieces of information are gathered about FRBs - how long they last, the frequencies of the radio waves detected, and so on.

Campus - Health - 07.04.2021

Surgical sutures inspired by human tendons
Sutures are used to close wounds and speed up the natural healing process, but they can also complicate matters by causing damage to soft tissues with their stiff fibers. To remedy the problem, researchers from Montreal have developed innovative tough gel sheathed (TGS) sutures inspired by the human tendon.

Health - Campus - 07.04.2021

Good oral health reduces risk of fatal outcomes from COVID-19
Gum disease linked to increased rates of complications, hospitalization, and death among patients with severe cases of COVID-19 Infected and inflamed gums may result in higher rates of complications and more fatal outcomes for individuals diagnosed with the SARS-COV-2 virus, according to a new international study led by McGill researchers recently published in the Journal of Clinical Periodontology .

Physics - Campus - 07.04.2021

First results from Muon g-2 experiment strengthen evidence of new physics
The first results from the Muon g-2 experiment at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory have revealed that fundamental particles called muons behave in a way that is not predicted by scientists' best theory to date, the Standard Model of particle physics.

Campus - Psychology - 02.04.2021

Hand signals improve video meeting success
Using a simple set of hand signals can improve the experience of online meetings, make groups feel closer to each other and that they are learning and communicating better, finds a new study by UCL researchers. The research team trained students to use a set of signals in seminars, such as waving to take a turn to speak, and raising a hand to show empathy, and found evidence that they improved the experience of video meetings during lockdown.

Environment - Campus - 31.03.2021

Thicker-leaved tropical plants may flourish under climate change, which could be good news for climate
How plants will fare as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise is a tricky problem and, researchers say, especially vexing in the tropics. Some aspects of plants' survival may get easier, some parts will get harder, and there will be species winners and losers. The resulting shifts in vegetation will help determine the future direction of climate change.