Culture

A new technique using X-rays has enabled scientists to play 'detective' and solve the debate about the origins of a three billion year old rock fragment.

In the study, published today in the journal Nature, a scientist describes the new technique and shows how it can be used to analyse tiny samples of molten rock called magma, yielding important clues about the Earth's early history.

New York, N.Y. – October 15, 2008 – Undocumented youth are not likely to go to college. Usually they do not qualify for financial aid and often come from low-income families with little ability to pay college tuition. A new study in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management found that providing tuition subsidy in the form of in-state tuition increased the college enrollment and educational attainment of non-citizen, Mexican young adults, a group comprising a majority of undocumented individuals in the United States.

Louisville, KY – October 15, 2008 – A new study in the journal Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice examines how entrepreneurial activity and level of employment in U.S. service industries respond to changes in the degree of economic freedom among states. Researchers found that the relationship between entrepreneurial outcomes and economic freedom varies significantly by industry.

Plans to introduce plant-eating predators to fight a superweed spreading throughout Britain should not be seen as a 'magic bullet', says a world expert on Japanese knotweed at the University of Leicester.

Dr John Bailey of the Department of Biology has been researching the invasive weed since the 1980s. The research continues with PhD students Michelle Hollingsworth and Catherine Pashley. Research in the Leicester department established that the weed in Britain was a single clone- making it one of the biggest female organism in the world.

Odense, Denmark – October 15, 2008 – In many countries, school vouchers have come to be a controversial policy which allows parents to pay for the education of their children at a school of their choice, rather than the public school to which they are assigned. A new study in the journal Governance shows how the success of governments in introducing vouchers is highly correlated with these countries' different political institutions and traditions.

As the 2008 presidential election enters its final month, researchers at the Annenberg Research Network on International Communication (ARNIC) have found some sharp differences – and surprising similarities – in the two major candidates' positions on technology policy.

In areas such as media ownership and consolidation, open access to Internet content and intellectual property rights, ARNIC's report provides guidance for voters concerned about the future development of communication technology and the media.

As concerns about the effects of global warming continue to mount, a new study published in the December issue of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology finds that an increase in average temperature of only two degrees Celsius could have a devastating effect on populations of Australia's iconic kangaroos.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Another multi-billion-dollar taxpayer bailout could lie ahead, this time to rescue a cash-strapped government program that insures pensions of 44 million American workers and retirees, a University of Illinois finance professor warns.

Jeffrey R. Brown says the troubled Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., which steps in when private-sector employers with under funded defined-benefit plans go bankrupt, was $14 billion short of the cash it will need to cover pensions based on the latest estimates released a year ago.

OSLO (15 October 2008)—Unless based on respect for the rights of indigenous peoples and forest communities, efforts by rich countries to combat climate change by funding reductions in deforestation in developing countries will fail, and could even unleash a devastating wave of forest loss, cultural destruction and civil conflict, warned a leading group of forestry and development experts meeting in Oslo this week.

We all negotiate compromises every day, but it often seems that certain people always get their way. Do these skilled negotiators simply go with their gut instinct every time or are they just extremely calculating, figuring out all possible outcomes before settling on the best option? Behavioral studies have shown that emotions play an important role in decision making. However, it was not known to what extent our negotiating skills depend on our emotions.

The extra layer of information that you add to a message when speaking is called prosody. The most important conclusion is that prosody lies not only in the voice but also in the facial expression. Further it appears that auditory and visual information together are more effective than the same information separately.

An NJIT professor, who has discovered new communication channels in underwater environments and invented a technique to communicate data through these channels, will be honored later this month by the New Jersey Inventors Hall of Fame. His work will eventually allow multiple users and underwater vehicles and instruments to communicate information and data faster and more reliably in complex underwater environments. The National Science Foundation has supported this research.

The widely held belief that the Nile valley was the most likely route out of sub-Saharan Africa for early modern humans 120,000 year ago is challenged in a paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A team led by the University of Bristol shows that wetter conditions reached a lot further north than previously thought, providing a wet 'corridor' through Libya for early human migrations. The results also help explain inconsistencies between archaeological finds.

STANFORD, Calif. — The nervous system and the immune system havesomething in common. Each has evolved to react quickly to environmentalcues. Because the nervous system is able to detect some of these cues -say, a characteristic odor signaling a pathogen's presence - at adistance, it sometimes can sense trouble earlier than the immune system,which has to wait until the pathogen invades the organism.

So it makes sense that the two systems might talk to one another.Stanford University School of Medicine geneticists have shown that,indeed, they do.

When biologist Ken Catania heard about the peculiar practice of worm grunting practiced in the Apalachicola National Forest in the Florida Panhandle one of his first thoughts was an observation made by Charles Darwin.

Worm grunting involves going into the forest, driving a wooden stake into the ground and then rubbing the top of the stake with a long piece of steel called a rooping iron. This makes a peculiar grunting sound that drives nearby earthworms to the surface where they can be easily collected for fish bait.