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Internet search engines cause poor memory, scientists claim
The Telegraph: Researchers found increasing number of users relied on their computers as a form of “external memory” as frequent use of online information libraries "wired" human brains. The study, examining the so-called "Google effect", found people had poor recall of knowledge if they knew where answers to questions were easily found. The scientists from Columbia University, in New York, found people were increasingly bypassing discussions with friends to use the internet as their main source of information. Read more: The Telegraph
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Does Virginity Really Protect Against Risky Sex Later On?
The Huffington Post: True Love Waits is a virginity pledge program, probably the largest of its kind. Started by the Southern Baptist Convention in 1993, it now claims more than 2.5 million members, teenagers and young adults who have promised to remain sexually "pure" until marriage. Many other virginity pledge programs have sprouted up since the '90s, and what's more, state lawmakers have jumped on the abstinence bandwagon. Thirty four states now require that abstinence be taught or emphasized in the school curricula, while only 15 mandate instruction in contraception. Read more: The Huffington Post
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Baby Blur: Infants’ Eyes Take Longer to Process Movement
LiveScience: Rapidly changing images may look like a blur to infants, according to a new study. Although babies can see the movement, they may not be able to identify the individual elements within a moving scene as well as an adult can. Babies' brains gradually develop the ability to use visual information to discover and process their world. Researchers found that the speed limit at which babies can recognize individual moment-to-moment changes is about half a second. That's about 10 times slower than for adults, who can recognize rapid, individual changes that occur 50 to 70 milliseconds or slower.
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Time and Numbers Mix Together in the Brain
Clocks tell time in numbers—and so do our minds, according to a new study which will be published in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. In two experiments, scientists found that people associate small numbers with short time intervals and large numbers with longer intervals—suggesting that these two systems are linked in the brain. It’s clear that time and numbers are related in daily life, says Denise Wu of National Central University of Taiwan, who cowrote the new study with Acer Chang, Ovid Tzeng, and Daisy Hung.
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Neurosciences : les poussins préfèrent les sons harmonieux
Yahoo France: Publiés dans la revue Psychological Science, les résultats d'une étude italienne suggèrent que, de façon innée, les poussins préfèrent une musique aux sons consonants à une autre, aux sons dissonants. Les scientifiques savaient déjà que les oiseaux peuvent distinguer différents types de sons et que certaines espèces sont attirées par certains sons. Mais ces préférences sont-elles innées ou acquises ? Pour le savoir, Cinzia Chiandetti et Giorgio Vallortigara, spécialistes en neurosciences à l'Université de Trento, en Italie, ont testé des poussins fraîchement éclos, n'ayant donc encore aucune expérience sociale. Lire plus: Yahoo France
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Dealing with Death? Get on Facebook
Discovery News: Anywhere from 1.8 to 3 million Facebook users will die in 2011, according to separate estimates from the digital legacy sites 1000Memories and Entrustet, likely transforming those posthumous profiles into digital epitaphs. With Facebook swelling to more than 750 million members as of June, dealing with death online -- through both the profile pages of the deceased and dedicated memorial pages -- has become standard behavior. Now, it's almost as commonplace as sending condolences and attending funerals.
