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Need Some Help Getting to Convention?
In case you were on the fence about whether to attend the APS Annual Convention, the APSSC is offering ways to cut down on the travel and registration costs. For volunteering and travel assistance, the APSSC is currently accepting applications online here. The APS student affiliates who are selected as volunteers are provided with a $200 travel grant to help defray the cost of attending the annual convention. For 2013 the APSSC expects to fund 45-50 volunteers. The APSSC hotel match-up program is a service for APS student members seeking to reduce their convention-related expenses by finding other students who are interested in sharing the cost of accommodation at the annual convention.
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Agreed, Baby Pandas Are Cute. But Why?
NPR: Xiao Liwu made his public debut Thursday at the San Diego Zoo. Fans crowded around the exhibit, their camera lenses extended, hoping to catch a glimpse of the 5-month-old giant panda cub. If they're lucky and actually do see the 16-pound panda (his Chinese name means "Little Gift"), there'll be much oooing and aaahing. You'd have to be heartless not to agree that pandas, especially the youngest of them, are as cute as all get-out. Right? But why? Read the whole story: NPR
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Learning and Memory May Play a Central Role in Synesthesia
People with color-grapheme synesthesia experience color when viewing written letters or numerals, usually with a particular color evoked by each grapheme (i.e., the letter ‘A’ evokes the color red). In a new study, researchers Nathan Witthoft and Jonathan Winawer of Stanford University present data from 11 color grapheme synesthetes who had startlingly similar color-letter pairings that were traceable to childhood toys containing magnetic colored letters. Their findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.
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Counseling center cares for people with ‘complicated grief’
The Washington Post: Cindi Day cheered as the bus carrying 6-year-old Tai-Vaughn Moore home from camp pulled up. The sole guardian of her grandson, she hadn’t found it easy to surrender him even for the weekend. But Tai-Vaughn had been acting up in school, and Day hoped the three-day camp for youths who had lost a close relative would help him. She greeted him with a huge grin, asking how he was. ... For decades, much of the literature on bereavement was not based on science, said George Bonanno, a clinical psychology professor at Columbia University. Around the 1980s, researchers finally began studying grief rigorously. The results?
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Wer zuerst kommt, mahlt zuerst (First come, first served)
ORF Austria: Ob man bei einem Vorstellungsgespräch erfolgreich ist oder nicht, hängt nicht nur von der eigenen Leistung ab. Entscheidend ist, wie gut die Kandidaten sind, die sich davor vorgestellt haben. Wer als erster drankommt, hat statistisch bessere Chancen, zeigt eine neue Studie aus den USA. Menschen, die an einem Tag viele ähnliche Entscheidungen treffen müssen, verlieren leicht den Überblick. Sie treffen jede Entscheidung für sich und sind nicht in der Lage, die Konsequenzen der einzelnen Entscheidungen miteinander zu verknüpfen. Dieser Umstand wird in der Psychologie auch als "narrow bracketing" bezeichnet.
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Facebook Chitchat Is Unforgettable
Science: One day in 2011, a Facebook user professed a love for clean sheets, ending the humble status update with a smiley face. Little did this person realize, the post would inform our understanding of memory. Scientists have found that, when it comes to mental recall, people are far more likely to remember the text of idle chitchat on social media platforms like Facebook than the carefully crafted sentences of books. The researchers happened upon the findings by accident.
