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Writing exercise helps women overcome sexist stereotypes

December 30, 2010 coms 0

According to a new study, a brief writing exercise can help women in college physics classes improve their academic performance and reduce some of the well-documented differences between male and female science students. The writing exercise seems particularly beneficial to female students who tend to subscribe to the negative stereotype that males perform better in physics, the researchers say.

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Close proximity leads to better science

December 29, 2010 coms 0

According to new research by scientists at Harvard Medical School, the physical proximity of researchers, especially between the first and last author on published papers, strongly correlates with the impact of their work.

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Fast food and sweets advertised when children watch television

December 23, 2010 coms 0

Children in Sweden are exposed to a huge number of TV advertisements. Food adverts – primarily for fast food and sweets – dominate the advertisements shown during children’s viewing times. Research from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, shows that Sweden is no different from other countries when it comes to the number of adverts that children are exposed to.

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Scientists map what factors influence the news agenda

December 22, 2010 coms 0

Computer scientists have analyzed over a million news articles in 22 languages to pinpoint what factors, such as the Eurovision song contest, influence and shape the news agenda in 27 EU countries. This is the first large-scale content-analysis of cross-linguistic text using artificial intelligence techniques.

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Americans Now Spend As Many Hours On the Internet As They Do Watching Television (Internet/TV Stats)

December 16, 2010 coms 0

A recent survey released by Forrester found that Americans now spend as much time on the Internet as they do watching television. Forrester surveyed more than 30,000 people and found that the average American spends approximately 13 hours a week on the Internet and watching TV while offline. While the Internet was once thought of as something more popular among youth, the study also found that Gen X (31 to 44) and Younger Baby Boomers (45 to 54) are spending equal amounts of time using both forms of media. In the past five years, while TV use has stayed approximately the same, Internet use has increased by 121%.