Ed Links and Other Unrelated Stuff

First-time Moms' Exhaustion Caused By Sleep Fragmentation, Rather Than Timing Of Sleep Contrary to popular belief, the timing of sleep in new mothers is preserved after giving birth, according to new research.

Postpartum Anxiety Delays Puberty In Offspring Hormonal changes early in pregnancy cause maternal postpartum anxiety and behavior changes that can lead to a delayed onset of puberty in both birth and adoptive daughters, according to a new study conducted in mice.

Hypertension Among Lower-status Employees Lingers Well Into Retirement Retirement from some occupations may not provide relief from the potentially devastating health effects of work-related hypertension, according to a new study.

Urban Myth Disproved: Fingerprints Do Not Improve Grip Friction Everyone thinks that they know what fingerprints are for: to improve your grip's friction. But it turns out that this urban myth is wrong. Scientists have proved that instead of improving your grip, fingerprints drastically reduce friction.

Later Parental-mandated Bedtimes For Teens Linked To Depression And Suicidal Thoughts Earlier parental-mandated bedtimes could help protect teens from depression and suicidal thoughts by lengthening sleep duration, according to new research.

What About The Boys? Boys Face Serious Issues Which Are Being Ignored, Experts Argue Issues affecting boys are more serious than those affecting girls, but they have been neglected by policy makers, according to expert opinion. Researchers review issues characterizing American boyhood, how they compare to those affecting girls, and the lack of initiatives in place to address them.

Concussion Experts: For Kids -- No Sports, No Schoolwork, No Text Messages When it comes to concussions, children and teens require different treatment, according to international experts. The new guidelines say children and teens must be strictly monitored and activities restricted until fully healed. These restrictions include no return to the field of play, no return to school, and no cognitive activity.

Are Socialists Happier Than Capitalists? Do economic concerns outweigh political reforms in their impact on subjective well-being? A new study finds that overall well-being initially plummeted in countries directly affected by the fall of the Iron Curtain, driven by a decline in satisfaction with work life and family life. The research expands our understanding of the correlation between happiness and democracy.

Confusion Reigns Over Whole-grain Claims In School Lunches While most nutrition experts agree that school lunches should include more whole grain products, a new study finds that food-service workers lack understanding and the resources to meet that goal.

Students Who Get Stuck Look For Computer Malfunctions When students working with educational software get stymied, they often try to find fault with the computer or the software, rather than look to their own mistakes, according to new research.

Easily Grossed Out? You Might Be A Conservative! Are you someone who squirms when confronted with slime, shudders at stickiness or gets grossed out by gore? If so, you might be politically conservative, according to two new studies.

Early Childhood Conditions That Lead To Adult Health Disparities Identified The origins of many adult diseases can be traced to early negative experiences associated with social class and other markers of disadvantage. Confronting the causes of adversity before and shortly after birth may be a promising way to improve adult health and reduce premature deaths, researchers argue.

Discoveries Shed New Light On How The Brain Processes What The Eye Sees Researchers have identified the need to develop a new framework for understanding "perceptual stability" and how we see the world with their discovery that visual input obtained during eye movements is being processed by the brain but blocked from awareness.

Intervention Reduces Delinquent Teenage Pregancy Rates A program aimed at reducing criminal behavior in juvenile justice teens has yielded a surprising side benefit. The program is also reducing the teens' rate of pregnancy, according to a new study.

When Adult Patients Have Anxiety Disorder, Their Children Need Help Too In what is believed to be the first US study designed to prevent anxiety disorders in the children of anxious parents, researchers have found that a family-based program reduced symptoms and the risk of developing an anxiety disorder among these children.

Parents' Influence On Children's Eating Habits Is Small, Study Finds The popular belief that healthy eating starts at home and that parents' dietary choices help children establish their nutritional beliefs and behaviors may need rethinking, according to a new study. An examination of dietary intakes and patterns among U.S. families found that the resemblance between children's and their parents' eating habits is weak.

Pressure To Look Attractive Linked To Fear Of Rejection In Men And Women People who feel pressure to look attractive are more fearful of being rejected because of their appearance than are their peers, according to a new study.

Young Unwed Women Who Graduated From Private Religious Schools More Likely To Obtain Abortions Unwed pregnant teens and 20-somethings who attend or have graduated from private religious schools are more likely to obtain abortions than their peers from public schools, according to sociological research. Although rates of reported abortions were higher for young women educated at private religious schools, the type of religious school was not a factor: Catholic schools had similar rates as other religious schools.

Why Can We Talk? 'Humanized' Mice Speak Volumes About Evolutionary Past Mice carrying a "humanized version" of a gene believed to influence speech and language may not actually talk, but they nonetheless do have a lot to say about our evolutionary past, according to a new report.

Did Mozart Really Have ADHD? History Of Hyperactivity Off-base, Says Researcher A Canadian researcher working in the UK says doctors, authors and educators are doing hyperactive children a disservice by claiming that hyperactivity as we understand it today has always existed.

Strict Maternal Feeding Practices Not Linked To Child Weight Gain, Study Suggests A new study provides further evidence that strict maternal control over eating habits -- such as determining how much a child should eat and coaxing them to eat certain foods -- during early childhood may not lead to significant future weight gain in boys or girls. Instead, this behavior may be a response to concerns over a child's increasing weight. Some form of control may be necessary to help children eat well, maintain healthy weight, according to researchers.

Scientists Reaching Consensus On How Brain Processes Speech Neuroscientists feel they are much closer to an accepted unified theory about how the brain processes speech and language. Both human and non-human primate studies have confirmed that speech, one important facet of language, is processed in the brain along two parallel pathways, each of which run from lower- to higher-functioning neural regions.

Understanding The Therapeutic Process Of Mother-infant Psychotherapy Given the documented detrimental effects of postpartum depression on infants and the mother-infant relationship, mental health professionals are anxious to understand models of best practices. This focus group study of psychotherapists, who treat mothers suffering from PPD and other mood disorders with their infants, have developed a proven process that contributes to a greater positive experience with immediate insights for the mothers to develop healthy connections between their maternal experiences and their infants' behaviors.

Classroom Computers Boost Face-to-face Learning Computers have been used for years to facilitate learning at a distance. A new research program shows that computers can also enhance collaborative, face-to-face learning and problem solving.

How Does The Human Brain Work? New Ways To Better Understand How Our Brain Processes Information How does the human brain process information? Researchers explore new methodologies that shed light on this age-old mystery. The human brain is perhaps the most complex of organs, boasting between 50-100 billion nerve cells or neurons that constantly interact with each other. These neurons 'carry' messages through electrochemical processes; meaning, chemicals in our body (charged sodium, potassium and chloride ions) move in and out of these cells and establish an electrical current.

Psychologists Find That Head Movement Is More Important Than Gender In Nonverbal Communication Psychologists and computer scientists have found that gender is less important than head motion in the nonverbal dynamics of how people converse.

Tying Education To Future Goals May Boost Grades More Than Helping With Homework Helping middle school students with their homework may not be the best way to get them on the honor roll. But telling them how important academic performance is to their future job prospects and providing specific strategies to study and learn might clinch the grades, according to a research review.

Area Of Brain That Makes A 'People Person' Discovered Researchers have discovered that whether someone is a "people person" may depend on the structure of their brain: the greater the concentration of brain tissue in certain parts of the brain, the more likely they are to be a warm, sentimental person. This area is in the same region linked to processing of pleasures such as sweet tastes and sexual stimuli.

Children Raise Their Parents Values are learnt at home; but not only from parents. Researchers studied the role of the family in passing on personal values. Parents influence their children. But children also influence their parents. And parents influence each other.

Achieving Fame, Wealth And Beauty Are Psychological Dead Ends, Study Says If you think having loads of money, fetching looks, or the admiration of many will improve your life -- think again. A new study demonstrates that progress on these fronts can actually make a person less happy.

Preschoolers' Language Development Is Partly Tied To Their Classmates' Language Skills A new study shows that children's abilities to both speak and understand words developed faster when they were with classmates with better language skills. The study involved 1,800 preschoolers in over 450 pre-kindergarten classrooms in 11 states and entailed "receptive language" and "expressive language" testing for each child at the start and end of pre-kindergarten. Findings for this study offer ideas for designing and structuring preschool classrooms.

More Compulsory Schooling -- Fewer Teenage Mothers More compulsory schooling results in fewer teenage pregnancies, according to new research. More school means less time for so-called risk activities, such as getting pregnant. And -- the more schooling they have, the smarter the choices girls make.

Babies Learn Music While Sleeping Early screening and treatment for infants with hearing problems, and the ability to computer-generate musical scores, are two very different possible outcomes of some "off-the-wall" research.

Study Links Internet Addiction To Aggression In Teens Internet-addicted teens seem more prone to aggression than other adolescents, according to new findings from Taiwanese researchers. However, Americans who study violence are not ready to make any conclusions about a possible link.

If Something Is Difficult, Most People Believe It Must Be Important To Achieving Goals Try the following experiment with two young children. To one child, hold a toy out just beyond their grasp and watch them bounce all over the place trying to reach it. With the second child, just hand the toy over to them. Is the first child likely to find the toy more interesting than the other child? If we come across something very difficult, how will that affect our ability to meet our goal?

Peer Victimization In Middle And High School Predicts Sexual Behavior Among Adolescents Peer victimization during middle and high school may be an important indicator of an individual's sexual behavior later in life, according to a new study.

Don't Flatter Yourself: Why Survey Research Can Be Flawed We all do things to impress others -- exaggerate our accomplishments, downplay our faults, even fib on surveys. A new study sheds light on why we don't tell the strict truth about ourselves in surveys and what, if anything, can be done about it.

Marching To The Beat Of The Same Drummer Improves Teamwork Armies train by marching in step. Citizens sing the National Anthem before sporting events. Why do we participate in these various synchronized activities? A new study suggests that when people engage in synchronous activity together, they become more likely to cooperate with other group members.

Too Much TV Linked To Future Fast-food Intake High-school kids who watch too much TV are likely to have bad eating habits five years in the future. A new study followed almost 2000 high- and middle-school children and found that TV viewing times predict a poor diet in the future.

College Freshmen In US And China: Chinese Students Know More Science Facts But Neither Group Especially Skilled In Reasoning A study of college freshmen in the United States and in China found that Chinese students know more science facts than their American counterparts -- but both groups are nearly identical when it comes to their ability to do scientific reasoning. Neither group is especially skilled at reasoning, however, and the study suggests that educators must go beyond teaching science facts if they hope to boost students' reasoning ability.

Physically Fit Kids Do Better In School A new study found that physically fit kids scored better on standardized math and English tests than their less fit peers.