Over the past few months, we have been flooded with emails from distressed parents asking whether their deaf child will be able to hear one day. With each new email comes a poignant story about a child whose world is silent. It is estimated that hearing loss affects 11% of school age children and even mild loss may adversely influence school performance, cognitive development and language acquisition
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Feed SubscriptionModify Watch’s Low-Tech Business Takeaways From High-Tech Startups
West Coast business schools are entrepreneurial breeding grounds, but not just for the next hot thing in tech--here's what mix-and-match watch company Modify learned during its launch. I graduated from UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business in May 2010. Friends from school included the founders of ideation space
Read More »Instant Egghead – What’s the Difference Between a Comet and an Asteroid?
If you answered "one of Santa's reindeer" and "a popular video game from the 80s" --this episode of Instant Egghead is for you. Scientific American editor John Matson explains how our favorite space rocks differ.
Read More »Not-So-Quick Fix: ADHD Behavioral Therapy May Be More Effective Than Drugs in Long Run
Before stimulant drugs such as Ritalin, Concerta and Adderall began their rise to popularity in the 1970s, treatment for attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) focused on behavioral therapy. But as concerns build over the mounting dosages and extended treatment periods that come with stimulant drugs, clinical researchers are revisiting behavioral therapy techniques. Whereas stimulant medications may help young patients focus and behave in the classroom, research now suggests that behaviorally based changes make more of a difference in the long-term.
Read More »French Oil Co. Starts Injecting Mud to Kill North Sea Gas Leak
LONDON (Reuters) - France's Total started pumping heavy mud down its leaking well in the North Sea on Tuesday to try to stop an escape of gas that has lasted nearly eight weeks and could deprive Britain of nearly 6 percent of its supply this summer. "The well intervention operation got underway at 4.20 a.m. [More]
Read More »Dots, Spots, and Pixels: What s In A Name?
This is a guest post by Jim Perkins, a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology’s medical illustration program .
Read More »Hot Jupiters Smarten Search For Other Earths
Scientists are looking for Earth-like planets around other stars. But one way to limit the search can be to figure out where an Earth-like planet cannot exist and eliminate those types of systems. [More]
Read More »One More Year of School Found to Improve Longevity
By Alice Lighton of Nature magazine Shortly after the Second World War, the Swedish government conducted a vast social experiment to decide whether to implement educational reform. [More]
Read More »How Neuroscientists and Magicians Are Conjuring Brain Insights
Apollo Robbins (right) in action removing the wristwatch of Mariette DiChristina. (Credit: Flip Phillips.) I see you have a watch with a buckle. Standing at my side, Apollo Robbins held my wrist lightly as he turned my hand over and back.
Read More »Gas-Rich States Lose Fracking Lottery
By Joan Gralla (Reuters) - While Pennsylvania, northwestern Louisiana and gas-rich areas around the Gulf of Mexico are losing jobs and revenue as the fracking industry shrinks after a price collapse, oil-rich North Dakota and Texas are in the midst of a boom. Other winners in the fracking lottery include central and southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio and Wyoming, where the economy is expanding and revenues are climbing.
Read More »Prime Suspect: Did the Science Consultant Do It?
It’s no secret that Jen-Luc Piquant is a huge fan of the TV series Bones , and last week’s episode was particularly amusing because it poked fun at Hollywood and science consultants. Entitled “The Suit on the Set,” the plot brought Booth and Brennan to Tinsel Town to visit the set of a fictional movie being made of Brennan’s (equally fictional) bestselling novel
Read More »What Are Science’s Ugliest Experiments?
When I teach history of science at Stevens Institute of Technology, I devote plenty of time to science’s glories, the kinds of achievements that my buddy George Johnson wrote about in The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments (Alfred A. Knopf, 2008)
Read More »Astronomers Detect Smallish Exoplanet’s Infrared Glow
Here’s a hot topic: astronomers have detected infrared radiation from a faraway planet not much bigger than our own. [More]
Read More »Google-Backed Wind Power Line Clears Hurdle
(Reuters) - A planned $5 billion transmission line to send power from wind farms off the East Coast cleared a hurdle, allowing the Google Inc-backed project to move to the next step in the approval process, officials said. The Department of the Interior declared on Monday there was "no overlapping competitive interest" in proposed areas for building the line off the mid-Altantic coast. [More]
Read More »Know Your Neurons: The Discovery and Naming of the Neuron
Different Types of Neurons (click to enlarge). A. Purkinje cell B
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