http://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. When we speak, our enunciation and pronunciation of words and syllables fluctuates and varies from person to person. Given this, how do infants decode all of the spoken sounds they hear to learn words and meanings? http://phys.org/news224935448.html Other Sciences Wed, 18 May 2011 11:04:32 EST news224935448 Learning is a game to Brock Dubbels and the students in his class at Seward Montessori in Minneapolis. http://phys.org/news163171768.html Technology Tue, 02 Jun 2009 14:30:32 EST news163171768 Online learning communities flourish best if individual learners have self-governance. That is the conclusion of a US study published in the International Journal of Web Based Communities. http://phys.org/news162212031.html Other Sciences Fri, 22 May 2009 11:54:15 EST news162212031 People who can speak two languages are more adept at learning a new foreign language than their monolingual counterparts, according to research conducted at Northwestern University. And their bilingual advantage persists even when the new language they study is completely different from the languages they already know. http://phys.org/news161968576.html Medicine & Health Tue, 19 May 2009 16:16:52 EST news161968576 (PhysOrg.com) -- The instruction manual for maintaining an efficient brain may soon include a section on synaptotagmin-IV (Syt-IV), a protein known to influence learning and memory, thanks to a study by UW-Madison researchers. http://phys.org/news161879449.html Medicine & Health Mon, 18 May 2009 15:31:43 EST news161879449 At a recent IEEE technology conference, UC San Diego electrical engineers presented a solution to their problem with the song "Bohemian Rhapsody,"—and it's not that they don't like this hit from the band Queen. The electrical engineers' issue with "Bohemian Rhapsody" is that it is too heterogeneous. With its mellow piano, falsetto vocals, rock opera sections and crazy guitar solos, Bohemian Rhapsody is so internally varied that machine learning algorithms at the heart of their experimental music search engine have trouble labeling the song. The solution presented at the 2009 International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP) in Taiwan could lead to improvements in the electrical engineers' song labeling and search engine system. http://phys.org/news161607335.html Technology Fri, 15 May 2009 11:56:21 EST news161607335 Young children learn how to speak and understand language from the words parents speak at home and teachers speak in preschool. A new longitudinal study has found that their preschool classmates also play a part. http://phys.org/news161606874.html Medicine & Health Fri, 15 May 2009 11:48:18 EST news161606874 (PhysOrg.com) -- A team led by researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory has now pinpointed the exact gene responsible for a 2007 breakthrough in which mice with symptoms of Alzheimer's disease regained long-term memories and the ability to learn. http://phys.org/news160835025.html Medicine & Health Wed, 06 May 2009 13:24:31 EST news160835025 Children’s early reading experience is critical to the development of their lifelong reading skills a new study from the University of Leicester has discovered. http://phys.org/news160816292.html Medicine & Health Wed, 06 May 2009 08:12:24 EST news160816292 (PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers at MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory have shed light on how a protein implicated in cognitive disorders maintains and regulates brain cell structures that are key to learning and memory. http://phys.org/news160755604.html Medicine & Health Tue, 05 May 2009 15:21:10 EST news160755604 Children who have high blood pressure are more likely to have learning disabilities and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) than children who are not hypertensive. They are also more likely to have a higher body mass index (BMI), an indicator of body fat. http://phys.org/news160673994.html Medicine & Health Mon, 04 May 2009 16:40:27 EST news160673994 Even very early in Alzheimer's disease, people become less efficient at separating important from less important information, a new study has found. http://phys.org/news160635111.html Medicine & Health Mon, 04 May 2009 05:52:47 EST news160635111 When Dr. Paul Naour was looking for a conclusion to his book detailing a previously unknown 1987 tape recording of a conversation regarding human behavior between theorists E.O. Wilson and B.F. Skinner, he found it at Great Ape Trust, a scientific research institute in Des Moines, Iowa, studying the origins and future of language, culture, tools and intelligence. http://phys.org/news160401290.html Other Sciences Fri, 01 May 2009 12:55:21 EST news160401290 Scientists have studied high-frequency brain waves, known as gamma oscillations, for more than 50 years, believing them crucial to consciousness, attention, learning and memory. Now, for the first time, MIT researchers and colleagues have found a way to induce these waves by shining laser light directly onto the brains of mice. http://phys.org/news159973187.html Medicine & Health Sun, 26 Apr 2009 14:00:19 EST news159973187 An important genetic study conducted through Mayo Clinic has identified vital new information concerning alcoholism in subjects with European ancestry, according to a recent issue of Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research. http://phys.org/news159723718.html Medicine & Health Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:42:45 EST news159723718 In earlier studies, researchers at Louisiana State University had found that estrogen - or more precisely, having ovaries - made adult rats exposed for the first time to THC, the primary ingredient in marijuana and hashish, less sensitive to THC's negative effects on tests of learning and memory. http://phys.org/news159372150.html Medicine & Health Sun, 19 Apr 2009 15:03:01 EST news159372150 (PhysOrg.com) -- A collaboration between more than 70 researchers across the globe has uncovered nine new genes on the X chromosome that, when knocked-out, lead to learning disabilities. The international team studied almost all X chromosome genes in 208 families with learning disabilities - the largest screen of this type ever reported. http://phys.org/news159371223.html Medicine & Health Sun, 19 Apr 2009 14:47:53 EST news159371223 (PhysOrg.com) -- As science fiction plot lines go, the unintended consequences of yielding tasks too complicated or dangerous for human hands to computers and robots is a popular one. Yet real life scientists are increasingly doing just that, creating automated systems and devices that can not only help collect, organize and analyze scientific data, but that are also able to intelligently and independently draw up new hypotheses and approaches to research based on the data they receive. http://phys.org/news157916054.html Technology Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:35:03 EST news157916054 Investigators at Burnham Institute for Medical Research (Burnham) have demonstrated that attacks on the mitochondrial protein Drp1 by the free radical nitric oxide—which causes a chemical reaction called S-nitrosylation—mediates neurodegeneration associated with Alzheimer's disease. Prior to this study, the mechanism by which beta-amyloid protein caused synaptic damage to neurons in Alzheimer's disease was unknown. These findings suggest that preventing S-nitrosylation of Drp1 may reduce or even prevent neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's patients. The paper was published in the April 3 issue of the journal Science. http://phys.org/news157900580.html Medicine & Health Thu, 02 Apr 2009 14:16:44 EST news157900580 Molecules assumed to be in the exclusive employ of the immune system have been caught moonlighting in the brain - with a job description apparently quite distinct from their role in immunity. http://phys.org/news157653719.html Medicine & Health Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:42:36 EST news157653719 In some school classrooms, paper is becoming more of a relic than an educational staple. http://phys.org/news157640113.html Technology Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:55:56 EST news157640113 Learning through trial and error often requires subjects to establish new physiological links by using information about trial outcome to strengthen correct responses or modify incorrect responses. New findings, which appear in the latest issue of the journal Neuron, establish a physiological measure linking trial outcome and learning. http://phys.org/news157210888.html Medicine & Health Wed, 25 Mar 2009 14:41:56 EST news157210888 Mayo Clinic researchers have found that children who require multiple surgeries under anesthesia during their first three years of life are at higher risk of developing learning disabilities later. Several studies have suggested that anesthetic drugs may cause abnormalities in the brains of young animals. This is the first study in humans to suggest that exposure of children to anesthesia may have similar consequences. The finding is reported in the current issue of the journal Anesthesiology. http://phys.org/news157107831.html Medicine & Health Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:04:15 EST news157107831 A robot named Cosmo has become six-year-old Kevin Fitzgerald's unlikely ally in his uphill everyday battle with developmental difficulties. http://phys.org/news156752579.html Electronics Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:24:48 EST news156752579 (PhysOrg.com) -- Parlez-vous français? If you were quick at learning foreign languages at school, it could be because your brain has an enhanced ability to remember sequences. http://phys.org/news156705624.html Medicine & Health Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:20:56 EST news156705624 By combining the trusty old book, pen and paper with the possibilities offered by the computer and the interactive whiteboard, ICT can help to improve students’ understanding in maths education. So conclude a team of researchers led by Koeno Gravemeijer and Paul Drijvers from the Freudenthal Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (Utrecht University, The Netherlands). http://phys.org/news156704752.html Other Sciences Thu, 19 Mar 2009 18:06:55 EST news156704752 (PhysOrg.com) -- Portals used to launch you, Stargate-style, to bizarre places brought to life by science fiction writers. Today, thanks to European research, portals can take you to fascinating virtual destinations - both ancient and new - and all just a click away. http://phys.org/news156698088.html Technology Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:15:38 EST news156698088 The sense of touch allows us to make a better connection between sight and hearing and therefore helps adults to learn to read. This is what has been shown by the team of Édouard Gentaz, CNRS researcher at the Laboratoire de Psychologie et Neurocognition in Grenoble (France). These results, published March 16th in the journal PloS One, should improve learning methods, both for children learning to read and adults learning foreign languages. http://phys.org/news156697376.html Medicine & Health Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:03:12 EST news156697376 By peering into the brains of people with dyslexia compared to normal readers, a study published online on March 12th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, has shed new light on the roots of the learning disability, which affects four to ten percent of the population. The findings support the notion that the reading and spelling deficit—characterized by an inability to break words down into the separate sounds that comprise them—stems in part from a failure to properly integrate letters with their speech sounds. http://phys.org/news156084126.html Medicine & Health Thu, 12 Mar 2009 13:42:47 EST news156084126 Children born extremely prematurely are at high risk of developing learning difficulties by the time they reach the age of 11. http://phys.org/news156016378.html Medicine & Health Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:54:05 EST news156016378