http://phys.org/science-news/ en-us PhysOrg Team Phys.Org provides the latest news on science, fossils, archaeology, chemistry, mathematics, biology and science technology. (AP) — A Stanford University professor has won a $500,000 award from a Massachusetts Institute of Technology program in recognition of his inventions. http://phys.org/news258055130.html Other Sciences 2012-06-04T18:58:58-07:00 Religious practices that strongly control female sexuality are more successful at promoting certainty about paternity, according to a study published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://phys.org/news258050787.html Other Sciences 2012-06-04T17:46:35-07:00 As voters increasingly rely on websites of presidential primary candidates for news, they run a risk because candidates' online attacks are not vetted through traditional "watchdog journalists" and other gatekeepers to determine accuracy or fairness, according to a study by Baylor University researchers. http://phys.org/news258050471.html Other Sciences 2012-06-04T17:41:19-07:00 An international team of researchers has announced the discovery of Afrasia djijidae, a new fossil primate from Myanmar that illuminates a critical step in the evolution of early anthropoids—the group that includes humans, apes, and monkeys. The 37-million-year-old Afrasia closely resembles another early anthropoid, Afrotarsius libycus, recently discovered at a site of similar age in the Sahara Desert of Libya. The close similarity between Afrasia and Afrotarsius indicates that early anthropoids colonized Africa only shortly before the time when these animals lived. The colonization of Africa by early anthropoids was a pivotal step in primate and human evolution, because it set the stage for the later evolution of more advanced apes and humans there. The scientific paper describing the discovery appears today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. http://phys.org/news258035946.html Other Sciences 2012-06-04T15:00:01-07:00 For millions of Facebook users, choosing which photo to use for an online profile is an important decision. Should it be lighthearted or professional, personal or more abstract? According to a study by researchers at the UT Dallas Center for Vital Longevity and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the photos we select may reflect individual preferences, but they also appear to reflect more deeply rooted, unconscious cultural differences. http://phys.org/news258033445.html Other Sciences 2012-06-04T12:58:54-07:00 Archaeologists in the eastern Mediterranean region have been unearthing spherical jugs, used by the ancients for storing and trading oil, wine, and other valuable commodities. Because we're used to the metric system, which defines units of volume based on the cube, modern archaeologists believed that the merchants of antiquity could only approximately assess the capacity of these round jugs, says Prof. Itzhak Benenson of Tel Aviv University's Department of Geography. http://phys.org/news258029856.html Other Sciences 2012-06-04T11:58:02-07:00 A small, exploratory study suggests that many first-time parents - particularly mothers - actually increase the amount of time they spend on Facebook after the birth of their child. http://phys.org/news258029639.html Other Sciences 2012-06-04T11:54:06-07:00 It's nearly impossible to write objectively about the science of human kindness, cooperation and altruism if you are, in fact a human being. That's especially true now that there's a rift going on in the evolution community over two competing theories to explain why we're nice or, in technical terms, eusocial. http://phys.org/news258028174.html Other Sciences 2012-06-04T11:50:01-07:00 (Phys.org) -- For most of western history, people have assumed that what is true of “us” in most cases, must be true for “them,” i.e. other groups about which we may actually know little. One example is the concept of time. In virtually all western societies, people envision time in the same abstract way; as a line moving from the past, through us, and on into the future. We speak of back in the past, or moving forward into the future. And because our way of thinking about time is so ingrained in us it’s difficult to imagine that others might really see time in radically different ways. And yet, some do, as evidenced by a remote tribe of people currently living in Papua New Guinea. The Yupno, a team of researchers has found, relate time to the river that dominates their life. The past is water that has already flowed by, while the future is represented by its source, which for them, lies uphill. Rafael Núñeza, Kensy Cooperridera, D Doana and Jürg Wassmannb studied the Yupno and found, as they report in their paper published in Cognition, that some people living in circumstances far different than that seen in the western world, really do see time in a completely different way. http://phys.org/news258017674.html Other Sciences 2012-06-04T09:10:03-07:00 (Phys.org) -- If people think their toddlers are missing the old-person barbs that Homer, Bart and the others toss at Grandpa Simpson, they may want to change their minds—and the channel. Young children are capable of picking up on ageism and stereotyping of older people, and they are also acting on it, showing similar ageist biases, says a group of University of Alberta researchers. http://phys.org/news258016578.html Other Sciences 2012-06-04T08:30:01-07:00 During a recent visit to the Universidad de Chile to conduct workshops on educational leadership to school principals, Dr Marc Pruyn from the Faculty of Education sat down for an interview with Christian Silva Abuyeres from the Chilean newspaper Factor Publico. The following article (translated by Olivia Ramos-Campa and Dr. Pruyn) appeared in the paper in May. http://phys.org/news258017178.html Other Sciences 2012-06-04T08:26:32-07:00 (Phys.org) -- Another look at a nearly 80-year-old pottery collection at the Arizona State Museum is yielding new information about migrants who abandoned the Four Corners region. http://phys.org/news258015221.html Other Sciences 2012-06-04T07:54:03-07:00 University of Melbourne research has found a lack of social networks - and not necessarily racism or poor qualifications - is making life tough for ethnically diverse job seekers. http://phys.org/news258011573.html Other Sciences 2012-06-04T06:53:01-07:00 Analyzing medical records from thousands of patients, statisticians have devised a statistical model for predicting what other medical problems a patient might encounter. http://phys.org/news258002439.html Other Sciences 2012-06-04T04:22:51-07:00 Medicare's new method for buying medical supplies and equipment -- everything from wheelchairs and hospital beds to insulin shots and oxygen tanks -- is doomed to face severe difficulties, according to a new study by Caltech researchers. http://phys.org/news257774834.html Other Sciences 2012-06-01T13:07:22-07:00 All businesses want "engaged" employees -- those who are committed to the success of the company and are willing to go the extra mile to see it flourish. But there's a dark side to engagement that many organizations don't consider: Engaged employees can quickly become disengaged if they feel taken advantage of — and a formerly engaged employee can do more harm to the company than one who was never engaged to begin with. http://phys.org/news257762147.html Other Sciences 2012-06-01T09:35:55-07:00 Mizuko "Mimi" Ito spends a lot of time "geeking out" at her computer. She plays video games, trolls the Internet, chats, and visits social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter for hours on end. http://phys.org/news257759978.html Other Sciences 2012-06-01T08:59:47-07:00 Several complex systems live in periods of short bursts of high activity followed by long uneventful intermissions. This phenomenon called burstiness can be modelled and predicted with mathematical algorithms. Research of Dr Márton Karsai of Aalto University Department of Biomedical Engineering and Computational Science, now shows that burstiness has universal features in very different systems. http://phys.org/news257754328.html Other Sciences 2012-06-01T07:25:43-07:00 Many boys say they would prefer a male befriender according to early findings, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Yet, less than a quarter of UK volunteer child befrienders are men. http://phys.org/news257743362.html Other Sciences 2012-06-01T04:22:50-07:00 There are over 500,000 professional footballers, yet openly gay players appear almost entirely absent. It is often claimed that the problem lies with an intolerant fan culture, but a new study reveals that 93% of football fans oppose homophobia and would support openly gay players. The study, published in the British Journal of Sociology, identifies conservative clubs and agents to be the sport's strongest barriers to change. http://phys.org/news257706605.html Other Sciences 2012-05-31T19:00:03-07:00 Pattern formation in physical, biological, and sociological systems has been studied for many years. Despite the fact that these subject areas are completely diverse, the mathematics that describes underlying patterns in these systems can be surprisingly similar. Mathematical tools can be used to study such systems and predict their patterns. http://phys.org/news257693843.html Other Sciences 2012-05-31T14:38:46-07:00 The assignment to write a court's majority opinion is one of the major tools for shaping judicial and, consequently, public policy. Researchers at the University of Georgia, along with the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, recently examined factors that might influence such an assignment. Based on data from all 50 states, the study reveals that judges' race, gender and other status-based characteristics influence the majority opinion assignment in many state supreme courts. http://phys.org/news257686618.html Other Sciences 2012-05-31T12:37:33-07:00 Americans are more likely to donate to a charity that reflects the values of their political affiliation, according to a new study from Rice University, the University of Texas at San Antonio and Pennsylvania State University. http://phys.org/news257680704.html Other Sciences 2012-05-31T11:10:02-07:00 (AP) — Seven scientists won prizes Thursday for discoveries that involve the furthest reaches of the solar system, vanishingly tiny materials and the complexities of the brain. One finding helped end Pluto's status as a planet. http://phys.org/news257680931.html Other Sciences 2012-05-31T11:02:40-07:00 Hiding your true social identity -- race and ethnicity, gender, age, religion, sexual orientation or a disability -- at work can result in decreased job satisfaction and increased turnover, according to a new study from Rice University, the University of Houston and George Mason University. http://phys.org/news257680663.html Other Sciences 2012-05-31T10:57:50-07:00 As Election Day 2012 draws nearer, the "Twitterverse" promises to light up again and again with explosions of political opinion. But which tweets are the genuinely expressed feelings of individual users and which are systematic disseminations of information meant to support or discredit an idea—the textbook definition of propaganda? http://phys.org/news257679337.html Other Sciences 2012-05-31T10:35:57-07:00 Many ancient human teeth, including specimens tens of thousands of years old, still hold onto tiny pieces of food -- and even bacteria. Anthropologists are studying the tartar attached to ancient human teeth to learn more about the plants people ate and the pathogens they carried long ago. http://phys.org/news257674622.html Other Sciences 2012-05-31T09:50:02-07:00 (Phys.org) -- A new study comparing birds’ wishbones has found prehistoric birds that disappeared 65 million years ago may have employed different flight styles to their modern-day counterparts. http://phys.org/news257674278.html Other Sciences 2012-05-31T09:40:26-07:00 Much of the fervor fueling the anti-immigration debate is shaped by the belief that immigrants—legal and otherwise—are somehow a threat to our national identity. Americans, some critics believe, venerate a set of ideals and attitudes that are distinctly American. But do immigrants honor these same values? http://phys.org/news257675102.html Other Sciences 2012-05-31T09:25:07-07:00 A recently updated 2011 study by the University of Maine School of Economics that sorted and assessed the contents of trash in a representative sample of 17 Maine communities concludes that as much as 60 percent of what’s thrown away could be diverted from the waste stream through composting and recycling. http://phys.org/news257673516.html Other Sciences 2012-05-31T09:10:01-07:00