science wire

U. of I. program targets growing obesity rate among Midwest Hispanics
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Hispanics living in the Midwest have the highest obesity rates among Latinos in the U.S., and in Illinois, the percentage of obese Latino children 6-11 years of age has doubled since 2001, standing now at 24 percent.

Design eye for the science guy: Drop-in clinic helps scientists communicate data
“ A brief guide to designing effective figures for the scientific paper ” by Marco Rolandi, Karen Cheng and former UW faculty member Sarah Perez-Kriz Some of the figures scientists create are stunning.

Martin Meyerson's Legacy

New book helps bring evidence-based explanations to science classrooms
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The National Research Council's newly released Framework for K-12 Science Education captures contemporary thinking about the role of core ideas, cross-cutting themes, and scientific practices in science learning.

U-M honors six faculty Thurnau professors

Many babies born to immigrants incorrectly labelled underweight
For some immigrant parents, especially South Asians, questions about a baby's birthweight may be stressful, because many of their newborns are incorrectly diagnosed as being significantly underweight. Low birthweight generally means a baby could be at higher risk of developmental issues. Researchers at the University of Toronto and St. Michael's Hospital say many of these infants are in fact the correct birthweight for their ethnic group and should not be compared to those of babies of Canadian-born mothers.

Puzzle play helps boost learning of important math-related skills
Children who play with puzzles between ages 2 and 4 later develop better spatial skills, a study by University of Chicago researchers has found. Puzzle play was found to be a significant predictor of spatial skill after controlling for differences in parents' income, education and the overall amount of parent language input.

Women leave math-intensive science fields when they decide to have kids
Women with advanced degrees in math-intensive academic fields drop out of fast-track research careers primarily because they want children - not because their performance is devalued or they are shortchanged during ing and hiring, report two Cornell professors.

Penn’s Med Ed Teaches Those Who Teach America’s Doctors

Research to improve the lives of children, families and communities
The new CEHDVision2020 blog offers perspectives on human development across the lifespan MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (02/09/2012) —The University of Minnesota's College of Education and Hum

U of M seeks Minnesota National Guard and Reserve families to evaluate parenting resources during and after deployment
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (02/08/2012) —University of Minnesota researchers are recruiting more than 300 Minnesota National Guard and Reserve families to participate in an ongoing study that

"Flipped classroom" teaching model gains an online community
The Peer Instruction Network, a new global social site for interactive teaching, launches at Harvard Researchers at Harvard University have launched the Peer Instruction (PI) Network ( www.peerinstruction.net ), a new global social network for users of interactive teaching methods.

’Shadow Education’ Affects Academic Success of East Asian Americans
A new study co-authored by University of Pennsylvania sociologist Hyunjoon Park chalks up East Asian American students' high SAT scores in part to their high level of participation in "shadow education" activities outside formal schools.

Two Penn GSE Researchers Help Department of Education With College Completion
Two professors at the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education , Laura Perna and Marybeth Gasman , are in Washington today to participate in the Department of Education's Evidence-Action-Innovation: A College Completion Symposium.

Early intervention may curb dangerous college drinking
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The first few weeks of college are a critical time in shaping students' drinking habits. Now Penn State researchers have a tailored approach that may help prevent students from becoming heavy drinkers. "Research shows there is a spike in alcohol-related consequences that occur in the first few weeks of the semester, especially with college freshmen," said Michael J. Cleveland, research associate at the Prevention Research Center and the Methodology Center.

Urban Education Institute partnership to create model for early childhood, K-12 education
The University of Chicago Urban Education Institute and the Ounce of Prevention Fund have been awarded a total of $2.45 million to support a multi-year effort to develop a model of public education f

University of Minnesota startup Drive Power uses mobile app DriveScribe to monitor and coach teen driving skills
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (01/12/2012) —Some 16.5 million drivers are involved in traffic accidents in the United States each year, and more than 12 percent of them are under the age of 20&m

LectureTools: U-M tech startup featured at Las Vegas show
ANN ARBOR, Mich. - A University of Michigan educational technology that aims to make large lecture classes feel smaller and more interactive is on display this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Video games at school?
To video gamers, the name Microsoft Kinect is synonymous with the Xbox 360 video game console. To University of Toronto graduate student Uzma Khan , the motion-sensing input device offered a myriad of other possibilities.

New Approach to Management of Overeating in Children
Promising results lead to upcoming clinical trial at UC San Diego for adults and children Overeating, whether in children or adults, often takes place even in the absence of hunger, resulting in weight gain and obesity. Current methods to treat such overeating in youth focus on therapies that restrict what kids may eat, requiring them to track their food intake and engage in intensive exercise.

Parental response to sexual abuse varies by age of victim, suspect
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Parents are more likely to blame or doubt a child victim of sexual abuse when the suspected perpetrator is an adolescent rather than an adult, according to a new study that examined child molestation cases in four states. The findings also suggest that, regardless of the age of the perpetrator, parental blame/doubt toward the victim significantly increases if the victim is an adolescent.

Learning Center at UC San Diego Wins $18-Million Renewal
How do humans learn, and how is the element of time critical for learning? The Temporal Dynamics of Learning Center (TDLC), headquartered at UC San Diego in the Institute for Neural Computation, is helping to answer that question, thanks in part to an $18 million renewal grant from the National Science Foundation.

Ramon Saldivar takes helm of the Center for Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity
The center, whose twin pillars are undergraduate teaching and faculty research, is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year.

UC San Diego Health System Experts Offer Halloween Tips
The Emergency Department staff at UC San Diego Health System - along with the California Poison Control System - San Diego Division located at UC San Diego Medical Center- offer the following safety precautions to help parents and guardians make Halloween safe.

New York’s 4-H program to become more research-based
To strengthen its ties to research, oversight of 4-H - New York state's largest youth development program - has moved to Cornell's new Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research from Cornell Cooperative Extension. The move will provide new opportunities for teaching and research and help to improve 4-H programs.

Harsh discipline fosters dishonesty in young children
Study compares lie-telling behaviour in harshly punitive, mildly punitive environments Young children exposed to a harshly punitive school environment are more inclined to lie to conceal their m

Harsh discipline fosters dishonesty in young children
Young children exposed to a harshly punitive school environment are more inclined to lie to conceal their misbehaviour than are children from non-punitive schools, a study of three- and four-year-old West African children suggests.

Stanford’s Roundtable panelists see bold new horizons, old problems in redefining education
PBS host Charlie Rose and a distinguished panel tackle the question of how to improve our troubled school systems and provide a better future for our nation's greatest resource, our kids.

David Eidelman named Dean of Medicine and Vice-Principal (Health Affairs)
Currently Chair of the Department of Medicine, leading researcher is a McGill grad, native Montrealer Principal Heather Munroe-Blum announced that today the Board of Governors of McGill Universi

SEAS instructors honored with Q Certificates

NSF grant will virtualize evidence-based teaching for science and engineering
Harvard and UT-Austin aim to give any instructor, anywhere in the world, open-access research-based tools Harvard University and The University of Texas at Austin have received a $500,000 grant

Surprising number of divorcing parents are open to reconciliation, new University of Minnesota study finds
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (09/29/2011) —There is a surprising level of interest in reconciliation among couples with children involved in the divorce process, something no research had examined before, according to a new study done by University of Minnesota researcher Bill Doherty in collaboration with Hennepin County District Court Judge Bruce Peterson.

Trappings of Parenthood Leads to Long-Term Weight Gain, New Study Shows
Sept. 22, 2011 AUSTIN, Texas — Parenthood accelerates weight gain over the life course according to a new study from The University of Texas at Austin. In a study to appear in Social Science and Medicine , Debra Umberson, professor of sociology at the university, found that adults with children gain significantly more weight over time than those without.

33 percent drop in physical bullying in schools using Steps to Respect
Elementary schools using the bullying prevention program Steps to Respect saw a reduction in physical bullying and in the number of teachers reporting fighting as a big problem, according to a new University of Washington study.

Getting kids to eat whole grains: What will it take U of M researchers may have some answers
MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (09/20/2011) —Children and adolescents aren't eating enough whole grains, but new research from the University of Minnesota offers some insight into how parents and school lunch professionals can improve kids' whole grain intake. Fewer than 1 percent of Americans between the ages of 9 and 18 currently eat the recommended daily 3 to 5 servings of whole grains.

NSF Grant to Help Identify New Teaching Methods to Retain Women in Computing and IT
Sept.

Crisis nursery kids more likely to return to families from foster care
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Children who receive crisis nursery services prior to being placed in out-of-home care are twice as likely to be reunited with their biological families as other children in Illinois' child welfare system, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Illinois.

Researchers give low marks to California’s English proficiency test for kindergarteners
Most of the thousands of four- and five-year-olds who take California's official test for English language proficiency before they start kindergarten are bound to fail that exam, according to a new University of California, Berkeley, study.

Scientific Lifetime Achievement Recognized: Francis Glorieux Chair in Pediatric Musculoskeletal Research
On September 13, McGill University and Shriners Hospitals for Children -Canada announced the creation of the Francis Glorieux Chair in Pediatric Musculoskeletal Research at the hospital in Montreal.

Researcher launches national K-12 English Language Learning initiative
With more students than ever identified as English Language Learners in the United States, language expert and Stanford education Professor Kenji Hakuta is leading a national initiative to provide teachers with resources to meet these students' educational needs.

New limits on physician training hours could prove costly for U.S. teaching hospitals
The new limits on hours that physicians-in-training can work will prove costly for U.S teaching hospitals, which will need to spend up to $1.3 billion a year, and possibly more, to effect the changes, a new UCLA study suggests.

Bilingual babies’ vocabulary linked to early brain differentiation
Babies and children are whizzes at learning a second language, but that ability begins to fade as early as their first birthdays. Researchers at the University of Washington's Institute for Learning & Brain Sciences are investigating the brain mechanisms that contribute to infants' prowess at learning languages, with the hope that the findings could boost bilingualism in adults, too.