TOP 100 SCIENCE SITES
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| US shuttle takes worms into space Nasa's Atlantis shuttle blasts off to deliver spare parts - and worms - to the International Space Station. news.bbc.co.uk |
DNA study charts Melbourne's ancestry Researchers have revealed a snapshot of Melburnians' ancestry dating back thousands of years. abc.net.au |
First Jesus-era house discovered in Nazareth NAZARETH, Israel (AP) -- Just in time for Christmas, archaeologists on Monday unveiled what may have been the home of one of Jesus' childhood neighbors. The humble dwelling is the first dating to the era of Jesus to be discovered in Nazareth, then a hamlet of around 50 impoverished Jewish families where Jesus spent his boyhood.... hosted.ap.org |
Positive lyrics can hit home with grumpy teenagers, study says It's a scenario every parent of a teenager will recognise: the bedroom door closes, a volume dial is rotated clockwise and loud music fills the room for hours at a time. But there is some good news – this routine might actually make your child more caring and socially responsible.After years of studies purporting to show the harmful effects of young people listening to songs with violent or misogynistic themes, a psychologist has concluded that music containing a positive message has a beneficial impact on listeners.Dr Tobias Greitemeyer from the University of Sussex carried out a series of tests on groups of students in which those exposed to so-called pro-social music – one example was Help! by the Beatles – later acted in a more considerate and empathetic way than peers who had listened to songs containing a neutral or apparently meaningless lyrical message.His experiments took groups of students and split them at random into those who listened individually either to socially-conscious songs or those with a neutral message, and then used various ways to measure the apparent effect. In one, after the music had stopped, a researcher "accidentally" knocked a cup of pencils from a table and paused briefly before beginning to collect them.On average, those who had heard songs like Michael Jackson's Heal the World responded more quickly and picked up almost five times as many pencils as people in the other group.Other volunteers were asked, after listening to the music, whether they would help with a separate research project. Almost three times as many in the "pro-social" group said they would. "It's a very consistent effect. I did not expect it would be so significant," Greitemeyer said.ResearchPsychologyFamilyPeter Walkerguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Blame BBC for poor weather forecast Michael Fish fails to recognise why the BBC and the Met Office share the blame for poor public confidence in forecasts, particularly those on television (Fair weather friends, 19 January).In the early 1970s it fell to me to represent the BBC in the first contract negotiation with the Met Office that involved money. The sum was modest but the pass was sold. Until then, both bodies stood toe-to-toe in a ring defined by concepts of public service. Each argued its corner as to how best to inform, educate and entertain in a relationship based on mutual interest. The likes of George Cowling, Bert Foord and Jack Scott exemplified the on-screen integrity needed by the Met Office to help justify huge expenditure on some of the largest computers in the world; the corporation recognised how a two-minute forecast, written and presented by the weatherman, could assure a bigger audience for BBC1's 9 O'clock News.And now? The BBC makes its demands and the Met Office rakes in the revenue but, because the customer knows best, it no longer uses the forecaster's own expertise to explain weather on its own terms. Instead, it espouses the standards of the marketplace, with computer graphics dictating the pace of a subjective presentation; a triumph of style over substance.If the Met Office were to recognise that real revenue would accrue if its name was a byword for sheer forecasting competence, it might once again insist on more say in how forecasts are presented. In turn, the BBC might recognise the benefit of packaging that expertise in a way that is not as subservient to the visual presentation. If less money changes hands that would make it all the harder for the competition to shout about how much better it could do the job, when it would be no more than a middleman dependent on forecasts from the Met Office and shrugged shoulders from the BBC.Hugh SheppardOdiham, HampshireWeatherTelevision industryBBCMeteorologyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |