Group items tagged

"It is a widely accepted principle of distributive justice that goods should be distributed to individuals according to their contribution, i.e., people should receive equal pay for equal work (equity principle)...Recently, neuroscientific studies have begun to address neural processes underlying social and economic phenomena like e.g., reactions to norm violations, status concerns, and reactions to unfair behavior. These studies have convergingly identified brain regions that are important for these aspects of social behavior. One consistent finding is that activations of the dopaminergic mesolimbic ("reward") system, especially the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) do not exclusively reflect material self-interest, but also social aspects

"Rather, these successful men needed to also be blessed with "zeal and with capacity for hard labour." This study is a first glimpse into those essential qualities described by Galton, helping us map out the individual differences that make it slightly easier for some people to engage in hard labor. These diligent souls seem to get a bit more pleasure from the possibility of reward, but they also seem less sensitive to their inner complainer, that disruptive voice reminding them that minesweeper is more fun than editing, or that the ballgame on television is much more entertaining than their homework. At any given moment, there is a tug of war unfolding in our head, determining whether or not we're willing to put in the effort. This sentence only exists because, for a few minutes at least, I was able to win the war."

Puget Sound hosts more than 100 species of seabirds, 200 species of fish, 15 marine mammal species, hundreds of plant species, and thousands of invertebrate species. These species do not exist in isolation, but rather interact with each other in a variety of ways: they eat and are eaten by each other;

"But, "one has to be cautious. This is exciting science in rodents, but you can't just extrapolate to humans," says Emeran Mayer, a gastroenterologist and neuroscientist at UCLA's Center for Neurobiology of Stress who was not involved in the new study. Drug and food companies that make probiotics - beneficial bacteria taken in a pill or eaten in food such as yogurt - hope the products can help relieve depression, improve weight loss and cure other conditions, but there is little evidence in people that probiotics can accomplish those goals, Mayer says. "It's almost like science fiction; you can imagine the most amazing things because so little is known about it," he says. But, "So far there's really no evidence that probiotics affect emotions in humans." "

"or those of you who do not have the patience to read the whole review, but are interested in the way new technologies, especially the Internet, are changing the way science is done, I can say - go now and buy yourself a copy of Reinventing Discovery: The New Era of Networked Science. It is excellent. Worth your investment in time and money."

"I simply cannot believe that John Cook of Skeptical Science and psychologist Stephan Lewandowsky managed, in just 8 pages, to create something as magnificent as their new Debunking Handbook. It is packed not only with wonderful graphics, but also with a clear explanation of why many attempts to defeat misinformation fail, and what steps must be taken to do a better job. The core issue, of course, is one that I've written much about-too many scientists assume that that facts win out on their own, but that isn't actually true"

The book is about networked science: the use of online tools to transform the way science is done. In the book I make the case that networked science has the potential to dramatically speed up the rate of scientific discovery, not just in one field, but across all of science. Furthermore, it won't just speed up discovery, but will actually amplify our collective intelligence, expanding the range of scientific problems which can be attacked at all. But, as I explain in the book, there are cultural obstacles that are blocking networked science from achieving its full potential. And so the book is also a manifesto, arguing that networked science must be open science if it is to realize its potential. Making the change to open science is a big challenge. In my opinion it's one of the biggest challenges our society faces, one that requires action on many fronts. One of those fronts is to make sure that everyone - including scientists, but also grant agencies, governments, libraries, and, especially, the general public -- understands how important the stakes are, and how urgent is the need for change.

The AIFB Web Portal is the public web site of the Institute of Applied Informatics and Formal Description Methods (AIFB) at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. It uses Semantic MediaWiki to provide a highly customised Content Management System. The site provides content in two languages (German and English), and it offers rich views for browsing different kinds of data. The content of the AIFB Web Portal is regularly edited by most members of the institute, from secretary to professor, but it is not open for public editing.

Stanford Research International (SRI) claims to have developed a new method for creating liquid transportaion fuels that will result in zero emissions during the manufacturing process and is also less expensive compared to other types of laternative fuels. Too good to be true? Well, this is not only good but also true!

"However, anthropological datasets show enormous complexity in how and why men and women behave the ways that they do [vi]. Studies in human biology and anthropology regularly demonstrate a dynamic flexibility and complex biocultural context for all human behavior, and this is especially true for gender.... No matter how much some want it to be true, it is just not that simple; there are no clear cut and easy answers to why we do what we do, and why men and women sometimes have problems getting along. To ignore the enormous wealth of data on how men and women are similar AND different and to try to tackle this enormously complex reality via one-dimensional approaches is just poor science."

Sciencenet - Towards a global search and share engine for all scientific knowledge. We have developed a prototype distributed scientific search engine technology, "Sciencenet", which facilitates rapid searching over this large data space. By "bringing the search engine to the data" we do not require server farms. This platform also allows users to contribute to the search index and publish their large scale data to support e-Science. Furthermore, a community-driven method guarantees that only scientific content is crawled and presented. Our peer-to-peer approach is sufficiently scalable for the science web without performance or capacity tradeoff.

" Moving Beyond Belly Button Biodiversity…we will study the species living with you on your body but also in the other biomes of YOUR household. If you want to know who is hiding in your refrigerator or mating in the pillow where you rest your head, we can help you. When you look beside you in bed, you notice no more than one animal (alternative lifestyles and cats notwithstanding). For nearly all of our history, our beds and lives were shared by multitudes. Live in a mud-walled hut in the Amazon, and bats will sleep above you, spiders beside you, the dog and cat not far away, and then there are the insects beating themselves stupid against the dwindling animal-fat flame. In addition, your gut would be filled with intestinal worms, your body (and nearly everything else) covered in multitudes of unnamed microbes, and your lungs occupied by a fungus uniquely your own."

The event horizon telescope will only photograph the proximity to the event horizon, not the black hole itself which by definition remains invisible. If it succeeds it will be the first actual proof that black holes exist.

http://www.ted.com In his lab, Martin Hanczyc makes "protocells," experimental blobs of chemicals that behave like living cells. His work demonstrates how life might have first occurred on Earth ... and perhaps elsewhere too.

"During wakefulness, we are always conscious of ourselves. In sleep, however, we are not. But there are people, known as lucid dreamers, who can become aware of dreaming during sleep. Studies employing magnetic resonance tomography (MRT) have now been able to demonstrate that a specific cortical network consisting of the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the frontopolar regions and the precuneus is activated when this lucid consciousness is attained. All of these regions are associated with self-reflective functions. This research into lucid dreaming gives the authors of the latest study insight into the neural basis of human consciousness."

Linked Data Research Centre (LiDRC) Laboratory The LiDRC Lab is a collection of tools and demos we are working on in the Linked Data Research Centre, DERI at NUI Galway. Experimental Tools & Services In the table below you'll find tools and services we are experimenting with. They are likely not stable and are subject to (rapid) change.

" Of course, skeptics hope that their efforts aid in advancing science education.1 In spite of these efforts, survey data from several sources suggests that paranormal belief and pseudoscientific thinking continue to be commonplace.2 Skeptics often use these findings to reinforce arguments for more science education. Their argument is based upon the largely untested assumption that increased science knowledge reduces the number of paranormal beliefs an individual holds. However, this assumption may not be valid. Andrew Ede recently argued that science education may do little to raise the level of rational thinking and may, in fact, actually deter it!"

This wiki collects information about tools and resources that can help scholars (particularly in the humanities and social sciences) conduct research more efficiently or creatively.  Whether you need software to help you manage citations, author a multimedia work, or analyze texts, Digital Research Tools will help you find what you're looking for. We provide a directory of tools organized by research activity, as well as reviews of select tools in which we not only describe the tool's features, but also explore how it might be employed most effectively by researchers.

HOW do people acquire high levels of skill in science, business, music, the arts and sports? This has long been a topic of intense debate in psychology. Research has shown that intellectual ability matters for success in many fields - and not just up to a point.

"For this study, the investigators bred mice lacking TRPV4 or administered a drug to deactivate it. In the absence of TRPV4, white cells turned on a set of genes that consume energy to produce heat, rather than storing the energy as excess fat. This "thermogenic" process normally occurs in brown or beige fat (commonly called "good fat"), which is found mostly in small animals and human infants to protect against cold. When the TRPV4-deficient mice were put on a high-calorie diet for several weeks, they did not become obese, and their level of fat cell inflammation and insulin resistance was lowered. "We have identified a target that, when inhibited, can activate beige adipose tissue and suppress inflammation," said Spiegelman."