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"A new survey for the Royal Statistical Society and King's College London shows public opinion is repeatedly off the mark on issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration. The research, carried out by Ipsos Mori from a phone survey of 1,015 people aged 16 to 75, lists ten misconceptions held by the British public. Among the biggest misconceptions are:"

"For many of us, being in a large crowd can be a stressful experience. But for some, this type of environment can make a person feel at their happiest. Now, a new study published in the journal PLOS One suggests reasons behind these different feelings about busy environments."

In the last few years, it's become increasingly clear that food companies engineer hyperprocessed foods in ways precisely geared to most appeal to our tastes. This technologically advanced engineering is done, of course, with the goal of maximizing profits, regardless of the effects of the resulting foods on consumer health, natural resources, the environment or anything else. But the issues go way beyond food, as the City University of New York professor Nicholas Freudenberg discusses in his new book, "Lethal but Legal: Corporations, Consumption, and Protecting Public Health." Freudenberg's case is that the food industry is but one example of the threat to public health posed by what he calls "the corporate consumption complex," an alliance of corporations, banks, marketers and others that essentially promote and benefit from unhealthy lifestyles.

#schoolcounseling

"New Web Series Will Challenge Your Narrow Definition Of Art"

"Crime dramas frequently depict detectives interrogating suspected criminals under bright lights to get the truth out of them. Now, a new study may lend credence to this tactic, as it suggests human emotion - both positive or negative - is experienced more intensely under bright lights."

"New research from Allen Downey, a computer scientist at Olin College of Engineering in Massachusetts, shows a startling correlation between the rise of the Internet and the decline of religious affiliation in the United States. According to MIT Technology Review, back in 1990 only eight percent of the U.S. population did not have a religious affiliation. Twenty years later in 2010 that number was up to 18 percent. That is a jump of 25 million people. Americans seem to be losing their religion, and from Downey's research we may have an answer."

Researchers have long contended that the epicenter of global warming is also farthest from the reach of humanity. It's in the barren landscapes of the frozen North, where red-cheeked children wear fur, the sun barely rises in the winter and temperatures can plunge dozens of degrees below zero. Such a place is the Yamal Peninsula in Siberia, translated as "the ends of the Earth," a desolate spit of land where a group called the Nenets live.

To what extent is value in art determined by the viewer?

Perceived value of art

Japanese people often fail to understand why neighbouring countries harbour a grudge over events that happened in the 1930s and 40s. The reason, in many cases, is that they barely learned any 20th Century history. I myself only got a full picture when I left Japan and went to school in Australia. From Homo erectus to the present day - more than a million years of history in just one year of lessons. That is how, at the age of 14, I first learned of Japan's relations with the outside world.

"Cecil Youngfox was raised in Blind River, a small community in northern Ontario. He has lived in Greenwhich Village, New York, attended Newman Theological College in Alberta and studied art in Vancouver. His art had been a spare time activity until he was able to open up a studio in Toronto and earn enough to support himself."

Since 1955, The Journal of Irreproducible Results has offered "spoofs, parodies, whimsies, burlesques, lampoons and satires" about life in the laboratory. Among its greatest hits: "Acoustic Oscillations in Jell-O, With and Without Fruit, Subjected to Varying Levels of Stress" and "Utilizing Infinite Loops to Compute an Approximate Value of Infinity." The good-natured jibes are a backhanded celebration of science. What really goes on in the lab is, by implication, of a loftier, more serious nature.

It has been jarring to learn in recent years that a reproducible result may actually be the rarest of birds. Replication, the ability of another lab to reproduce a finding, is the gold standard of science, reassurance that you have discovered something true. But that is getting harder all the time. With the most accessible truths already discovered, what remains are often subtle effects, some so delicate that they can be conjured up only under ideal circumstances, using highly specialized techniques.

"Such are the limits of our own concentration and emotional resources, having a serious and appropriate concern for ourselves and the handful of people who deeply depend upon us must frequently involve a calculated restriction of sympathy for, and interest in, others - a due recognition, in other words, that (despite what the news insists, for its own commercial reasons) not everything that happens out there over the Vietnam sea and the Malay hills can or should be our business."

"The Enduring Voices team is pleased to present these Talking Dictionaries, giving listeners around the world a chance to hear some of the most little-known sounds of human speech. Several communities are now offering the online record of their language to be shared by any interested person around the world. While you probably won't walk away from these Talking Dictionaries knowing how to speak a new language, you will encounter fascinating and beautiful sounds--forms of human speech you've never heard before--and through them, get a further glimpse into the rich diversity of culture and experience that humans have created in every part of the globe. "

"Would you sacrifice one person to save five? Such moral choices could depend on whether you are using a foreign language or your native tongue. A new study from psychologists finds that people using a foreign language take a relatively utilitarian approach to moral dilemmas, making decisions based on assessments of what's best for the common good."

"On July 29, Mr. Christie's lawyer will argue in Hawaii federal court that his client should be allowed to present a religious-freedom defense at the eventual criminal trial. He will base his argument on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed by Congress in 1993, which requires the government to show a "compelling interest" whenever it "substantially burdens" a religious practice. In 2006, the Supreme Court relied on the act to permit a New Mexico church to use the hallucinogen hoasca, or ayahuasca, for sacramental purposes."

"Does handwriting matter? Not very much, according to many educators. The Common Core standards, which have been adopted in most states, call for teaching legible writing, but only in kindergarten and first grade. After that, the emphasis quickly shifts to proficiency on the keyboard. But psychologists and neuroscientists say it is far too soon to declare handwriting a relic of the past. New evidence suggests that the links between handwriting and broader educational development run deep."