June 27, 2007, 6:15 PM CT

Turn off TV to teach toddlers new words

Toddlers learn their first words better from people than from Teletubbies, as per new research at Wake Forest University.

The study was reported in the June 21 issue of Media Psychology.

Children younger than 22 months may be entertained, but they do not learn words from the television program, said Marina Krcmar, associate professor of communication at Wake Forest and author of the study.

With the tremendous success of programs such as Teletubbies that target very young children, it has become important to understand what very young children are taking away from these programs, Krcmar said. We would like to think it could work, that Teletubbies and other programs can teach initial language skills. That is not true.

In the study, Krcmar reviewed the ability of children ages 15 24 months to learn new words when the words were presented as part of a Teletubbies program. She then reviewed their ability to learn the new words from an adult speaker in the same room with them.

Children younger than 22 months did not accurately identify an object when taught the new word by the television program, but they were readily able to connect the word with the object when the word was presented by an adult standing in front of them, she said......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:22:47 GMT

Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal are Over

"Reese was the one who had to do it. She just got out of a divorce and was so concerned with her family, she just didn't have the time for him and he really demanded that."

Adds the source: "They're still friends. Things are fine, but it was a clean break – [there's] no chance of getting back together."Reps for both actors did not immediately return calls for comment.

Witherspoon, 31, and Ryan Phillippe, 32, who confirmed their split in October after seven years of marriage, have two children: daughter Ava, 7, and son Deacon, 3. The actress started dating Gyllenhaal, 26, her costar in the upcoming CIA thriller Rendition, in the spring.

Although they were careful to avoid the spotlight, they were spotted March 23 dining with two other couples at L.A.'s Il Sole and "being playful," an observer said at the time.

Although the pair didn't have much screen time together while filming Rendition for eight weeks in Morocco, during a reshoot in L.A., "Jake went and reintroduced himself to Reese."

From there, said a friend of Witherspoon's, "Things slowly progressed, but it was never something she thought would happen from the start. She just kind of developed this little crush over time."

People Posted by: Joy A      Read more     Source

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:20:17 GMT

New Executive Stock Scandal

Sooner or later executives are going to realize that cheating the system to buy/sell stocks based on insider information will always get them busted. Just when you thought the backdating thing was winding down, a new piece of research indicates that 10b5-1 plans might be manipulated by some executives. The SEC is investigating.

Alan Jagolinzer, an assistant professor at Stanford University's Graduate School of Business, analyzed the trading patterns of executives enrolled in 10b5- 1 plans over a five-year period. He found that the plans tended to sell after good news and ahead of bad news. The upshot: a trading profit 6 percent better than that of uninformed investors.

On average, Jagolinzer says, there is "evidence of 10b5-1 sale transactions and subsequent underperformance of the stock." Does this mean executives are manipulating 10b5-1? "My paper can only identify an empirical pattern," he says.Selling stock is much more common than buying, for executives, so this may turn out not to be a scandal after all. But corporate executives are gaining quite a reputation for stock manipulation, so I wouldn't be surprised if the SEC and related parties are assuming guilt.

Here's a thought.... what would happen if they took the time and energy they put into manipulation and cover up, and used it to focus on their customers? Posted by: rob      Read more     Source

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:15:04 GMT

Home Sales to Hit Bottom in Another Year

Sales of houses have decreased and are experiencing a 4 year low. As per the National Association of Realtors, the median price has also taken a dive for the tenth month now. Homeowners are experiencing a very bad situation as they would have to further lower the selling price so as to attract the buyers. The log jam of houses is one of the reasons which caused this kind of situation. The second reason which can be accounted is psychology. People are expecting the prices to fall more and so, are taking their time to purchase homes. The median price for an existing home has fallen 2.4% since last year. Also, the mortgaging companies have raised their conditions making it more difficult for a consumer to buy a house. However, the lending standards were only raised after experiencing losses by the respective companies during real estate boom.
The real estate low is also causing shrink in the economy. The new-home sales figures by the commerce department will be out now and field experts are also expecting a decrease.

Source: USAtoday

Image credit: USAtoday Posted by: Khushi      Read more     Source

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:12:51 GMT

Scuzzy

In a sort of disgusting way, this is appealing. I don’t know why the algae in this photo doesn’t come across as bright green. It certainly was in person when I stood on the shore of the lake to take this shot.

This is, or course, algae that had grown lushly in the weeds that had been flooded when the lake reached full pool earlier. I’m not sure why we’ve had such an algal bloom this year. Maybe the heavy rains that filled the lake also washed plenty of nutrients down from the hillsides. Or it could be that my neighbor to the north had fertilized his field heavily. (He’s growing wheat there this year, and I think it’s about ready for harvest, so maybe he’ll put in another crop yet this season.) Part of the drainage for that field leads to my lake.

In any case, great mats of algae are floating just below the surface of the lake. And along the edges, where the water has obviously receded, the algae has been left hanging around, preparing to die and turn black. I’d like to think that all of this living and dying in my lake is working to plug the leaks in the bottom, but I suppose that is wishful thinking.

Despite the scuzz, if the stars had aligned properly on recent visits, Libby and I would have swum in the water without hesitation. But it was the temps, not the scuzz, that kept us away. Surely next time we’ll be able to slip into this green water. Anyone care to join us?

Missouri calendar:

• Prickly pear cactus blooms
• Canada goose molt is at its peak.

Posted by: Roundrockjournal      Read more     Source

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:09:37 GMT

Evening.

"This is one of the rare movies that are too sensitive for their own good," writes David Denby in the New Yorker. "In the course of it, in both the past and the present, all the characters have to spill their feelings about everyone else, and the pileup of hurt, rue, and guilt-confessions and reconciliations and partings-becomes oppressive. The structure that the filmmakers have created is too complicated and fussy for their fairly simple story and what it has to say about time and memory, and some of [director Lajos] Koltai's directorial touches.... turn poetry into kitsch."

"People here don't just talk too much; they say, 'There's something I have to tell you' first," warns David Edelstein in New York. "Evening only bestirs itself when Meryl Streep in old-lady makeup pays [Vanessa] Redgrave a visit: The way these two great actresses breathe the same air and adjust their rhythms to each other seems almost holy."

Updated through 6/27. Posted by: dwhudson      Read more     Source

June 27, 2007, 6:08 AM CT

Why do power couples migrate to metropolitan areas?

More than half of all power couples couples in which both spouses are college graduates live in large metropolitan areas (MSAs) with more than two million residents. What causes the concentration of well-educated couples in big cities" A new study from the Journal of Labor Economics disputes previous research suggesting power couples migrate to large MSAs. Instead, the scientists argue that college-educated singles are more likely to move to big cities where they meet, date, marry, and divorce other college-educated people. In other words, power couples dont move to big cities intact theyre formed there. This finding has important implications for city planners hoping to attract a well-educated workforce.

In 1970, 39 percent of power couples lived in a metropolitan area of at least two million residents. By 1990 this number had grown substantially: Fifty percent of all power couples lived in a big city. In contrast, couples in which neither spouse has a college degree have the lowest probability of living in a large city and the lowest rate of increase, growing from 30 percent to 34 percent in the same twenty year period.

Using data from a large-scale statistical study of 4,800 families (Panel Study on Income Dynamics), Janice Compton (University of Manitoba) and Robert A. Pollak (Washington University and National Bureau of Economic Research) argue that couple migration patterns to large metropolitan areas are influenced gendered determinants couples in which the man has a college degree are far more likely to move to a metropolitan area than couples in which only the woman has a college degree......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

June 20, 2007, 9:44 AM CT

How do Americans want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions?

Most Americans now think that global warming is happening, and they want the federal government to take action to limit its effects. But what form should that action take" And does support for action hold firm if people understand how much it may cost them financially" .

To find out, New Scientist, Stanford University and Resources for the Future, an independent think tank, commissioned the survey research firm Knowledge Networks to query a representative sample of American adults.

We investigated three main ways of reducing greenhouse pollution.

1)Standards or mandates: The government tells companies exactly how they must generate electricity or manufacture vehicle fuel to achieve a cut in emissions.

2) Emissions Tax: The government taxes companies for their greenhouse gas emissions.

3) Cap-and-Trade: The government imposes a cap on companies greenhouse gas emissions, but allows companies to trade permits - which represent the right to emit a certain amount of pollution.

The aim of our poll was to test the relative attractiveness of these three options. We told 1,491 adults how each option could work in each of two sectors: vehicle fuel and electricity. We chose these sectors because they are each responsible for a substantial proportion of US greenhouse emissions, and because any costs of making cuts will likely be passed onto consumers. That gave a total of six possible policies, each of which we told respondents would reduce total projected US greenhouse emissions in 2020 by five percent......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

June 19, 2007, 4:57 AM CT

Scots more likely than English to reach university

Whilst young people in Britain increasingly value education and stay on at school, the proportion gaining qualifications and going to college and university over the past 20 years has been 'consistently and substantially' greater in Scotland, as per a unique study funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

But the project, led by Dr Linda Croxford with Professor David Raffe of the University of Edinburgh, observed that while the Scottish system encouraged young people to study beyond the age of 16, middle class students took most advantage.

Using carefully constructed sets of data drawn from ongoing surveys of thousands of young people aged 16-19, scientists were able for the first time to analyse the effects of social change on their experiences through and beyond the education system, and to map trends across Britain.

The report says that more than half of Britains 16-year olds in the mid-1980s felt that school had done little to prepare them for life, compared with just a third by 1999. And those feeling it had helped give them confidence to make decisions rose from 52 to 70 per cent.

The research compared the success rates of young people from working-class and middle-class backgrounds. Their findings for England present a more positive picture than other recent studies which show class inequalities remaining stable or even increasing. Inequalities in attainment at age 16 changed little over the period, but at A level and entry to higher education in England, they narrowed slightly over the period......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

June 19, 2007, 4:52 AM CT

Learning a sense of community online

Children and their teachers are already benefiting from online learning communities such as the Oracle Education Foundation's Think.com, but there is a real opportunity for richer learning with such systems that is yet to be tapped.

Elizabeth Hartnell-Young of the Learning Sciences Research Institute at the University of Nottingham and freelance statistician Karen Corneille of Victoria, Australia, writing in the International Journal of Web Based Communities, describe how they have taken Think.com as a case study and investigated how a free, password-protected online community can support children's learning.

"We observed that a number of children engaged readily with the site," says Hartnell-Young. Even those children with less developed ICT skills benefited from interacting with others. She adds that, "educators played a powerful role in mediating learning, managing the communities, setting guidelines for participation, and linking students with outside experts." Such online communities are still not mature enough to provide a fully rich learning experience, however, the scientists add.

As part of their assessment of the online learning community, the team defined the process of learning as not simply rote learning of events and objects but the creation of knowledge products, including information, principles and theories. Building knowledge obviously underpins learning......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source