Tuesday, April 30

Tag: study

Data Shows, Kids With A Desk And A Quiet Place To Study Do Better In School
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EDUCATION

Data Shows, Kids With A Desk And A Quiet Place To Study Do Better In School

Ask what students need to learn at home, and the answer often involves access to Wi-Fi or a digital device. For example, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 sets aside US$7.1 billion to support access to high-speed internet for schools and libraries. What often gets overlooked is whether kids have a desk at home or a quiet place to study. As researchers who focus on education policy and how students perform on standardized tests, we decided to take a closer look – on a global scale – at the degree to which students have desks at home and whether that’s linked to how well they do in school. To do this we turned to the Trends in Mathematics and Science Study, also known as TIMSS, an international assessment administered every four years by the International Association for the Evaluation ...
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New Study Reveals Where And Why 80% Of Fatal E-Scooter Crashes Involve Cars Most Collisions Occur
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SOCIETY

New Study Reveals Where And Why 80% Of Fatal E-Scooter Crashes Involve Cars Most Collisions Occur

About 30 people in the United States have been killed riding electric scooters since 2018. Most – 80% – were hit by drivers of cars. Publicly available e-scooters arrived to U.S. cities in 2017 as an energy-efficient and fun new way to get around town. By 2019, e-scooter rides had soared from zero to 88 million trips annually. But putting e-scooter riders on the same roads as cars without good infrastructure or clear rules has been dangerous. Making streets safer will require urban policymakers, not to mention drivers, to understand where and why cars collide with these new vehicles. The few empirical studies on e-scooter safety come from emergency departments in cities where e-scooters launched early, like Los Angeles and Austin. They meticulously describe which injuries occurred and w...
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In Ultraclean Labs ‘Humanized Pigs’ Are Being Created To Study Human Illnesses And Treatments
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SCIENCE

In Ultraclean Labs ‘Humanized Pigs’ Are Being Created To Study Human Illnesses And Treatments

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires all new medicines to be tested in animals before use in people. Pigs make better medical research subjects than mice, because they are closer to humans in size, physiology and genetic makeup. Pigs with human immune systems. Ahlea Forster, CC BY-SA In recent years, our team at Iowa State University has found a way to make pigs an even closer stand-in for humans. We have successfully transferred components of the human immune system into pigs that lack a functional immune system. This breakthrough has the potential to accelerate medical research in many areas, including virus and vaccine research, as well as cancer and stem cell therapeutics. Existing biomedical models Severe Combined Immunodeficiency, or SCID, is a genetic condition that cause...
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‘Last Chance U’ The Netflix Series Speaks To The Reality Of Athletes I Study
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EDUCATION, VIDEO REELS

‘Last Chance U’ The Netflix Series Speaks To The Reality Of Athletes I Study

The concept behind Netflix’s hit docuseries “Last Chance U” is simple: Locate a junior college sports team, follow the team around for an entire season with video cameras, and show how team members struggle to realize their dreams of going pro despite their difficult pasts. The show’s popularity rests on the fact that athletes often end up in junior college – or “JUCO,” as it’s often called – through adverse circumstances. These colleges often represent their last chance to get recruited to a big-time college team, or at least a four-year college. The prospect of going from “rags to riches” as an athlete is a narrative that seems to resonate well. While “Last Chance U” has dealt with junior college football, on March 10 an eight-episode spinoff will focus on junior college basketball. A ...
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A Black Hole, Could A Human Enter One To Study It
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SCIENCE

A Black Hole, Could A Human Enter One To Study It

To solve the mysteries of black holes, a human should just venture into one. A person falling into a black hole and being stretched while approaching the black hole’s horizon. Leo Rodriguez and Shanshan Rodriguez, CC BY-ND   Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com. Could a human enter a black hole to study it? – Pulkeet, age 12, Bahadurgarh, Haryana, India However, there is a rather complicated catch: A human can do this only if the respective black hole is supermassive and isolated, and if the person entering the black hole does not expect to report the findings to anyone in the entire universe. We are both physicists who study black holes, albeit from a very safe d...
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Study Reveals On National Average Neighborhoods With MLK Streets Are Poorer And Highly Segregated
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Journalism

Study Reveals On National Average Neighborhoods With MLK Streets Are Poorer And Highly Segregated

The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea Poverty rates are almost double the national average in areas surrounding streets named after Martin Luther King Jr., according to our recent study, and educational attainment is much lower. The United States has 955 streets named after Martin Luther King Jr.. Katherine Welles/Shutterstock, CC BY-SA Our geography research, published in the GeoJournal in September 2020, analyzed the racial makeup and economic well-being of 22,286 census blocks in the U.S. with roadways bearing the slain civil rights leader’s name. Streets named after Martin Luther King typically run through multiple census blocks; we identified a total of 955 such streets in the United States. The areas surrounding MLK streets are predominantl...
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According To A 25-Year-Long Study Of Families, Racial Discrimination Ages Black Americans Faster
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IN OTHER NEWS

According To A 25-Year-Long Study Of Families, Racial Discrimination Ages Black Americans Faster

I’m part of a research team that has been following more than 800 Black American families for almost 25 years. We found that people who had reported experiencing high levels of racial discrimination when they were young teenagers had significantly higher levels of depression in their 20s than those who hadn’t. This elevated depression, in turn, showed up in their blood samples, which revealed accelerated aging on a cellular level. Our research is not the first to show Black Americans live sicker lives and die younger than other racial or ethnic groups. The experience of constant and accumulating stress due to racism throughout an individual’s lifetime can wear and tear down the body – literally “getting under the skin” to affect health. These findings highlight how stress from racism, pa...
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New Study Finds Undocumented Immigrants May Actually Make American Communities Safer – Not More Dangerous
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IMPACT

New Study Finds Undocumented Immigrants May Actually Make American Communities Safer – Not More Dangerous

Undocumented immigration does not increase the violent crime rate in U.S. metropolitan areas. In fact, it may reduce property crime rates. These are the key findings from our recently published article in the Journal of Crime and Justice, co-authored by Yulin Yang, James Bachmeier and Mike Maciag. Research shows that the American communities where immigrants make their homes are more often improved by their presence than harmed by it. Immigrants bring social, cultural and economic activity to the places they live. That makes these places more vital and safer, not more dangerous. Why it matters People from all social groups and backgrounds commit crimes. But undocumented immigrants, and immigrants more generally, are often baselessly blamed for increasing crime rates – including, repeatedl...
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Newly Published Study Shows Women Politicians Responsive To People Who Reach Out In Time Of Need
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POLITICS

Newly Published Study Shows Women Politicians Responsive To People Who Reach Out In Time Of Need

Women politicians are more responsive than men when people come to them seeking health care and economic support, our newly published study on gender and government responsiveness reveals. Our research, conducted in 2017, was published in the Journal of Experimental Political Science in August. For our experiment, we posed as citizens of different genders and emailed a request for help to a total of 3,685 national legislators in France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay. In Europe, we asked for assistance signing up for unemployment benefits. In Latin America, we requested help getting medical care without health insurance. The response rate ranged widely, from 6% in Mexico – where government accountability to citizens is a docum...
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How ‘good’ does a COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine need to be to stop the pandemic? A new study has answers
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COVID-19

How ‘good’ does a COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine need to be to stop the pandemic? A new study has answers

The U.S. is pinning its hopes on a COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine, but will a vaccine alone be enough to stop the pandemic and allow life to return to normal? The answer depends on a how “good” the vaccine ends up being. In a study published July 15 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, my colleagues and I used a computer simulation of every person in the country to show how effective a vaccine would have to be and how many people would have to get vaccinated to end the pandemic. We found that a coronavirus vaccine’s effectiveness may have to be higher than 70% or even 80% before Americans can safely stop relying social distancing. By comparison, the measles vaccine has an efficacy of 95%-98%, and the flu vaccine is 20%-60%. That doesn’t mean a vaccine that offers less protectio...
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