Futurity.org » Society & Culture

Survey: Mixed feelings in Florida over immigration

Mickie Anderson-Florida — Thu, 23 May 2013 16:13:26 +0000

U. FLORIDA (US) — While residents in Florida have negative feelings about undocumented immigrants, an overwhelming majority also favor a policy that would allow them a path to US citizenship, a new survey suggests.

The survey of 507 Floridians shows that although many see undocumented immigrants as threats to their economic well-being and personal safety, they still have “pockets” of sympathetic views toward those trying to establish themselves as US residents.

Tool gives hi-def origin of Syrian artifacts

Amy Stone-Sheffield — Wed, 22 May 2013 18:51:41 +0000

U. SHEFFIELD (UK) — Magnetic analysis lets archaeologists match obsidian artifacts from Syria to the specific quarry—not just the volcano—of origin.

While at the University of Sheffield from 1965 until 1972, Professor Lord Colin Renfrew developed a technique that matched stone tools made of obsidian, naturally occurring glass, to their volcanic origins based on their chemical fingerprints.

Did abrupt climate change spark human culture?

Emma Darling-Cardiff — Wed, 22 May 2013 15:35:16 +0000

CARDIFF U. (UK) — Rapid climate change 80,000 to 40,000 years ago, the Middle Stone Age, may have sparked cultural innovation in early modern humans, according to new research.

Scientists studied a marine sediment core off the coast of South Africa and reconstructed terrestrial climate variability over the last 100,000 years. Their research is published this month in Nature Communications.

Martin Ziegler, Cardiff University School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, says: “We found that South Africa experienced rapid climate transitions toward wetter conditions at times when the Northern Hemisphere experienced extremely cold conditions.”

To be perfect, practice isn’t enough

Andy Henion-Michigan State — Tue, 21 May 2013 17:53:33 +0000

MICHIGAN STATE (US) — There may be more to perfection than a lot of practice, according to a small study of chess players and musicians.

A study published in the journal Intelligence shows that even copious amount of practice is not enough to explain why people differ in level of skill in two widely studied activities: chess and music.

Early bilinguals pick up two ‘sound systems’

Alexis Blue-U. Arizona — Tue, 21 May 2013 16:48:26 +0000

U. ARIZONA (US) — People who learn two languages early in life can switch back and forth between separate sound codes for each language.

The finding addresses enduring questions about how bilingual speakers hear and process sound in two different languages.

“A lot of research has shown that bilinguals are pretty good at accommodating speech variation across languages, but there’s been a debate as to how,” says Kalim Gonzales, University of Arizona psychology doctoral student and lead author on the study.

Strong guys less willing to share wealth

Andrea Estrada-UCSB — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:00:05 +0000

UC SANTA BARBARA (US) — Upper body strength and socioeconomic status can predict men’s opinions on the redistribution of wealth, according to researchers.

“The link between body size and aggressiveness is everywhere in the animal kingdom,” says Daniel Sznycer, a postdoctoral researcher at University of California, Santa Barbara’s Center for Evolutionary Psychology and co-author of the paper. “It’s there among invertebrates, vertebrates, non-human primates, and human primates—us.”

At the level of individuals, redistribution involves a conflict over resources, so the human mind should perceive issues of economic redistribution through that lens, Sznycer continues.

Kindergarten math lessons are ‘old news’

Bonnie Ertelt-Vanderbilt — Fri, 17 May 2013 14:26:30 +0000

VANDERBILT (US) — Kindergarten teachers say they spend most of their math instructional time teaching lessons students have already mastered, like shapes and basic counting.

The findings reveal a misalignment between what the students are being taught and what they already know.

Kids aren’t kind to chubby cartoons

Rachel Barson-Leeds — Wed, 15 May 2013 15:55:29 +0000

U. LEEDS (UK) — Very young children appear to reject storybook characters who are overweight as potential friends, a study shows.

Researchers asked children in the UK to rate their choices between characters that were drawn as overweight, normal weight, or disabled. They found that children voiced more negative views about the fictional book character “fat Alfie”.

DNA reveals origins of Minoan civilization

Stephanie Seiler-U. Washington — Wed, 15 May 2013 14:16:27 +0000

U. WASHINGTON (US) — DNA from skeletal remains clears up competing theories about the origins of the earliest European civilization.

DNA analysis is unearthing the origins of the Minoans, who some 5,000 years ago established the first advanced Bronze Age civilization in present-day Crete. The findings suggest they arose from an ancestral Neolithic population that had arrived in the region about 4,000 years earlier.

Come on, get happy, crank up the music

Timothy Wall-Missouri — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:34:43 +0000

U. MISSOURI (US) — You really can convince yourself to be happier, especially if you’re listening to an upbeat song while doing so.

“Our work provides support for what many people already do—listen to music to improve their moods,” says lead author Yuna Ferguson, who performed the study while she was a doctoral student in psychological science at the University of Missouri.