Source: http://www.thehollywoodgossip.com/2013/05/kendra-spears-to-marry-prince-become-royalty/
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Thursday, May 2, 2013
Understanding student weaknesses
May 2, 2013 ? As part of an unusual study, Philip Sadler, the Frances W. Wright Senior Lecturer in the Department of Astronomy, and colleagues tested 181 middle school physical science teachers and nearly 10,000 of their students, and showed that while most of the teachers were well-versed in their subject, those better able to predict their students' wrong answers on standardized tests helped students learn the most.
If you had to explain what causes the change in seasons, could you? Surprisingly, studies have shown that as many as 95 percent of people -- including most college graduates -- hold the incorrect belief that the seasons are the result of the Earth moving closer to or further from the sun.
The real answer, scientists say, is that as Earth's axis is tilted with respect to its orbit, when on its journey it is angled inward, the sun rises higher in the sky, and that results in more direct sunlight, longer days, and warmer temperatures. Distance plays no role; we are actually closest to the sun in the dead of winter, during the first week of January.
Why do so many people continue to hold the wrong idea? The answer, said Philip Sadler, the Frances W. Wright Senior Lecturer in the Department of Astronomy and director of the science education department at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), may be found in what science teachers know.
As part of an unusual study, Sadler and colleagues tested 181 middle school physical science teachers and nearly 10,000 of their students, and showed that while most of the teachers were well-versed in their subject, those better able to predict their students' wrong answers on standardized tests helped students learn the most. The findings are described in a paper published last month in the American Educational Research Journal titled "The Influence of Teachers' Knowledge on Student Learning in Middle-School Physical Science Classrooms."
"What our research group found was that for the science that people considered factual, teacher knowledge was very important. If the teachers didn't know the facts, they couldn't convey them to the students," Sadler said. "But for the kinds of questions that measure conceptual understanding, even if the teacher knew the scientific explanation, that wasn't enough to guarantee that their students would actually learn the science."
Sadler pointed to the question of what happens to a lamp when the power cord is squeezed.
"Middle school students say if you squeeze hard you will see the light gets dimmer, even though they've stepped on that cord before, or they've put the corner of their chair on that cord before, and nothing has happened," he said. "Their theoretical understanding of the way the world works includes the idea that electricity is like water flowing through a garden hose. If you put some pressure on the cord, you will get less electricity out the other end. It turns out that for most major scientific concepts, kids come into the classroom -- even in middle school -- with a whole set of beliefs that are commonly at odds with what scientists, and their science teachers, know to be true."
If teachers are to help students change their incorrect beliefs, they first need to know what those are. That's where the standardized tests developed by Sadler and his colleagues come in. Multiple-choice answers were gleaned from hundreds of research studies examining students' ideas, particularly those that are common -- such as electricity behaving like water.
For the study described in their paper, Sadler and his colleagues asked teachers to answer each question twice, once to give the scientifically correct answer, and the second time to predict which wrong answer their students were likeliest to choose. Students were then given the tests three times throughout the year to determine whether their knowledge improved.
The results showed that students' scores showed the most improvement when teachers were able to predict their students' wrong answers.
"Nobody has quite used test questions before in this way," Sadler said. "What I had noticed, even before we did this study, was that the most amazing science teachers actually know what their students' wrong ideas are. It occurred to us that there might be a way to measure this kind of teacher knowledge easily without needing to spend long periods of time observing teachers in their classrooms."
To help teachers hone this knowledge, Sadler and his colleagues have made the kind of tests used in their study publicly available. More than a dozen tests covering kindergarten through grade 12 are downloadable here, after completing a tutorial on their development and interpretation.
Going forward, Sadler said he hopes to conduct similar studies in the life sciences, particularly around concepts such as evolution and heredity. He also plans to study what types of professional development and new teacher preparation programs help improve instructors' facility in knowing what their students know.
Ultimately, Sadler said, he hopes teachers will be able to use the tests to help design lessons that change students' incorrect ideas and help them learn science more quickly and easily. This is particularly important as states adopt the recently released Next Generation Science Standards.
"State certification for teaching science might well include making sure that new teachers are aware of the common student misconceptions that they will encounter, as well as being proficient in the underlying science," said Sadler. "Prior to this, there has never been an easy way to measure teachers' knowledge of student thinking, while we have probably been placing too much emphasis on testing for advanced scientific knowledge.
"Everyone has had a teacher or professor who is incredibly knowledgeable about their field, yet some of them are less-than-stellar teachers," he continued. "One of the reasons for this is that teachers can be unaware of what is going on in their students' heads, even though they may have had exactly the same ideas when they were students themselves. Knowledge of student misconceptions is a critical tool for science teachers. It can help teachers to decide which demonstration to do in class, and to start the lesson by asking students to predict what's going to happen. If a teacher doesn't have this special kind of knowledge, though, it's nearly impossible to change students' ideas.
"The best teachers base their lessons on what the American humorist-philosopher Will Rogers observed: It ain't what they don't know that gives them trouble, it's what they know that ain't so."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by Harvard University.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- P. M. Sadler, G. Sonnert, H. P. Coyle, N. Cook-Smith, J. L. Miller. The Influence of Teachers' Knowledge on Student Learning in Middle School Physical Science Classrooms. American Educational Research Journal, 2013; DOI: 10.3102/0002831213477680
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/THNmFFOLsJ0/130502131936.htm
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Tuesday, April 30, 2013
How does pregnancy reduce breast cancer risk?
Apr. 28, 2013 ? Being pregnant while young is known to protect a women against breast cancer. But why? Research in BioMed Central's open access journal Breast Cancer Research finds that Wnt/Notch signalling ratio is decreased in the breast tissue of mice which have given birth, compared to virgin mice of the same age.
Early pregnancy is protective against breast cancer in humans and in rodents. In humans having a child before the age of 20 decreases risk of breast cancer by half. Using microarray analysis researchers from Basel discovered that genes involved in the immune system and differentiation were up-regulated after pregnancy while the activity of genes coding for growth factors was reduced.
The activity of one particular gene Wnt4 was also down-regulated after pregnancy. The protein from this gene (Wnt4) is a feminising protein -- absence of this protein propels a fetus towards developing as a boy. Wnt and Notch are opposing components of a system which controls cellular fate within an organism and when the team looked at Notch they found that genes regulated by notch were up-regulated, Notch-stimulating proteins up-regulated and Notch-inhibiting proteins down-regulated.
Wnt/Notch signalling ratio was permanently altered in the basal stem/progenitor cells of mammary tissue of mice by pregnancy. Mohamed Bentires-Alj from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research, who led this study explained, "The down-regulation of Wnt is the opposite of that seen in many cancers, and this tightened control of Wnt/Notch after pregnancy may be preventing the runaway growth present in cancer."
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The above story is reprinted from materials provided by BioMed Central.
Note: Materials may be edited for content and length. For further information, please contact the source cited above.
Journal Reference:
- Fabienne Meier-Abt, Emanuela Milani, Tim Roloff, Heike Brinkhaus, Stephan Duss, Dominique S Meyer, Ina Klebba, Piotr J Balwierz, Erik van Nimwegen and Mohamed Bentires-Alj. Parity induces differentiation and reduces Wnt/Notch signaling ratio and proliferation potential of basal stem/progenitor cells isolated from mouse mammary epithelium. Breast Cancer Research, 2013 (in press) [link]
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.
Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/~3/M01wkIKwjeM/130428230427.htm
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TwoBadTourists | Four Fun Games That Fit In Your Travel Luggage
Before we left on our year long backpacking journey around the world, I had made some assumptions about the trip. Many assumptions. One of those was that we would play lots of games. I brought a deck of cards thinking we?d play rummy all the time. We played twice. I downloaded a chess app on our iPad thinking I?d finally learn to play. We never opened it. So how did we pass so much time when traveling on planes, buses, and trains? Well Auston slept nearly the entire time, waking to eat a snack and then passing back out. And I read a lot.
Still, we do love playing games back home and I like to think I come from a game-loving family. My mom and sister are always introducing new games to us and some of them are perfect for travelers. As we begin planning some side trips around Spain and France, it?s time to think about excellent game options for traveling light!
Let?s get more creative than a deck of cards. Everyone knows they can bring one and probably should because game options are endless. Of course there are also the games requiring no supplies at all like ?20 Questions? and ?Would You Rather?. If those suit you then great, but if you?re over the typical card and verbal games, then here are some other options to consider adding to your travel luggage for your next trip.
1. Farkle
Courtesy of elversonpuzzle.com/farkle
This is a dice game that was introduced to us by our family when we arrived home from our round-the-world trip. It involves?a bit of luck and little strategy as you roll six dice, keeping the points you want. Then you re-roll the remaining dice while being cautious that if no more scoring dice are rolled, you lose all your points for that round. All you need is at least two players, six dice and a way of keeping score (pen/paper or phone/tablet).?Rules here.
2. Quiddler
Courtesy of boardsillyonline.com
If you?re into word games but don?t fancy traveling around with a whole Scrabble set, then Quiddler is a great option. It?s a card game where the goal is to create words with the highest point value possible beginning the first round with only three cards and working your way up to the final round with ten cards. It can be played with 1-8 players so you can pass the time solo or with some new travel friends. Rules here.
3. Bananagrams
Courtesy of banagrams.net
Another fun word game that?s even more reminiscent of Scrabble is Bananagams, for 2-7 players. Every player works independently and simultaneously to build words from the letter tiles in a crossword format. Once a player has used up all their tiles without any misspellings or incorrect words, that player is declared the winner. Rules here.
4. Pass the Pigs
Courtesy of www.flickr.com/photos/julianhoad/1935174003
This is the only game on the list that we haven?t actually played before but it was recommended to us as fun game that?s convenient for travel as well. All you need is the two pig dice and a way of keeping score. The game is for two to ten players and like Farkle, it?s about pressing your luck. If you roll the pigs in a scoring position (the way they land is worth various points), you decided wether to take the points and end your turn or roll again and risk losing all your points. How lucky do you feel? Rules here.
There you have four great game options that won?t take up the precious remaining space in your travel luggage. Add them to your travel gear and be ready to entertain yourself because you never know when you?ll have a long, boring flight delay!
Have you ever played any of these games? What?d you think? What?s your favorite game to have for your travels? Let us know!Did you enjoy this article? Sign up for email updates from TwoBadTourists!
Source: http://www.twobadtourists.com/2013/04/29/four-fun-games-that-fit-in-your-travel-luggage/
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Monday, April 29, 2013
American Medical Association questions Guantanamo force-feedings
By Jane Sutton
MIAMI (Reuters) - The Navy sent extra medical personnel to the Guantanamo detention camp because of a growing hunger strike, and the American Medical Association questioned whether doctors were being asked to violate their ethics by force-feeding prisoners.
The reinforcements arrived at the weekend and included about 40 nurses, specialists and hospital corpsmen, who are trained to provide basic medical care, Army Lieutenant Colonel Samuel House, a spokesman for the detention camp said, said on Monday.
He said 100 of the 166 detainees had joined a hunger strike that began in February to protest their continued detention at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in eastern Cuba. Twenty-one of those had lost enough weight that they were being fed liquid supplements via tubes inserted in their noses and down into their stomachs, House said.
Five were in the hospital for observation but did not have life-threatening conditions, he said.
On Thursday, the president of the American Medical Association sent a letter to U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel reiterating its long-held position that it is a violation of medical ethics to force-feed mentally competent adults who refuse food and life-saving treatment.
The letter from the AMA's president, Dr. Jeremy Lazarus, stopped short of asking Hagel to halt force-feedings at Guantanamo.
It urged the defense secretary "to address any situation in which a physician may be asked to violate the ethical standards of his or her profession."
Hagel had just returned from a trip to the Middle East and it was unclear whether he had seen the letter, said Pentagon spokesman Army Lieutenant Colonel Todd Breasseale.
Asked if military doctors had raised ethical concerns about being asked to perform force-feedings, Breasseale said, "I can tell you there have been no organized efforts, but I cannot speak for individual physicians.
"I can tell you that we will not allow detainees to harm themselves, and this includes attempts at suicide - including self-induced and peer-pressured starvation to death," he said.
The military has said that some prisoners are pressuring others to join the hunger strike, and that some of those being tube-fed occasionally eat regular meals or voluntarily drink nutritional supplements when they are removed from their cell blocks and are alone with medical personnel.
"It has been the case all along," House said. "Some will eat one meal, and are tube-fed during another, while drinking nutrient at another meal ... Once they are approved (for tube-feeding) they are given the choice."
Military officials say the feedings are done gently, using soft, flexible, lubricated tubes.
Attorney David Remes, who was notified by the military that his Yemeni client, Yasin Ismael, was being tube-fed, gave a starkly different description.
"It can be extremely painful. One of my clients said that it's like having a razor blade go down through your nose and into your throat," Remes said.
He said detainees who resist tube-feedings were forcibly removed from their cells by soldiers in riot gear. "It's really like the way you would treat an animal," he said.
All sides blame the hunger strike on detainee frustration over the Obama administration's failure to carry out its promise to close the detention camp by 2010.
(Additional reporting by Lisa Lewnes in Washington; Editing by Kenneth Barry)
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Sunday, April 28, 2013
Officials: 2 dead in building collapse in France
PARIS (AP) ? An explosion ripped off the side of a 5-story residential building in France's Champagne country on Sunday, killing at least two people and injuring nine others, officials said. A search for survivors was underway.
More than 100 rescue workers, firefighters, sniffer-dog squads and bomb and gas experts were deployed to the gutted building in a subsidized housing complex in the city of Reims, east of Paris, officials said. Early pictures on the Web site of a local newspaper, L'Union L'Ardennais, showed heaps of debris spilling out of the building onto a grassy esplanade below, with two helmeted people perched up on a crane for a look inside.
Reims mayor Adeline Hazan told France's BFM television that "a very powerful explosion" had taken place, blowing out windows of nearby buildings. She said the bodies of the two people killed remained under the rubble. Hazan said the blast had the earmarks of a possible gas explosion but insisted that only a thorough investigation would determine the exact cause.
Michel Bernard, the top government official in Reims, told The Associated Press that one person was seriously injured. He said the building dated to the 1960s, and an official investigation was under way to determine the cause. He said about 10 of the 40 or so apartments in the building were affected. He said a search for possible survivors under the rubble was under way.
The precariousness of some buildings has come to light internationally in recent days following the collapse Wednesday of an 8-story building in a suburb of Dhaka, Bangladesh, where at least 362 people have been confirmed to have died. Officials there said three of the floors of that building, which had housed garment factories, had been built illegally.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/officials-2-dead-building-collapse-france-112531680.html
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Piece of 9/11 plane newly discovered in New York City
>>> on september 11th , 2001 , two boeing 767 aircraft crashed into the world trade center towers in lower manhattan . 11 years, 7 months, and 13 days later, this was found. today wedged in a narrow gap between two buildings not far from ground zero . this is believed to be part of the landing gear of one of those planes. police say they can clearly see a boeing identification number on this newly recovered part of the airplane. the nypd secured the scene as if it were a crime scene . after a health and safety evaluation is made a decision will be made about whether they should sift the soil in this very narrow alley between the two buildings for the possible human remains of victims of the crime committed on 9/11. the part was found about three blocks from the site of the world trade center towers. it was found by accident. there was a surveyor inspecteding the rear of one of those two buildings between which the landing gear was found wedged. inspecting one of those buildings and totally unexpectedly, ahead this very, very dramatic find. we are posting links to the pictures from the site and the parts themselves
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