April 12, 2007, 6:09 PM CT

College students know more about politics than pop culture

Far from being self-absorbed and uninvolved, American college students today are civically and politically engaged, and more likely to be so than those of the same age who are not enrolled in college, as per a new national study from Tufts Universitys Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service.

The "National Survey of Civic and Political Engagement of Young People" compared the community, civic and political engagement of full-time college students age 18 to 24 with young people not enrolled in college full time. Among the more surprising findings: Young people in both categories are much more likely to know the name of their U.S. senator or representative than the winners of "American Idol" or "Dancing with the Stars."

"Young people seem to know more about politics than they know about popular culture," said project director and Professor of Political Science Kent E. Portney. "This level of political knowledge stands in stark contrast to the image of young people as uninterested in and ignorant about politics and government."

Half of the college students and 40 percent of the non-college students could name their respective members of Congress. Nearly two-thirds of college students and more than half of the non-college students could name at least one of their two U.S. senators. In contrast, only about 15 percent of the young people knew the name of the most recent winner of "American Idol" and about 10 percent knew the winner of "Dancing with the Stars." ......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

April 10, 2007, 8:56 PM CT

Workers who focus on family

People who let family demands interfere with work are given fewer career opportunities and have poorer relationships with their bosses, a study from McMaster University's DeGroote School of Business finds.

In a survey of Canadian public sector employees, workers who say home and family impact their work also believe they are offered fewer challenges and opportunities for skill development and career advancement.

"While there has been a particular interest in the adverse impact of work demands on home and family, we know less about the impact of home and family on work," says Rick Hackett, Canada Research Chair in Organizational Behaviour and Human Performance at the DeGroote School of Business.

"Employees experiencing the greatest pull from home and family tend to have fewer mental and physical resources to devote to their paid jobs, which results in declining work performance. In turn, this lowered performance makes it less likely that their bosses will provide them with challenging tasks or career building opportunities".

The McMaster study, published in Applied Psychology, also suggests that the adverse effects of home and family can be exacerbated by a downward spiraling process. When employees are given less challenging tasks, they have fewer opportunities to show their capabilities, thereby not winning the respect and confidence of their bosses. This further reduces the likelihood of the boss entrusting these workers with challenging assignments......... Posted by: Mac      Read more         Source

April 10, 2007, 7:42 PM CT

Faster Music, Movie Downloads

Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist says transferring large data files, such as movies and music, over the Internet could be sped up significantly if peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing services were configured to share not only identical files, but also similar files.

David G. Andersen, assistant professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon, and Michael Kaminsky of Intel Research Pittsburgh have designed such a system, called Similarity-Enhanced Transfer (SET). By identifying relevant chunks of files similar to a desired file, SET greatly increases the number of potential sources for downloads. And boosting the number of sources commonly translates into faster P2P downloads, Andersen explains.

How much SET could speed up downloads varies based on many factors, including the size and popularity of a given file. In some cases, SET might speed transfers by just 5 percent; in others, it might make downloads five times faster.

The researchers, along with graduate student Himabindu Pucha of Purdue University, will present a paper describing SET and release the system code at the 4th Symposium on Networked Systems Design and Implementation, April 11 in Cambridge, Mass.

"This is a technique that I would like people to steal," Andersen said. Though he and colleagues hope to implement SET in a service for sharing software or academic papers, they have no intention of applying it themselves to movie- or music-sharing services. "But it would make P2P transfers faster and more efficient," he added, "and developers should just take the idea and use it in their own systems"......... Posted by: Gina      Read more         Source

April 9, 2007, 11:13 PM CT

Analysis of Black Bloggers in the Blogosphere

In the first scholarly research examining the role of black bloggers in the blogosphere, Brown University researcher Antoinette Pole assessed how bloggers of color use their medium for purposes correlation to politics. She observed that black bloggers are, in fact, mobilizing readers to engage in political participation. Additionally, Pole observed that black bloggers do not feel discriminated against or excluded by other bloggers. These findings are reported in the International Journal of Technology, Knowledge and Society.

Among the top political blogs, Pole says blogging has primarily been undertaken by white men, coined by Chris Nolan as the "Big Boys Club." She says blacks comprise approximately less than 1 percent of political bloggers.

"Though they are less numerous, examining the role of minorities in the blogosphere is important if blogs are being used to engage in political discourse and discussion, and more importantly, political action that has real-world implications," Pole said. "Who has influence in the blogosphere and how bloggers are using this new medium to undertake political action merits study".

Based on in-depth interviews with 20 black bloggers conducted in November 2005, Pole's study observed that 85 percent of respondents use their blogs to engage in political advocacy and to raise money for charitable causes. A majority of the bloggers said they encouraged their readers to vote or to register to vote; 40 percent of the bloggers asked their readers to contact elected officials; 35 percent suggested that their readers sign a petition or attend a rally, protest, or march. Several of the bloggers mentioned using their blogs to endorse candidates for office. In comparison to other research examining blogging and political participation, black bloggers appear to be engaged in these online advocacy efforts and philanthropic endeavors to a greater degree than their white counterparts, as per the paper......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

April 9, 2007, 11:02 PM CT

Why people eat less at unbused tables

People watching the Super Bowl who saw how much they had already eaten -- in this case, leftover chicken-wing bones -- ate 27 percent less than people who had no such environmental cues, finds a new Cornell study.

The difference between the two groups -- those eating at a table where leftover bones accumulated compared with those whose leftovers were removed -- was greater for men than for women.

"The results suggest that people restrict their consumption when evidence of food consumed is available to signal how much food they have eaten," said Brian Wansink, the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and of Applied Economics at Cornell, and author of the 2006 book, "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think".

The study, conducted with Cornell postdoctoral researcher Collin R. Payne, is published in the recent issue of Perceptual and Motor Skills. It included 50 graduate students at a sports bar where an open buffet featured chicken wings during the Super Bowl; some tables were bused and some were left unbused.

To use environmental cues to curb overeating and overdrinking, Wansink suggested that college parties could encourage (or require) fresh plastic glasses for each drink and that the glasses be stacked as they accumulate for each person; dinner parties could use fresh glasses for refills while empty glasses, or even empty bottles, are left on the table......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

Sat, 07 Apr 2007 00:52:40 GMT

Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve

The Chugach, Wrangell, and Saint Elias ranges converge here in what is often referred to as the "mountain kingdom of North America." The largest unit of the National Park System, this spectacular wilderness includes the continent's largest assemblage of glaciers, and greatest collection of peaks above 16,000 feet, including 18,008' Mount St. Elias, the second highest peak in the United States. 
What's So Special About This Place?
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve is a world treasure. Click here to begin your discovery of the many wonders of this special area.
 
Into The Backcountry
Wrangell-St. Elias provides opportunities for lifetimes of backcountry exploration. Hike its mountains, float its rivers, ski its glaciers, or fly over this landscape and you witness living geology. You sense discovery, the feeling you might be the first to see such sights.
 
Nature and Science
Birds, Bears, Bugs, Fish, Volcanoes, Glaciers, Plants, Research
 
Subsistence
Subsistence fishing and hunting is part of the fabric of rural Alaskan lifestyles. When the U.S. Congress established Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve in 1980, it recognized the important connection between rural Alaskans and the land in allowing them a continued opportunity for subsistence hunting, fishing, and gathering in the park.
 
Write to
Wrangell-St. Elias National Park
PO Box 439
Copper Center, AK 9E-mail Us

Phone
Park Headquarters
(907) 822-5234
Fax
(907) 822-7216

Climate
Wrangell-St. Elias has an interior continental climate characterized by long, extremely cold winters, and warm, relatively dry summers.
 Did You Know?
The ptarmigan is perfectly camouflaged with mottled brown feathers in summer, and solid white plumage in winter. Posted by: Gracy      Read more     Source

Thu, 05 Apr 2007 04:08:05 GMT

Black and Decker InfraWave Speed Cooker

Infrared (IR) seems to be gaining popularity as a cooking medium (I spotted about fifteen IR ovens in a few different comparison shopping engines), but chances are, people (including myself) don't know very much about IR cooking - how effective it is, how it works and whether or not it'll work as a replacement for an oven or a microwave. Fortunately, we have the Internets, in the form of a revBlack & Decker InfraWave Speed Cooking Oven by Eric Sofge of Popular Mechanics. While I get the feeling we won't be trading in our microwaves and gas ovens anytime soon, it's good to know cooking technology is making some advances. You can read the review here. Posted by: Eric Hanson      Read more     Source

April 2, 2007, 10:20 PM CT

Breakthrough Points To Hydrogen-powered Vehicles

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory have developed an advanced concept in nanoscale catalyst engineering - a combination of experiments and simulations that will bring polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells for hydrogen-powered vehicles closer to massive commercialization.

The results of their findings identify a clear trend in the behavior of extended and nanoscale surfaces of platinum-bimetallic alloy. Additionally, the techniques and concepts derived from the research program are expected to make overarching contributions to other areas of science well beyond the focus on electrocatalysis.

The Argonne researchers, Nenad Markovic and Vojislav Stamenkovic, published related results last month in Science and this month in Nature Materials on the behavior of single-crystal and polycrystalline platinum alloy surfaces. The scientists discovered that the nanosegregated platinum-nickel alloy surface has unique catalytic properties, opening up important new directions for the development of active and stable practical cathode catalysts in fuel cells.

These scientific accomplishments together provide a solid foundation for the development of hydrogen-powered vehicles, as basic research brings value to society today by helping to lay the foundation for tomorrow's technological breakthroughs. "Understanding catalysis is a grand challenge of nanoscience that is now coming within reach," said George Crabtree, director of Argonne's Materials Science Division. "The systematic work that Voya and Nenad are doing is a major step toward transforming catalysis from an empirical art to a fundamental science"......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

April 2, 2007, 10:05 PM CT

Supreme Court case on carbon dioxide emissions

Four faculty members from The University of Arizona in Tucson were part of an amicus curiae brief supporting the plaintiff in today's historic U.S. Supreme Court decision on carbon dioxide emissions and climate change.

In the case, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, et al. v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, several states sued the EPA for failure to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from motor vehicles as mandatory by the Clean Air Act.

Today the court decided in favor of Massachusetts, et al.

"This ruling is a victory for climate science," said UA ecologist Scott Saleska, the scientist who organized the scientists' collaboration on the brief. "EPA ignored what is perhaps the most important finding in climate science in the last decade, which is that the rise of global temperature and the anthropogenic increase in atmospheric CO2 are causally linked.

"The opening paragraph of the Court majority opinion cited that specific scientific finding".

UA researchers were leaders in the climate scientists' amicus curiae brief in support of the plaintiff. Scott Saleska, a UA assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, organized the group of climate researchers to file the brief. Kirsten Engel, a UA professor of law, was one of only four lawyers on the amicus brief......... Posted by: Tyler      Read more         Source

March 29, 2007, 10:21 PM CT

Selling customers the short end of the stick

Groucho Marx famously said that he wouldn't want to join any club that would have someone like him as a member. But if you are on the outside of some deal that benefits another group more than you, would this make you more or less interested in the product?

For example, guess how female Victoria's Secret customers would react if they found out that male customers got better deals on the same items. How would plus-sized women react to a dress that is sold for less in smaller sizes?

According to research from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, the excluded consumers would be turned off and would be less likely to make a purchase.

But how would competitive swimmers react to a product claimed to improve speed if they knew the product is given away free to Olympic swimmers? How would vodka consumers react to superpremium Belvedere vodka if the company offered free tastings exclusively for bartenders?

In these examples, the consumer ends up wanting the product more, said Alison K. C. Lo, a recent doctoral graduate at the Fuqua School of Business. She and marketing professors John Lynch and Richard Staelin explain why in the article "How to Attract Customers by Giving Them the Short End of the Stick," published in the February 2007 Journal of Marketing Research......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source