Child’s “Mental Number Line” Affects Memory for Numbers

As children in Western cultures grow, they learn to place numbers on a mental number line, with smaller numbers to the left and spaced further apart than the larger numbers on the right. Then the number line changes to become more linear, with small and large numbers the same distance apart. Children whose number line has made this change are better at remembering numbers, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Remembering numbers is an important skill—in life, which is full of social security numbers, temperatures, locker combinations, and passwords, as well as in school. For this study, Clarissa A. Thompson of the University of Oklahoma and Robert S. Siegler of Carnegie Mellon University looked at how children’s memory for numbers relates to the way they represent numbers in their heads.

“Young children’s knowledge sometimes seems impressive, because they can count, ‘one two three four five six seven eight nine ten,’ but often they just learn by rote. Their counting doesn’t have much to do with their understanding of how big the numbers are,” says Thompson. But eventually these words get associated with the size of the numbers. Children normally start out with a logarithmic number line, which has more space between smaller numbers and crunches the larger numbers together at the top. Eventually they progress to a linear number line.

In one experiment, each child was given a stack of blank number lines, with “0” written below the left end and “20” written below the right end. Then the child heard a series of numbers from 1 through 19 and had to mark on each number line where they thought that number belonged. Then the experimenter told a story that included a few numbers. The child was asked to name four cartoon characters, to throw off their memory a bit. (Thomas the Tank Engine and Dora the Explorer were favorites.) After that, the experimenter asked questions about the story, like “How many forks did Colleen wash?” Children with a more linear number line were better at remembering the numbers in the story.

In three experiments, Thompson and Siegler found that the more linear a child’s number line, the better the child was at remembering numbers. This was true for preschoolers for numbers from 1-20 and for elementary school children for numbers from 1-1000. “We really do live in a world of numbers,” says Thompson. “Some we only need to approximate, and others we need to remember exactly. Ability to estimate the sizes of numbers influences the ability to remember the numbers exactly.”

via Child’s “Mental Number Line” Affects Memory for Numbers – Association for Psychological Science.

Use of medication for insomnia or anxiety increases mortality risk by 36 percent

Taking medications to treat insomnia and anxiety increases mortality risk by 36%, according to a study conducted by Geneviève Belleville, a professor at Université Laval’s School of Psychology. The details of this study are published in the latest edition of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry.

Dr. Belleville arrived at these results through analysis of 12 years of data on over 14,000 Canadians in Statistics Canada’s National Population Health Survey. The data includes information on the social demographics, lifestyle, and health of Canadians age 18 to 102, surveyed every two years between 1994 and 2007.

During this period, respondents who reported having used medication to treat insomnia or anxiety at least once in the month preceding the survey had a mortality rate of 15.7%. Respondents who reported not having used such medications had a rate of 10.5%. After controlling for personal factors that might affect mortality risk, notably alcohol and tobacco consumption, physical health, physical activity level, and the presence or absence of depressive symptoms among participants, Dr. Belleville established that the consumption of sleeping pills or anxiety-relieving medications was associated with a 36% increase in the risk of death.

A number of hypotheses have been put forward to explain the link between use of these medications and increased mortality. Sleeping pills and anxiolytics affect reaction time, alertness, and coordination and are thus conducive to falls and other accidents. They may also have an inhibiting effect on the respiratory system, which could aggravate certain breathing problems during sleep. These medications are also central nervous system inhibitors that may affect judgment and thus increase the risk of suicide.

“These medications aren’t candy, and taking them is far from harmless,” commented Dr. Belleville. “Given that cognitive behavioral therapies have shown good results in treating insomnia and anxiety, doctors should systematically discuss such therapies with their patients as an option. Combining a pharmacological approach in the short term with psychological treatment is a promising strategy for reducing anxiety and promoting sleep.”

via Use of medication for insomnia or anxiety increases mortality risk by 36 percent.

Astronomers find evidence for unusual class of black holes

Researchers say they may have found further evidence for the existence of an unusual type of black hole.

Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, an international team of scientists studied the images of the most extreme ultra-luminous X-ray source, HLX-1.

They say the data about the distance and the brightness of the source shows that it may contain an intermediate-size mass black hole, located some 300 million light years away from Earth.

The results of the study have been published in the Astrophysical Journal.

A black hole is a region of space that has such an extremely powerful gravitational field that it absorbs all the light that passes near it and reflects none.

If confirmed, HLX-1 would be classified as an intermediate-type black hole – something astrophysicists suspected to exist, but for which there have been only tentative detections in the past.

via BBC News – Astronomers find evidence for unusual class of black holes.

Romania attempts to tax witches and fortune tellers

Proposals to tax witches and fortune tellers in Romania were voted down by senators.

The politicians who had drafted the new law claim it is because they feared they would be cursed if they passed the plans.

Alin Popoviciu and Cristi Dugulescu of the ruling Democratic Liberal Party drafted a law where witches and fortune tellers would have to produce receipts, and would also be held liable for wrong predictions.

Maria Campina, a well-known Romanian witch, said that it was difficult to tax thousands of fortune tellers and witches partly because of the erratic sums of money they received.

It’s unclear whether there will be an attempt to redraft the law in Romania.

via Romania attempts to tax witches and fortune tellers – Telegraph.

Vitamin B ‘puts off Alzheimer’s’

A new study suggests high doses of B vitamins may halve the rate of brain shrinkage in older people experiencing some of the warning signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

Brain shrinkage is one of the symptoms of mild cognitive impairment, which often leads to dementia.

Researchers say this could be the first step towards finding a way to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s.

Experts said the findings were important but more research was needed.

The study, published in the journal Public Library of Science One, looked at 168 elderly people experiencing levels of mental decline known as mild cognitive impairment.

This condition, marked by mild memory lapses and language problems, is beyond what can be explained by normal ageing and can be a precursor to Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

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Half of the volunteers were given a daily tablet containing levels of the B vitamins folate, B6 and B12 well above the recommended daily amount. The other half were given a placebo.

After two years, the rate at which their brains had shrunk was measured.

The average brain shrinks at a rate of 0.5% a year after the age of 60. The brains of those with mild cognitive impairment shrink twice as fast. Alzheimer’s patients have brain shrinkage of 2.5% a year.

The team, from the Oxford Project to investigate Memory and Ageing (Optima), found that on average, in those taking vitamin supplements, brain shrinkage slowed by 30%.

In some cases it slowed by more than 50%, making their brain atrophy no worse than that of people without cognitive impairment.

‘Protecting’ the brain

Certain B vitamins – folic acid, vitamin B6 and B12 – control levels of a substance known as homocysteine in the blood. High levels of homocysteine are associated with faster brain shrinkage and Alzheimer’s disease.

The study authors believe it was the B vitamins’ effect on levels of homocysteine that helped slow the rate of brain shrinkage.

via BBC News – Vitamin B ‘puts off Alzheimer’s’.

Would you like 1 hump or 2 with your dinosaur?

The weird world of dinosaurs has just gotten a tad more bizarre. Scientists found a nearly complete fossil of a new dinosaur that sports a noticeable hump, maybe as possible advertising.

The hump on the dinosaur’s back, which was at least 16 inches tall, may have been used to help this meat-eating theropod communicate among its own species, scientists theorize. Discoverer Francisco Ortega of Spain named it Concavenator corcovatus which means “the hunchback hunter from Cuenca.”

Ortega said the hump could have been used to store fat or regulate body temperature, but there is also the distinct possibility that it was used by concavenators to somehow differentiate themselves or communicate with each other. But with only one of these dinos, it’s only speculation and is hard to figure out what the humps were meant to convey if they were tools of communication, he said.

Paleontologist Paul Sereno at the University of Chicago, who wasn’t part of the study, thinks the only conceivable explanation is “an advertising role” because it follows similar pointy fins on other dinosaurs.

“It is an ornamental crest that helps to distinguish the individual,” Sereno said in an e-mail. “Perhaps it was brightly colored, perhaps it would have been well maintained and large in strong, healthy individuals.”

If that’s the case, the hump could easily have been spotted from afar, Ortega said. …

via Would you like 1 hump or 2 with your dinosaur? – Yahoo! News.

Fisherman Raphael Biagini catches massive 30lbs ‘goldfish’

It might look like an enormously generous fairground prize.

But no goldfish bowl in the world could contain this catch.

The orange koi carp weighs 30lb – the same as an average three-year-old girl – and is thought to be one of the largest of its kind ever captured.

It took Raphael Biagini ten minutes to reel the creature out of a lake in the south of France – moments after fellow anglers told him they had spent six years trying to snare the legendary ‘giant goldfish’.

Mr Biagini, pictured, said: ‘To begin with, we couldn’t tell what was at the end of the line, but we knew it was big.

‘The fish was a good fighter, but not enough to win.’

After an impromptu photoshoot, the 30-year-old from Montpellier returned his prize catch to the water.

via Fisherman Raphael Biagini catches massive 30lbs ‘goldfish’ | Mail Online.

One of rarest flowers in world blooms for first time in 200 years

One of the rarest flowers in the world which is now extinct in the wild has been successfully grown in a part of Britain where it disappeared 200 years ago.

The Franklinia alatamaha – known as the Franklin tree – has large fragrant, cup-shaped, snow-white blooms and is part of the tea family.

It was first discovered in 1765 by Philadelphia botanists John and William Bartram who named it after close friend Benjamin Franklin.

They found the Franklin tree on the banks of the Altamaha River in Georgia, USA, but it has been extinct in the wild since 1800s.

The plant is now only found in a handful of places on the planet but has now been cultivated at the Trewithen Estate nursery near Truro, Cornwall.

A specimen was brought back to the nursery in 18th Century but soon disappeared and was feared lost forever.

But staff say three shrubs have now flowered and they expect another ten to flower next year.

Nursery manager Luke Hazelton said: ”It is such a rare shrub and extinct in the wild. To see it flower in this country is of great interest to plant lovers.

”I’ve talked to plant experts at the Royal Botanical Garden, Kew, and they’re surprised and excited as we are, especially as it’s flowering earlier than expected.” …

via One of rarest flowers in world blooms for first time in 200 years – Telegraph.

Research finds repressed memories don’t exist

The idea that traumatised people, especially the victims of child sexual abuse, deliberately repress horrific memories goes all the way back to the 19th century and the theories of Sigmund Freud himself.

But now some experts are saying the evidence points the other way.

Professor Grant Devilly, from Griffith University’s Psychological Health research unit, says the memory usually works in the opposite way, with traumatised people reliving experiences they would rather forget.

“It’s the opposite. They wish they couldn’t think about it,” he said.

In a briefing to the US Supreme Court, Professor Richard McNally from Harvard University described the theory of repressed memory as “the most pernicious bit of folklore ever to infect psychology and psychiatry”.

He maintains false memories can easily be created by inept therapists.

“The stress hormones that are released during a trauma tend to consolidate the memory, make it rather strong and sometimes even intrusive, as you see in post-traumatic stress disorder,” he said.

But Professor McNally says some abuse victims do suffer when they reassess childhood experiences much later.

“Seeing the event through the eyes of adult, they realise what has happened to them and now they experience the emotional turmoil of trauma,” he said.

The good news is that now, Professor McNally says most victims can be helped.

“Things have changed, happily. We now have treatments that work,” he said.

Soldiers returning from war zones, victims of violent crime and sexual abuse, can now be helped by cognitive behaviour therapy, where they learn to assign terrible memories to the past, instead of them crowding their present and future.

Professor Devilly says the therapy is working.

“We’re now getting, at the end of between 8 and 12 sessions, 90 to 92 per cent of people no longer meet the criteria for PTSD,” he said.

Now psychologists are working to fend off post traumatic stress in high-risk occupations, by teaching recruits to develop resilience.

via Research finds repressed memories don’t exist – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

U.S. court: $1m bail for Israeli charged in largest human trafficking case in U.S. history

A federal judge has set bail at $1 million for the chief executive of a labor recruiting company accused of importing and exploiting 400 workers from Thailand.

Forty-five-year-old Mordechai Orian, head of Los Angeles-based Global Horizons Manpower Inc., was ordered Wednesday to be held in federal custody until he can raise the money.

KITV reports federal prosecutors claim Orian, an Israeli national, is a flight risk. They had sought to keep him in custody until his trial, and they plan to appeal.

Orian is accused in what the FBI calls the largest human-trafficking case charged in U.S. history.

He was indicted last week on charges that he lured the workers with false promises of lucrative jobs, then confiscated their passports, failed to honor their employment contracts and threatened to deport them.

His public relations agency has said he complied with the FBI in negotiating his surrender in Honolulu.

via U.S. court sets $1m bail for Israeli charged in human trafficking case – Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News.

Here is the web site. Perhaps the post 9/11 worldview is that with the right wording, can get away with a really big conspiracy?

Global Horizons, Inc. thinks globally and acts locally with a post-9/11-worldview, one which understands that economies cannot continue to grow and prosper without an ample, qualified and legal workforce. Too, it understands the aspirations of countless workers who dream of having better jobs in better places, but who wish to return to their country of native origin when they’ve completed the job. This fulfills both the economic and security needs of the host country. – http://gmpusa.com/

Best sarcasm award goes to Daily Kos:

And here is the “About Us” section that appears on their website, footnoted by yours truly for the irony challenged …

Who We Are

When Global Horizons, Inc. began sixteen years ago, it was the first company to establish a new and improved (1) labor-recruiting (2), labor-providing (3) business model (4) to meet the temporary and permanent needs (5) of employers worldwide. The company is continuing (6) to set a powerful new standard in Twenty-First Century (7) recruiting. An emerging industry leader, it is successfully turning local, regional and national workforce challenges into significant opportunities (8).

The Global Horizons story began in 1989, in the midst of a massive worker shortage in a foreign country. Born out of necessity (9) and acting boldly (10), the newly-formed organization brought thousands of qualified workers (11) into a strategic nation (12), averting impending economic disaster (13) for that country. Today, Global continues to build on the experience and wisdom gained during that time (14)of humble beginnings.

FOOTNOTES

1. Unless you include Ancient Egypt
2. Kidnapping
3. Pimping
4. Legal-appearing Crime Syndicate
5. Rent-A-Slave, Buy-A-Slave
6. Until somebody finds out – Like the FBI
7. 21st Century – BC
8. Significant opportunities for us, for you, not so much – unless you really hate your biological family and enjoy picking pineapples
9. We were out of money and could no longer afford the quality of cocaine and prostitutes we were accustomed to
10. With the type of sociopath-like disregard for humanity that would embarrass Ted Bundy
11. Who knew you could fit that many people on a blow-up raft?
12. One with easy-to-bribe officials
13. Fair Wages & Lower CEO Pay
14. MEMO TO EMPLOYEES: Never Kidnap a Warlord’s Daughter

A nod to the FBI. Good job. Thanks and keep it up. This is the kind of big crime that we, as taxpayers, like to see cleaned up.