Interesting news stories

These days I find some pieces of news (non-political) interesting. So I would like to share here, for all to enjoy. You are welcome to discuss and also post your own interesting stories that you read.

Here is a sampling of what I found from recent papers:

FIRST STORY: Secondary school (not higher) education is best, in the Orient/Far East. 4/5 on the top in this list are from the Far East. Finland, though was on the top...kind of a big surprise, given the harsh weather. UK and New Zealand and many other European countries are also way ahead, but the US ranks a distant 17th now (Note: This list is likely not all-inclusive.....as India and many other countries are not even listed here).

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-20498356#

(Observation -The top schools are where they eat a lot of fish/seafood! haha)

From experiences of friends and acquaintances, students who have B school averages here, when they go to the USA, they suddenly become A..sometimes A+

USA curriculum is way easier than French curriculum (Lebanon is very close in curriculum to the French one).

And education is a lot easier... and more entertaining there... cz you get to choose what subjects you want to learn. Here, all subjects are obligatory.

When we moved to Houston we made the decision on where to buy based primarily on the school system. The variance is tremendous! While I attended private school growing up (and nuns are FIERCE educators) my kids all graduated from a public high school with much better results than could have been expected in the larger districts.

I think the main reason that the American curiculums and school systems are so much lower than other countries is because they are too soft on their students. They seem to be excepting of failure, and don't push the students to succede. They just send them to alternative schools where the curiculums are even easier(Yes, I'm talking from self-experience). Our motivation sucks, to be rather blunt about it.

Agreed, but I believe lack of an aggressive competitive spirit, coupled with lack of clear goals in early life and perhaps excessive distractions (TV,video games, movies, musics and early dating) compared to the Far East and Europe may be the big factors. I also suspect a high divorce rate (1/3 don't last 10 yrs in the US...highest in the World...keeps Larry & Co. busy though :) which in turn leads to single parenting associated insecurities and inadequate attention. Another factor may be the school curriculum in elementary/middle schools...lot easier here, according to some.

*50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce, according to Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri.

SECOND STORY: This one seems to be a serious one :) A health alert/crisis in France...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20593467#

is that a fallout from not taking enough Fish (omega 3), too much cheap wine (as against "classy" French wines), unhealthy diet, or something else? What is going on is a mystery! Any speculations (even wild one's are OK here :)
The already negative birth rate in France, is it going to go even lower?
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Gave you guys 48 hrs to have a hearty laugh, and no one even giggled :(

Okay, here is a THIRD one, incredulous as it may sound, is a real story of a daring German teenager who shocked Moscow in 1987...read it to the end to really enjoy the bravery of one young man, who claims that his act that day was one of the contributory factors in lifting the Iron curtain of the face of Soviet communism.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20609795

I always wondered.....

now they have a scientific answer perhaps. :)
It is all about a weird language protein in the brain called FOXP2, high qty. found in most women, some men and perhaps most poets......enjoy! Just published last week, I believe in the J. of Neuroscience.

(It was disputed for a while whether Neanderthals had this FOXP2 during the evolution of the human kind, or whether the genes that control the mfr. of this essential language protein evolved later, from songbirds transfecting the human kinds!)

http://www.scienceworldreport.com/articles/5073/20130220/why-women-talk-more-men-language-protein.htm

Nice to see you back LS and I did laugh at the froggies....sorry.. I thing I was sleeping when you posted and..it got buried..think they eat too many snails....

Interested in the education link and what Larry had to say about it because I have the opposite to offer...I had family move particularly to be in the catchment area of a certain school (still public) because the STATS showed they presented way better than our local one...my two kids went to Uni/Tafe (that's collage) as a result of being in a school that was in a kind rough area...the other three kids in the moved area all bombed..so..it's not really about the schooling it's about their home life I think? Good post LS...I love talking about the news....did you know that three little indian sisters ages between 6-11 were also raped and murdered?...thrown down a drain well...honestly it didn't even make it to our national news...found it on MSN...

Hellon, thank you. I din't think my presence would be missed at all, after all....I thought I must be a misfit in a society of poets, so decided to go in hibernation and not waste my time and energy here.

But, always happy to keep some humor and a bit of serious discussions (science, politics, and religion included) alive to keep boredom away, now that the mods have clearly stated their involvement in any such role (despite the clear hint in your MOD thread):
"We're not site promoters or entertainers :P"

So, do you or anyone who read my last news story about FOXP2 protein found 5x more in pre-teen brains of young women have any comments, humorous or not! After all men only speak about
7000 words per day, about 1/3rd of what an average (Western) woman does. So is the "gift of the GAB" to women real, or a Western society phenomenon? I personally think that this study's conclusions are incorrectly inferred....more inclined to believe that the protein FOXP2 is culturally, rather than genetically determined/upregulated by a promotor gene, as the same does not necessarily apply in patriarchal societies or ancient cultures where women were suppressed. It probably also does not apply to most trial lawyers (Larry's & colleagues) or Professor-type rare breeds either....as most are/were men! (not a sexist comment!)

I remember my biomed lecturers raving about the new forkhead gene back when I was doing my undergrad. Glad it's still in the limelight, someone's been working nights.

It is certainly linked to language production, but before it is also linked to the reason why women talk more, I would like to confirm whether women really talk more in the first place. I was under the impression that the 7000 vs 20000 result was a bunch of baloney made out of some conservative study made ages ago that people really responded to and carried forth to this day.

If there is anything to these new findings that I can vaguely support at this stage, it is that baby girls seem to acquire speech earlier than boys (though this is also difficult to confirm due to environmental differences), so perhaps these speech genes are activated earlier/more highly during the female developmental years... although a 30% discrepancy in n= 5 isn't conclusive to my mind either. And I would be interested to see if this trend continues to adulthood.

Agree, the study conclusions are overblown (for journalistic value - saw it on channel 7 news 2 days ago) and probably not even applicable to mature adults. We all know little girls tend to talk much more than little boys, and have a larger vocabulary, too! No surprise therefore that they found 30% more of this stuff in Brodman's area 44. Whether this finding is nature (true genetic differences) or effects of nurture (=upregulated gene from literacy exposure) from adults remains to be seen.
Just some funny stuff....got published/newscasted to attract attention. Worth reading the comments by readers on that link for tickling your funny side.

Agreed, but I believe lack of an aggressive competitive spirit, coupled with lack of clear goals in early life and perhaps excessive distractions (TV,video games, movies, musics and early dating)

^^

agrees to that!

also suspect a high divorce rate (1/3 don't last 10 yrs in the US...highest in the World..

and to that ^^^

and LOL..... can't not agree to this : keeps Larry & Co. busy ---
will read the rest later, nice thread!

In the search for the elusive LUCY, mother of all ...

Scientists in the search for the closest hominid African ape ancestor for us mutant homosapien species of the extinct neanderthals, recently after an extensive study are making a case for a more recent ancestor, from the skeleton of another lady and her son who stumbled in a giant sinkhole about 2 million yrs ago, in the Journal Science this week...

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-sci-australopithecus-20130412,0,1589078.story

Problem is, this lady has too small of a skull, a biggish jaw, chest and too small a pelvis! So there is some controversy.

However, there is a real way to test how much of your DNA came from the extinct Neanderthals :)
https://www.23andme.com/ancestry/deep/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=GDN-Image&utm_term=mid147&gclid=CMCP_KSfzbYCFelxQgodrkMABA

If your DNA match is >5%, then scientists may really be interested in you :)

Here is an album for keepsakes :)

http://www.google.com/search?q=neanderthals&rlz=1W1GGLL_enUS270&noj=1&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=IkJsUY0m6aiIAvuJgIgE&ved=0CKQBEIke&biw=1024&bih=569

Regarding the first story:

I feel like the current climate of anti-intellectualism in America right now, combined with a lack of support for teachers, can't be helping to improve the quality of education.

Grade inflation is also a thing. What earns you a "B" (or the equivalent) in Ireland would get you an A in America, in most cases.

However, while that means that it's easier to get A's, it also means there is increased pressure on top kids to get all and ONLY A's. If you're a great student who happens to struggle with Calculus, say, and get a B one semester, and your GPA goes down to a 3.85, you're suddenly negatively contrasted with all the kids who have 4.0's and above. You feel like there's no leeway for challenging yourself or experimenting, because one mistake could throw off your whole trajectory.

I do think that most teachers would be fine being tougher on kids, scholastically. But those that are tough have pressure put on them for being too "mean," both from parents and, occasionally, administrators.

Thank you Sibs, Abby, Hellon and all for your comment.

Here is a new one that seems to be a "cure" for obesity using our own gut bacteria, if it really makes it from outside the mice world, and "all natural" too :) A matter of just learning how to eat selectively cultured let us say "yogurt flavored s****.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-22458428