Why do some people never get depressed? 30 January 2012Last updated at 12:23 By Geoff Watts BBC World Service Confronted with some of life's upsetting experiences - marriage breakdown, unemployment, bereavement, failure of any kind - many people become depressed. But others don't. Why is this? A person who goes through experiences like that and does not get depressed has a measure of what in the psychiatric trade is known as "resilience". According to Manchester University psychologist Dr Rebecca Elliott, we are all situated somewhere on a sliding scale. "At one end you have people who are very vulnerable. "At the other end, you have people who life has dealt a quite appalling hand with all sorts of stressful experiences, and yet they remain positive and optimistic.
" Continue reading the main story A measure of resilience Aeron, a subject in the Manchester study: I used to have a business that we ended up having to close. I'm generally a happy person. I think that if there's a problem there's always a remedy. Emotional memory. Planning a Conference. Acknowledging mistakes is key to advancement – and not just in science | Alok Jha. Carl Bernstein (pictured right, with Bob Woodward) says journalism is the ‘best obtainable version of the truth’. Photograph: © Bettmann/CORBIS The truth is a moving target. You can see it in the fluidity of modern news – whether it comes from newspapers or Twitter – and attest to the ever-changing narratives as you try to work out what happened, when, who caused it and, crucially, what it all means. This is another way of saying that mistakes happen all day, every day. The faster you want your information, the less you cross-reference it, and the less likely it is to be true.
Journalists as much as anyone else, while looking for the truth, can be thwarted by bias, bad motives or plain ignorance on either their own part, or that of their sources. Delivering the Orwell lecture recently, Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger plainly stated what journalists should admit more often: that newspapers are full of errors. Scientists, of course, know all about the value of acknowledging errors. Stephen Fry's Planet Word. Episode One: Babel Pt 1 of 4. Radio 4 - So You Want to Be A Scientist - Home. Quant trading: How mathematicians rule the markets. 26 September 2011Last updated at 00:22 By Richard Anderson Business reporter, BBC News Mathematicians and their trading programs are increasingly taking the place of professional investors in financial centres across the world Trading floors were once the preserve of adrenalin-fuelled dealers aggressively executing the orders of brokers who relied on research, experience and gut instinct to decide where best to invest.
Long ago computers made dealers redundant, yet brokers and their ilk have remained the masters of the investment universe, free to buy and sell wherever they see fit. But the last bastion of the old order is now under threat. Investment decisions are no longer being made by financiers, but increasingly by PhD mathematicians and the immensely complex computer programs they devise. Fundamental research and intuition are being usurped by algorithmic formulae. New paradigm Ian Ellis, director at Ride Arcade Limited, explains how electronic trading works Flash Crash Chain reaction. New study says birds learn how to build nests. 26 September 2011Last updated at 00:01 Footage of southern masked weaver birds formed the basis of the study A new study has found birds learn the art of nest-building, rather than it being just an instinctive skill.
Researchers from Edinburgh, Glasgow and St Andrews Universities studied film of southern masked weavers recorded by scientists in Botswana. This colourful species was chosen because individual birds build many complex nests in a season. Dr Patrick Walsh of Edinburgh University said the study revealed "a clear role for experience". The research has been published in the Behavioural Processes journal. Individual birds varied their technique from one nest to the next and there were instances of birds building nests from left to right as well as from right to left.
As birds gained more experience, they dropped blades of grass less often. "If birds built their nests according to a genetic template, you would expect all birds to build their nests the same way each time. Women on pill remember things differently. It looked at how women on the contraceptive pill or experiencing natural hormonal cycles remembered a car accident involving a mother and son. Women using hormonal contraceptives for as little as one month remembered more clearly the main steps in the traumatic event - that there had been an accident, that the boy had been rushed to the hospital, that doctors worked to save his life and successfully reattached both his feet, for instance.
Women not using them remembered more details, such as a fire hydrant next to the car. Shawn Nielsen, a graduate researcher involved in the study, said those who use contraceptives like birth control pills remember the gist of an emotional event while women not using the contraceptives better retain details. She stressed that the medications did not damage memory, adding: "It's a change in the type of information they remember, not a deficit.
" "What's most exciting about this study is that it shows the use of hormonal contraception alters memory. Occ.ibo.org/ibis/documents/dp/drq/tok/d_0_tokxx_prt_1211_1.
Reindeer body clock switched off. Reindeer have to survive the light polar summer and dark polar winter Reindeer have no internal body clock, according to scientists. Researchers found that the animals are missing a "circadian clock" that influences processes including the sleep-wake cycle and metabolism. This enables them to better cope with the extreme Arctic seasons of polar day, when the sun stays up all day, and polar night, when it does not rise.
The team from the universities of Manchester and Tromso report their study in Current Biology journal. The body clock, or circadian clock, is the internal mechanism that drives hormone release on a rhythmic 24-hour cycle. Light also influences these hormonal rhythms, but in most mammals, this "circuit" also involves the circadian clock, which can influence the release of hormones without the influence of light. Anyone who has experienced jet lag is familiar with the effect of the body clock. Professor Andrew Loudon from The University of Manchester took part in the study. Fish living in dark caves still feel the rhythm of life. 10 September 2011Last updated at 02:17 By Leila Battison Science reporter Millions of years of evolution in the dark have led to this Somalian cavefish losing its eyes, scales, and pigmentation. A blind, cave-dwelling fish in Somalia knows what time it is, but its "day" is twice as long as ours.
Most animals have an internal body clock, or circadian rhythm, that lasts around 24 hours and is modified by the light-dark cycle of a day. But an international team, whose research is published in the open access journal PloS Biology, shows that certain blind cave fish have a circadian rhythm that lasts almost two days. The cavefish, Phreatichthys andruzzii, has evolved for nearly two million years in the isolated darkness of caves beneath the Somali desert. Professor Nick Foulkes, of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, said that this particular species was chosen "because it was such an extreme example, having been isolated from a day-night cycle for so long".
Light sensitivity. Rodin's Thinker cast vandalised in Argentina. 9 September 2011Last updated at 12:51 The sculpture is a popular tourist attraction in Buenos Aires A cast of Auguste Rodin's famous The Thinker sculpture has been vandalised in Buenos Aires. The bronze work, which is the third of 22 sculptures from the original mould, was spray-painted pink and given green hair and a shoulder tattoo. Last week government officials began cleaning the sculpture, blasting it with water to remove the paint. However art conservationists are now concerned it may have suffered more damage from the aggressive technique.
Considered a masterpiece of late 19th century art, The Thinker is the French sculptor's most recognisable work. Exhibited on a plinth in the main square in the Argentinian capital, in front of the national congress building, the sculpture is a popular tourist attraction in the city. Patina damage The bluish-green patina that forms on the surface of bronze objects over time, due to oxidation, gives the metal artwork its unique look. Supercomputer predicts revolution. 9 September 2011Last updated at 15:57 Sentiment mining showed a sharp change in tone around Egypt ahead of President Mubarak's ousting Feeding a supercomputer with news stories could help predict major world events, according to US research. A study, based on millions of articles, charted deteriorating national sentiment ahead of the recent revolutions in Libya and Egypt.
While the analysis was carried out retrospectively, scientists say the same processes could be used to anticipate upcoming conflict. The system also picked up early clues about Osama Bin Laden's location. Kalev Leetaru, from the University of Illinois' Institute for Computing in the Humanities, Arts and Social Science, presented his findings in the journal First Monday. Mood and location The study's information was taken from a range of sources including the US government-run Open Source Centre and BBC Monitoring, both of which monitor local media output around the world.
Predicting trouble Continue reading the main story. Theory of Knowledge. Internet Explorer users 'have below-average IQ' It found that Internet Explorer users scored lower than average, while Chrome, Firefox and Safari users were very slightly above average. Camino, Opera and Internet Explorer with Chrome Frame were scored "exceptionally" high. "The study showed a substantial relationship between an individual's cognitive ability and their choice of web browser," AptiQuant concluded. "From the test results, it is a clear indication that individuals on the lower side of the IQ scale tend to resist a change/upgrade of their browsers.
" Some people have suggested that there may be other factors at work. Business Insider's Matt Rosoff points out that since IE is the default browser for Windows PC users, anyone who doesn't know how to download and install a new browser will be stuck with it - "which drags down the average". And users of other browsers "include a disproportionate number of computer geeks", which might bring their average up. Geoffrey West: The surprising math of cities and corporations.
Scientists warn of 'Planet of the Apes' scenario. Ethical rules needed to curb 'Frankenstein-like experiments' on animals. Go Figure: What can 72 tell us about life? 20 July 2011Last updated at 22:43 By Michael Blastland GO FIGURE - Seeing stats in a different way Is 72 the answer to life, the universe and everything? It's definitely the answer to a few economic questions, says Michael Blastland in his regular column. You know the joke from The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy in which the answer to the ultimate question about life, the universe and everything is 42?
It was a typo. Should have been 72. The author, Douglas Adams, was secretly an economist and statistician who pretended to be a sci-fi writer of comic brilliance to hide his shame. So, 72. The rule of 72 helps clarify half the serious economic issues of the day. The rule of 72 helps reveal the full effects of change. For example, we're worried at the moment about inflation. Another example. The chart shows the difference that just 0.5% a year would make over a lifetime to growth in income per head in the UK. Since World War II, the national income per head has indeed roughly doubled twice.
The World at 7 Billion: Can We Stop Growing Now? by Robert Engelman. 18 Jul 2011: Opinion by robert engelman Demographers aren’t known for their sense of humor, but the ones who work for the United Nations recently announced that the world’s human population will hit 7 billion on Halloween this year. Since censuses and other surveys can scarcely justify such a precise calculation, it’s tempting to imagine that the UN Population Division, the data shop that pinpointed the Day of 7 Billion, is hinting that we should all be afraid, be very afraid. We have reason to be. The 21st century is not yet a dozen years old, and there are already 1 billion more people than in October 1999 — with the outlook for future energy and food supplies looking bleaker than it has for decades.
It took humanity until the early 19th century to gain its first billion people; then another 1.5 billion followed over the next century and a half. In just the last 60 years the world’s population has gained yet another 4.5 billion. Click to enlarge Population Action International. Westerners 'programmed for fatty foods and alcohol' 14 July 2011Last updated at 14:26 Obesity levels have risen sharply in many western countries since the 1970s Westerners could be genetically programmed to consume fatty foods and alcohol more than those from the east, researchers have claimed. Scientists at the University of Aberdeen say a genetic switch - DNA which turns genes on or off within cells - regulates appetite and thirst.
The study suggests it is also linked to depression. Dr Alasdair MacKenzie conceded it would not stop those moving to the west adapting to its lifestyle. Obesity levels have risen sharply in many Western countries since the 1970s. Dr MacKenzie, who lead the study team, told BBC Scotland they found Europeans were more inclined to consume fatty foods and alcohol - but that people from the East could end up with the same problems if adapting to a new culture. Continue reading the main story Facts on calories Scientists at the university's Kosterlitz Centre said the switch controls the galanin gene. 'Emotional state' A good book offers the ultimate escape. It's not ADHD, Sir, it's in my genes. . . Slime mould prefers sedatives, say researchers. 10 June 2011Last updated at 12:16 By Jason Palmer Science and technology reporter, BBC News The slime mould at centre sought out sleeping tablets (l) significantly more than honey (r) A simple life form known as a slime mould, used in unconventional computing, seems to have a taste for sedatives.
Physarum polycephalum is known to grow toward food sources, and this propensity has been exploited to solve mazes and even to mimic "logic gates", the building blocks of computers. It is normally fed honey or oats in these experiments, but a paper in Nature Precedings suggests that plants and commercial tablets with sedative effects work far better. Slime moulds are a type of primitive life form known as protists. It is essentially a single cell; in its growing stages, it extends a network of tubes of cellular material in search of food, which it surrounds and then digests. This procedure is useful, among other things, for computation-based processing and manipulation of images. Proof and Science. By the time you have completed this material you should be able to define "proof" explain why it is wise to avoid the word "proof" when discussing ideas in science state what the difference is between a law and a theory First let's get this straight.
Proof, as we mean it when we say "prove me wrong", has nothing to do with science. While we might use the word "proof" in science, it is not a scientific idea. Proving is an exercise in logic. The other meaning of the word "proof", as it is used when we refer to whiskey – "this is 90 proof" – actually has its origin in the meaning of the word as we use it in science, but that's a whole different story! Here's a definition of what it means to prove something: "Proof is arriving at a logical conclusion, based on the available evidence. " Scientific law: a generalized description, usually expressed in mathematical terms, which describes the empirical behavior of matter. Scientific laws describe things.
La Cerebroteca de Lima | RÓMPETE EL OJO. Fotos y noticias. 7,000,000,000. Everything Bad is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter (9781594481949): Steven Johnson. EndGame HQ full length version. Book Review - Soul Dust - The Magic of Consciousness - By Nicholas Humphrey. Probability distribution. Probability theory. Is graphene a miracle material? Consciousness.