Too Much TV Harms Kids Psychologically (Discovery News)

A new study found that children who spend two hours or more a day watching TV or playing on a computer are more likely to have psychology difficulties.

The negative impact of screen time was not remedied by increasing a child's physical activity levels.

Too Much TV Harms Kids Psychologically : Discovery News

New research explores connections between poverty, education, and prisons.

The U.S. currently imprisons more than 2 million people - significantly more than any other country in the world (relative to their population).

The state of California spends more money on prisons than the education system!

A new article by the Slate magazine explores the connections between poverty, school-dropouts, and prisons.

New research shows precisely how the prison-to-poverty cycle does its damage. - By Sasha Abramsky - Slate Magazine

UK survey finds children know more about celebrities than history

How was the first man on the moon: Buzz or Neil?

A survey among 2000 UK 6-12 years olds found that children are knowledgeable about current celebrity gossip but lack knowledge about historical figures, major wars, and world events.

For example:

-One in five kids believe Toy Story's Buzz Lightyear was the first person to set foot on the moon rather than Neil Armstrong.

-One in six even failed to identify US President Barrack Obama, claiming he was Mr T from the A-Team, F1 Lewis Hamilton and even Nelson Mandela.

But in contrast:

A whopping 65 per cent knew Britney Spears shaved her head, and 55 per cent correctly said model Jordan has been married twice.

Full article here: Buzz Lightyear was first man to walk on moon, children believe (Telegraph)

How a single person "wrote" 85,000 books

Philip M. Parker is professor of Management Science an international business school based in France. In the last five years alone, he published over 85,000 books on a wide variety of topics: Rotary pumps; Avocados: A Medical Dictionary; Toilet Brushes; Dictionary for Romanian Crossword Puzzles; Golf Bags in India; or Chinese Prawn Crackers in Japan.

How is possible that a single person could publish so many books on such a variety of topics? Because Parker doesn't write books, he compiles them. Parker created a (patentend) computer algorithm that automatically generates a book from a big database. It takes the program about 20 minutes to complete a book.

The books are not printed unless somebody actually orders one. All the books are available on amazon.com.

Read the full article on Parker's book-writing software on Neatorama How to write 85000 books.

Huge stack of books from Crestock Creative Photos

Elixir of life found (kind of): Add ten years to your life by drinking a protein cocktail, but only if you are a lab mouse

Researchers in Italy found that feeding a cocktail of three branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) - isoleucine, leucine and valine - to mice increased their lifespan and fitness. However, these findings have to be interpreted with care: First, it has been a small study with only thirty mice. Second, transferring findings from mice to humans is often very difficult. See article here.

A researcher holding a mouse cage in a research lab. (Credit: iStockphoto/Brandon Laufenberg)

Infograph (by Rob Beeson) distinguishing seven types of gamers

Infographic, entitled The Gamer Brain: The science and the stories behind a Gamer's brain, distinguishes seven different types of gamers, their motivation for playing, and what brain parts are activated.

A Gamer's Brain- By Rob Beeson

View more documents from Rob Beeson.

Aiming to Learn as We Do, a Machine Teaches Itself (NY Times article)

Researchers at Carengie Mellon University are working on a computer that can understand natural spoken language, but it has to learn it first. The Never-Ending Language Learning system (NELL) learns by scanning websites for semantic relationships between words. Full article here.