The Krafty Librarian has compiled an impressive list of podcasts (34 in all) on a wide variety of health and medical related topics. Definitely worth a look!
The list is available in an alphabetized word document here.
[tags]health,medicine,podcasts[/tags]
Two studies were released today that have tips to improve children’s verbal and math skills.
To improve verbal skills: Music Lessons…
Researchers from the Chinese University of Hong Kong studied 90 boys ages 6 to 15. Of the group, half had music training both from individual lessons and from participating in their school’s string orchestra. The other half had no musical training. When tested for verbal memory, the young musicians performed significantly better than their nonmusical peers.
In a follow-up memory test one year later, researchers found that students who had discontinued their music training still scored better on verbal tests than those who had never taken music lessons in the first place.
To improve math skills: Hand gestures…
As part of the experiment students had to complete the equation “7+6+5=?+5â€. Teachers told the youngsters that they had to make one side of the equation match the other side.
The gestures simply duplicating these directions involved the instructors pointing to the left-hand and then the right-hand sides of the equation. When using complementary gestures, however, the teachers pointed to each of the numbers on the left and then signalled the subtraction of the five on the right side by scooping their hand away from the number.
Children who saw the complementary gestures did best, solving three of the four addition problems correctly, on average. By comparison, those children who witnessed simple illustrative gestures typically solved fewer than two of the problems correctly. And students who received only verbal instructions solved only one of the four problems correctly, on average.
[tags]learning,tips,studies,music,math,teaching[/tags]
Well maybe not, but researchers have revealed they have succeeded in growing a human prostate and a taste receptors outside a person. And you were worried about the machines. Pshaw!
[tags]prostate,taste receptors,stem cells [/tags]
Most women know that folic acid supplementation before pregnancy is important to their baby’s health, but what they may not know is that periodontitis, or gum disease, can be detrimental to it.
Periodontitis is actually a bacterial infection of the gums. Some of that bacterial can enter the bloodstream during pregnancy and, it is believed, trigger pre-term labor. It is estimated that as many as 20% of these pre-term births could be prevented with treatment.
This is the second story this week related to gum disease. It was previously reported that gum disease may also be a causative factor in atherosclerosis; though further research is needed.
Link to story on pregancy and gum disease.
Link to story on artheriosclerosis and gum disease.
[tags]studies,pregnancy,women’s health,gum disease,hygiene,artheriosclerosis [/tags]