blood levels affect readingIJ
A study has shown that a representative sample of UK school children aged seven to nine years had low levels of key Omega-3 fatty acids in their blood. The study found that children's blood levels of the long-chain Omega-3 DHA (the form found in most abundance in the brain) predicted how well they were able to concentrate and learn.
The study was presented at the conference by co-authors Dr Alex Richardson and Professor Paul Montgomery from Oxford University's Centre for Evidence-Based Intervention in the Department of Social Policy and Intervention.
relation between genes and handedness
A genetic study has identified a biological process that influences whether we are right handed or left handed. Scientists at the Universities of Oxford, St Andrews, Bristol and the Max Plank Institute in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, found correlations between handedness and a network of genes involved in establishing left-right asymmetry in developing embryos. “The genes are involved in the biological process through which an early embryo moves on from being a round ball of cells and becomes a growing organism with an established left and right side,” explained first author William Brandler, a PhD student in the MRC Functional Genomics Unit at Oxford University.
do you hate sound of your voiceIJ
It turns out we really do like the sound of our own voice. We just may not realise it. A new study by Albright College has found that people unknowingly assessed their own recorded voice as sounding more attractive in comparison to how others rated their voices, which is considered a form of unconscious self-enhancement. “People generally tend to have an enhanced sense about themselves,” says Susan Hughes, Associate Professor of psychology. “Often people will think they have more attractive or possess better qualities than they actually do. This is sometimes used as a mechanism to build self-esteem or fight against depression.” The findings are included in a new article, I like My Voice Better: Self-Enhancement Bias in Perceptions of Voice Attractiveness, to be published later this month in the Perception.
dogs’ help for social robots
Designers of social robots, take note. Bring your dog to the lab next time you test a prototype, and watch how your pet interacts with it. You might just learn a thing or two that could help you fine-tune future designs. So says Gabriella lakatos of the Hungarian Academy of Science and Eötvös loránd University, lead author of a study that found that man's best friend reacts sociably to robots that behave socially towards them, even if the devices look nothing like a human. This animal behaviour study tested the reaction of 41 dogs.
brain atrophy links to diabetes
New research has shown that cognitive decline in people with Type two Diabetes is likely due to brain atrophy, or shrinkage, that resembles patterns seen in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Dr Chris Moran and Associate Professor Velandai Srikanth of Monash University led the first large-scale study to compare brain scans and cognitive function between people with and without Type two Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM). They found that brain atrophy, rather than cerebrovascular lesions, was likely the primary reason for cognitive impairment associated with T2DM. The World Health Organisation reports that more that more than 347 million people worldwide live with diabetes and around 90 per cent of these cases are Type two.