Learn how to talk to babies

The Pioneer , Monday, December 01, 2014
Correspondent :
There is only one real rule to converse with a baby: talking is better than not talking. But that one rule can make a lifetime of difference. That's the message that the US state of Georgia hopes to send with Talk With Me Baby, a public health programme devoted to the art of baby talk. Starting in January, nurses will be trained in the best way to speak to babies to help them learn language, based on what the latest neuroscience says. Then they, along with teachers and nutritionists, will model this good behaviour for the parents they meet. Georgia hopes to expose every child born in 2015 in the Atlanta area to this speaking style; by 2018, the hope is to reach all 130,000 or so newborns across the state.

Earth’s most abundant mineral

The most abundant mineral on earth that has remained nameless until now will be called Bridgmanite. After a team of American geologists were able to extract a sample large enough to analyse from a meteorite, Bridgmanite was named officially. Up to now, it was referred to as perovskite because according to rules set down by the International Mineralogical Association, a mineral cannot be given a formal name until a specimen has been found that can be examined first hand. The new name is in honour of Percy Bridgman, a pioneer in the use of high pressure experiments to better understand how many geological formations come about Bridgmanite makes up about 70 per cent of the earth's lower mantle and 38 per cent of the total volume of earth. It is made up of high-density magnesium iron silicate.

Use education in a right way

Education makes people less vulnerable to natural disasters such as floods, landslides and storms that are expected to intensify with climate change, says a new study. Investing in empowerment through universal education should be key in climate change adaptation efforts, contended the study by International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). “Education is key in reducing disaster fatalities and enhancing adaptive capacity,” said Wolfgang Lutz, director of IIASA's World Population Programme. The study is based upon natural disaster data for 167 countries over 40 years. “Our research shows that education is more important than GDP (gross domestic product) in reducing mortality from natural disasters. We also demonstrated that under rapid development and educational expansion across the globe, disaster fatalities will be reduced substantially,” added Raya Muttarak from Vienna Institute of Demography.

This is for fussy eaters

If you have suddenly become choosy about your food choices, don't just blame bad food or environment. You may be genetically predisposed to become a picky eater. According to a new study, genes play a major role in determining who becomes a picky eater. The study that included a group of four to seven-year-old twins, found that the pickiness can be attributed to a specific gene called TAS2R38 gene that governs taste. Variants of this gene have been found to encode for taste receptors that determine how strongly someone tastes bitter flavours. Researchers in Philadelphia also found that this same gene also predicts sweet tooth cravings among children. “Adults with the bitter receptor genes remained picky about bitter foods, but did not prefer more sweets,” they noted.

The brain’s reaction to fear

Even if people forget the details of a traumatic event or what is called explicit memory, the emotions associated with that event, also known as implicit memory, may remain ingrained in the brain for a long time, says a new study. In the context of fear, our brain differently encodes contextual memory of a negative event, such as the place, what we saw and the emotional response associated, the results found. “The study helps explain how the processing of fearful memories can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder,” said project coordinator LluAs Fuentemilla from the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) in Spain. For the study, the researchers tracked the traces of implicit and explicit memories of fear in humans.

 
SOURCE : http://www.dailypioneer.com/vivacity/2014-11-30-69646.html
 


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