By Robin Lloyd, LiveScience Senior Editor
posted: 24 May 2007 02:00 pm ET
Babies might seem a bit dim in their first six months of life, but researchers are getting smarter about what babies know, and the results are surprising.
The word “infant” comes from the Latin, meaning “unable to speak,” but babies are building the foundations for babbling and language before they are born, responding to muffled sounds that travel through amniotic fluid.
Soon after birth, infants are keen and sophisticated generalists, capable of seeing details in the world that are visible to some other animals but invisible to adults, older children and even slightly older infants.
Recently, scientists have learned the following:
More . . .
An odd new material could be a boon in dry regions with limited access to clean water.
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“Is my metabolism to blame for my weight?”, “Does sugar make kids hyperactive?”, “Do aphrodisiacs really work?”, and others…
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“A new study, funded by NASA, shows that it’s possible to cram an extra hour into the day. They studied 12 healthy young adults (average age: 28) who volunteered to spend 65 days living in individual rooms without windows, clocks, or any other time cues. Before the experiment began, the volunteers got eight hours of nightly sleep at home…”
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Most people don’t appreciate an angry look, but a new University of Michigan psychology study found that some people find angry expressions so rewarding that they will readily learn ways to encourage them.
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Using neurology patients to probe moral reasoning, [...] researchers for the first time drew a direct link between the neuroanatomy of emotion and moral judgment.
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Norway has amassed a fortune of more than $300 billion over the last decade…but rather than managing their monstrous nest egg simply for the best returns, the reluctant billionaires of Norway are using the money to advance an ambitious ethical code…last June, Norway added Wal-Mart Stores to its blacklist for child labor issues…
read more | digg story
Hey even if you think you’re not interested, you’ll like this. I have a degree in art history and I thought I wasn’t interested, but it’s pretty good, even though this episode is about the most over-covered painting in the history of the world. It was fun and well done . . . so there ya go . . .
Art History in About a Minute