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The computer is not the enemy of the book

14.02.2007

Parents often fear that the younger generation, being fond of computers, will not read books and generally grow up uneducated. However, experience in the United States has shown that a computer with Internet access, on the contrary, improves reading skills and even improves school grades.

One hundred and forty children aged 12-14, mostly from low-income single-parent Negro families, were provided with home computers and unlimited access to the Internet for a year and a half. Participants in the experience surfed the Internet for an average of half an hour a day, which is small compared to children from families with an average and high standard of living. Those surf the Internet every day for two hours or more.

Only 25% of participants in the experience used programs for instant messaging, and only 16% used email. This is apparently due to the fact that their friends and relatives mostly do not have computers.

During the experience, reading skills have improved significantly. Already after six months of communication with the computer, the school grades of the participants went up, especially among those who spent more time on the Internet. But, interestingly, math grades didn't improve.

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In the heat is not up to love 15.11.2015

To the many troubles that await us in connection with global warming, it seems that one can also add a drop in the birth rate - researchers from the US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found that if over the past 80 years, in some season, the temperature in the United States has risen above 26,7°C, then after 10 months the newborns were smaller than usual. In general, writes Bloomberg.com with reference to the working report of economists from the NBER, the fall in the birth rate each time averaged 0,4% from the previous level. And, most importantly, the subsequent rebound was incomplete: the gain was only 32% of the decline. The authors of the study also note that the negative effect of the heat is partly smoothed out since the 70s of the last century, that is, from the time when air conditioning systems began to become widespread.

If, due to global warming, the global temperature continues to rise, then, given the new data, it is easy to imagine what demographic and, therefore, economic consequences await us all. Ecologists can only note with satisfaction that this is a more weighty argument in favor of some kind of active political action than "a decrease in biodiversity on the planet": the connection between biodiversity and human environmental well-being does exist, but it is very difficult to bring it to the consciousness of the "general public" .

Of course, here it would be interesting to know what specific behavioral and / or physiological mechanism links one to the other. Someone will say that in the heat it is not too drawn to love joys, but the whole point may be in some features of the process of fertilization, the fusion of the sperm with the egg, and the subsequent introduction of the embryo into the uterus.

However, recently an article was published in Behavioral Ecology that speaks just in favor of the first explanation. Zoologists from the University of Exeter decided to find out why some female fruit flies mate with many males, while others suffice with one. On the one hand, there is a genetic predisposition to this or that sexual behavior, on the other hand, can the environment contribute?

It turned out, maybe: when it got colder, most females tended to mate with a large number of males, while when it got warmer, they switched to monogamy. (Some, however, remained poly- or monogamous, regardless of the ambient temperature.) Similar variation in sexual behavior can be found in a number of fish, birds, and reptiles, and may also be partly determined by current environmental conditions.

It would be incorrect to directly compare the two works: in one case, we have experiments under strictly controlled conditions, in the other, there is a statistical correlation, which, by the way, may depend on other factors besides temperature; and let's not forget about the difference between Drosophila and humans. But, nevertheless, we all here definitely have something to think about.

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