Human Behavior, features and articles | Educational Science

Jul 31, 2013

Can You Calculate the Impact of Cheating in Sports? (Op-Ed)

Jeff Nesbit was the director of public affairs for two prominent federal science agencies. This article was adapted from one that first appeared in U.S. News & World Report. Nesbit contributed the article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. First, there was Barry Bonds. Then, there was Lance Armstrong....

Jul 31, 2013

Did Woman's 'Visions' Locate Missing Boy?

The search for a missing 11-year-old California boy came to a tragic end recently when the body of Terry Smith Jr. was found. The boy's mother reported him missing July 7, and his body was found three days later not far from his home in the rural town of Menifee,...

Jul 31, 2013

Baby Boom: Religious Women Having More Kids

After a drop in fertility during the global recession of 2007-08, women — especially religious women — are having more babies again, a new forecast suggests. The total fertility rate in the United States is predicted to climb from a 25-year low of 1.89 children per woman in 2012 to...

Jul 31, 2013

Senator's Policies Leave People and the Planet in Bad Health (Op-Ed)

Elliott Negin is the director of news and commentary at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). This article is adapted from one that appeared on the Huffington Post on Aug. 22, 2012. Negin contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Virtually all U.S. medical-school students swear fealty...

Jul 31, 2013

Humans Can Learn to Echolocate

Blind humans have been known to use echolocation to see their environment, but even sighted people can learn the skill, a new study finds. Study participants learned to echolocate, or glean information about surroundings by bouncing sound waves off surfaces, in a virtual environment. Although the human brain normally suppresses...

Jun 30, 2013

Gateway to the Plains | Wallpaper

This wallpaper shows Pecos National Historical Park in New Mexico. In the midst of piñon, juniper, and ponderosa pine woodlands in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains not far from Santa Fe, the remains of an Indian pueblo stand as a meaningful reminder of a people who once prevailed here. Now...

Jun 30, 2013

Coldhearted Psychopaths Feel Empathy Too

Psychopaths may be capable of empathizing with others in some situations, a new study has found. The study's researchers investigated the brain activity of psychopathic criminals in the Netherlands. As expected, the psychopaths' brains showed less empathy than mentally healthy individuals while watching others experience pain or affection. But when...

Jun 30, 2013

What Is Pink Noise?

Pink noise is a color of noise, not entirely unlike white noise. Both white noise and pink noise contain all the frequencies that are audible to humans — 20 hertz to 20,000 hertz — but the way their signal power is distributed among those frequencies differs. White noise has equal...

May 31, 2013

Photos Could Prove Amelia Earhart Lived as Castaway

An array of detailed aerial photos of the remote island where Amelia Earhart may have survived for a time as a castaway, has resurfaced in a New Zealand museum archive, raising hopes for new photographic evidence about the fate of the legendary aviator. Found by Matthew O'Sullivan, keeper of photographs...

Apr 30, 2013

Science Experiment Gone Wrong Ends in Felony Charge

An apparent science experiment gone wrong ended in arrest in Bartow, Florida on Friday, as a mixture of household chemicals in a water bottle caused a minor explosion on school grounds. According to the Miami New Times, 16-year-old Kiera Wilmot was curious to see what would happen if she mixed...

Apr 30, 2013

Human Ancestor 'Lucy' Ends US Tour

Lucy, the famous, 40-percent-complete fossil of one of our human ancestors, returned to Ethiopia this week after a five-year U.S. tour, CBS reported. The 3.2-million-year-old specimen was discovered by American paleoanthropologist Donald Johanson and his team in the Afar region of Ethiopia in 1974. Lucy, who would have stood barely...

Apr 30, 2013

Privacy Fail: House Passes Cyber Intelligence Law: Op-Ed

Jeff Nesbit was the director of public affairs for two prominent federal science agencies and is a regular contributor to U.S. News & World Report, where this article first ran before appearing in LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. Anonymous has had an extraordinary run of successes lately. It somehow...

Apr 30, 2013

Motherhood By the Numbers

The image of the typical American mom has transformed significantly since Mother's Day celebrations first started a century ago. From today's declining fertility rates to the increasing money people spend on moms, here's a look at motherhood by the numbers. More educated New moms today are more educated than they've...

Apr 30, 2013

Mexican Cave Art Offers Peek into Pre-Spanish Past

In the mountains of northeastern Mexico, archaeologists have unearthed thousands of ancient paintings on the walls of caves and ravines from a time before Spanish rule. The rock art offers rare evidence from native cultures living in the area around the Sierra de San Carlos, a mountain range in Mexico's...

Mar 31, 2013

Science Project: Classes Evolving to Help Students Compete

Mark McCaffrey, a programs and policy director at the National Center for Science Education, contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights. How often is there near unanimity and consensus in the United States about anything? According to a 2012 survey, 97 percent of voters think that improving...