Researchers say, Maths could make your head hurt

Maths really CAN make your head hurt, researchers say

• Researchers say a fear of maths can activate regions of the brain linked to physical pain
• Claim fear is caused by anticipation

PUBLISHED:12:21 GMT, 1 November 2012| UPDATED:15:23 GMT, 1 November 2012

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Fear of maths can activate regions of the brain linked with the experience of physical pain, a study has found.
 

The higher a person’s anxiety of a maths task, the more it increases activity in regions of their brain associated with visceral threat detection, and often the experience of pain itself, according to researchers Ian Lyons and Sian Beilock, from the University of Chicago, in the journal Plos One.

The authors say that previous research has shown that other forms of psychological stress, such as social rejection or a traumatic break-up, can also elicit feelings of physical pain.

Researchers say that the anticipation of having to do maths can trigger regions in the brain associated with physical pain

However, they say their study examines the pain response associated with anticipating an anxiety-provoking event, rather than the pain associated with a stressful event itself.

The authors say their results indicate the maths task itself is not painful but merely the thought of it is highly unpleasant to certain people.

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'Math can be difficult, and for those with high levels of mathematics-anxiety (HMAs), math is associated with tension, apprehension and fear,” the authors said in their paper titled, When Math Hurts.

'Interestingly, this relation was not seen during math performance, suggesting that it is not that math itself hurts, rather, the anticipation of math is painful.

'Our data suggest that pain network activation underlies the intuition that simply anticipating a dreaded event can feel painful.

The researchers found some people suffer from major anxiety around maths.

'These results may also provide a potential neural mechanism to explain why (people with) HMAs tend to avoid math and math-related situations, which in turn can bias (those with) high levels of mathematics-anxiety away from taking math classes or even entire math-related career paths.

'We provide the first neural evidence indicating the nature of the subjective experience of math-anxiety.'

The researchers used 14 people with HMAs and 14 who had low levels of maths anxiety.

The subjects were then asked to complete word tasks and maths tasks.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2226247/Maths-really-CAN-make-head-hurt-researchers-say.html#ixzz2AzT6BcZd
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Good Parenting vs Good Schooling

Good parenting is more important than good schooling in determining your child's academic results, says new research

• Trust, good communication and active involvement in a child's academic life 'can help them succeed more than sending them to a good school'

By Laura Clark
PUBLISHED: 00:12 GMT, 12 October 2012 | UPDATED: 00:13 GMT, 12 October 2012

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Good parenting is more important than a good school to a child’s academic success, according to a study.

Youngsters do best when their parents help them with homework, emphasise the importance of education and attend school events, researchers found.

Children with supportive parents – even if they attend poor quality schools – tend to outperform pupils at good schools whose parents take little interest in their education.

Learning with mum: A study has found that youngsters whose parents are supportive but who go to bad schools perform better than children whose parents are unsupportive but who attend good schools

The findings prompted the researchers to warn that improving social mobility cannot be achieved only by ‘fixing’ the school system. 

Initiatives were also needed which aimed to enhance parents’ involvement.

 

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Researchers examined information on 10,585 teenagers drawn from 1,000 randomly selected secondary schools in the US.

LIMIT THE TIME YOUR CHILD SPENDS IN FRONT OF TV, WARNS EXPERT

Limiting the amount of time children spend in front of a screen could have significant advantages for their health and wellbeing, a leading psychologist has said.

By the age of seven, a child born today will have spent a full year glued to screens, according to Dr Aric Sigman.

The average 10-year-old has at least five screens available to them at home, and over the course of childhood youngsters spend more time watching TV than they do in school, he said.

Many parents use devices as 'electronic babysitters', but all this screen time has been linked to obesity problems and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes, he warned.

Dr Sigman added that such extensive use could also lead to attention problems and other psychological difficulties. 

The study considered their academic performance and the quality of parental involvement in their lives – so-called ‘family social capital’ – as well as the quality of their schools – ‘school social capital’.

Parents were considered to be passing on high levels of social capital if they regularly checked homework, talked about school with their children and attended parents’ evenings and other events.

These are thought to be ways parents pass on knowledge and values to their children.

Meanwhile, schools with high social capital ensured the classroom environment was conducive to learning and kept truancy and disruptive behaviour to a minimum.

They also offered plenty of extra-curricular activities and made regular contact with parents.

Teachers at these schools reported high morale.

The researchers, from North Carolina State University, found that while good schools did help to raise achievement, the influence of families was stronger.

Teenagers with high levels of family capital but low school capital tended to do better in exams than pupils with high school capital but low family capital, according to the study, published in the journal Research and Social Stratification and Mobility.

Dr Toby Parcel, who led the study, said: ‘While both school and family involvement are important, the role of family involvement is stronger when it comes to academic success.’

Advice: Dr Toby Parcel, who led the study, said parents should check homework, attend school events and let kids know school is important

She said the findings emphasised the crucial role parents play in children’s education.

‘Our study shows that parents need to be aware of how important they are, and invest time in their children – checking homework, attending school events and letting kids know school is important.

That’s where the payoff is.’ Dr Parcel said attempts to ‘fix’ schools ignored decades of research highlighting the importance of families.

‘Our findings ... suggest that efforts to increase social capital at school, such as initiatives to reduce class size or attempts to create parent-school programmes and ties, would probably have a beneficial effect on students,’ she said.

‘However we also find that family social capital has a stronger influence on child achievement than does school social capital.’

Parents heavily involved in their children’s education are often called ‘helicopter parents’, because they hover around, or ‘tiger mothers’, because they push them to achieve high academic standards.

The research suggests the approaches are, at least in part, vindicated.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2216202/Good-parenting-important-good-schooling-determining-childs-academic-results-says-new-research.html#ixzz29I6cN7J7
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Mobile phones have more GERMS....

You may want to wipe down your mobile as phones found to have more germs than a TOILET SEAT

By Daniel Bates
PUBLISHED: 14:50 GMT, 31 August 2012 | UPDATED: 14:50 GMT, 31 August 2012

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Next time you use you mobile phone, you might want to give it a little clean.

Researchers have discovered there are more bacteria on the average mobile than you will find in a toilet.

In tests there was up to 10 times the amount of bugs which can cause nausea and stomach problems than were present in a lavatory.

Mucky mobile: Your phone could carry 10 times as many bugs as a lavatory seat

Experts said the reason is that phones are often passed between people which spreads the germs around - but they are never cleaned which means the diseases keep on building up.

Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of Arizona, said during his ongoing experiments he has found that bugs get onto a phone because it is so close to our hands and mouths.

When somebody lets a friend or a stranger use their mobile their bacteria easily gets onto the device too.

 

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Professor Gerba added that because mobiles are electronic some people are reticent about cleaning them.

Phones are just not part of our cleaning routine whereas we should think about giving them a wipe with an antibacterial substance every now and then.

Professor Gerba is well known for his environmental germ theory in the household

Previous research has found that other things we assume are clean are in reality rather disgusting.

British scientists discovered that cash machines have similar levels of pseudomonads and bacillus, bacterias which are known to cause sickness and diarrhoea, as they found in public toilets.

Computer keyboards are also five times dirtier than the average lavatory seat.

Researchers from Which? swabbed 33 keyboards for food poisoning bugs e.coli, coliforms, staphylococcus aureus and enterobacteria and found four were a potential health hazard.

One was even ‘condemned’ because it was so infectious.

Remote controllers have also long been known as the grubbiest item in hotel rooms as they are never wiped down.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2196365/Mobile-phones-germs-toilet-seat.html#ixzz25EHs0R4P