SEOUL – Thor star Tom Hiddleston is set to appear on Saturday Night Live Korea this weekend to showcase his own spin on the much-parodied dance moves of K-pop act Crayon Pop.
Crayon Pop is a five-member girl band best known for the YouTube smash hit "Bar Bar Bar," featuring kitschy stage outfits and choreography. The group has since signed a licensing and partnership deal with Sony Music Entertainment.
For the show, Hiddleston will also be taking part in comic sequences satirizing the Thor and Avengers franchises.
He is the third non-Korean star after Jason Mraz and Miranda Kerr to appear on Saturday Day Night Live Korea. The late-night show is one of the few imports to do well in a market dominated by homespun programs, which are also extremely popular in other Asian countries.
Hiddleston and Kevin Feige, president of production at Marvel Studios, took part in a red carpet premiere for Thor: The Dark Worldat Yeongdeungpo Times Square in Seoul on Monday. Some 5,000 fans gathered for the occasion.
Thor: The Dark World is slated to be first released in South Korea, before other territories, on Oct. 30.
IBM's Watson supercomputer may be boning up on its medical bona fides, but the concept of Dr. Watson is nothing new. We've been waiting on our super-smart computer doctors of tomorrow for over 30 years.
Dartmouth study shows difference in cognitive ability between low-income rural, urban children
Public release date: 14-Oct-2013 [
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Contact: Shea Drefs shea.m.drefs@dartmouth.edu 603-646-2255 Dartmouth College
Kids in rural poverty score lower on visual, higher on verbal tests of working memory than urban counterparts
Studies have long shown a difference in cognitive ability between high- and low-income children, but for the first time, scientists have found a difference between low-income children growing up in rural areas and those growing up in urban environments.
Researchers at Dartmouth College have found that children growing up in rural poverty score significantly lower on visual working memory tests than their urban counterparts. However, children in urban poverty score slightly lower on tests of verbal working memory.
Working memory is the ability to keep information in mind while using that information to complete a task. It is a better predictor of academic success than IQ and is crucial to skills as diverse as reading, math processing, and decision making.
The results of the Dartmouth study appear online in the Journal of Cognition and Development and will be included in the journal's next print edition. A PDF is available now upon request.
The study results were also groundbreaking because they demonstrated a gap between the verbal and visual working memories of children living in rural poverty. None of the other groups included in the study kids from high-income rural, high-income urban, and low-income urban backgrounds performed significantly better in one area than the other.
Follow-up research is needed to conclusively determine the cause of the disparities found in the study, but author Michele Tine, assistant professor of education and principal investigator in the Poverty and Learning Lab at Dartmouth, suggests they may be connected to seemingly minor differences in the daily lives of country- versus city-dwellers.
For example, rural areas tend to have less noise pollution than urban ones, and chronic noise pollution has been shown to hurt verbal working memory. On the other hand, rural areas lack visual stimuli common in cities such as traffic, crowds, and signs and this may give rural children less opportunity to develop their visual working memory, Tine surmises.
Prior research has shown environmental factors do not impact the cognitive ability of high-income children as much as low-income children, which is consistent with Tine's finding that wealthy children had almost identical working memory abilities, regardless of whether they lived in urban or rural environments.
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Broadcast studios Dartmouth has TV and radio studios available for interviews. For more information, visit: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~opa/radio-tv-studios/
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Dartmouth study shows difference in cognitive ability between low-income rural, urban children
Public release date: 14-Oct-2013 [
| E-mail
| Share
]
Contact: Shea Drefs shea.m.drefs@dartmouth.edu 603-646-2255 Dartmouth College
Kids in rural poverty score lower on visual, higher on verbal tests of working memory than urban counterparts
Studies have long shown a difference in cognitive ability between high- and low-income children, but for the first time, scientists have found a difference between low-income children growing up in rural areas and those growing up in urban environments.
Researchers at Dartmouth College have found that children growing up in rural poverty score significantly lower on visual working memory tests than their urban counterparts. However, children in urban poverty score slightly lower on tests of verbal working memory.
Working memory is the ability to keep information in mind while using that information to complete a task. It is a better predictor of academic success than IQ and is crucial to skills as diverse as reading, math processing, and decision making.
The results of the Dartmouth study appear online in the Journal of Cognition and Development and will be included in the journal's next print edition. A PDF is available now upon request.
The study results were also groundbreaking because they demonstrated a gap between the verbal and visual working memories of children living in rural poverty. None of the other groups included in the study kids from high-income rural, high-income urban, and low-income urban backgrounds performed significantly better in one area than the other.
Follow-up research is needed to conclusively determine the cause of the disparities found in the study, but author Michele Tine, assistant professor of education and principal investigator in the Poverty and Learning Lab at Dartmouth, suggests they may be connected to seemingly minor differences in the daily lives of country- versus city-dwellers.
For example, rural areas tend to have less noise pollution than urban ones, and chronic noise pollution has been shown to hurt verbal working memory. On the other hand, rural areas lack visual stimuli common in cities such as traffic, crowds, and signs and this may give rural children less opportunity to develop their visual working memory, Tine surmises.
Prior research has shown environmental factors do not impact the cognitive ability of high-income children as much as low-income children, which is consistent with Tine's finding that wealthy children had almost identical working memory abilities, regardless of whether they lived in urban or rural environments.
###
Broadcast studios Dartmouth has TV and radio studios available for interviews. For more information, visit: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~opa/radio-tv-studios/
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
MOSCOW – St Petersburg’s city court has canceled a lower court’s verdict under which a local LGBT film festival was branded a “foreign agent” and fined $15,500 (500,000 rubles).
The court, to which the festival Bok o bok (Side by Side) appealed against the previous verdict, said that the law was applied incorrectly in the original probe, so the “foreign agent” status is to be lifted and the fine canceled. The verdict is final and the case is closed.
The lower court’s verdict came last summer and was largely viewed as part of a crackdown on gay activists and on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with international contacts. Many NGOs were then branded as “foreign agents” and fined for not claiming that status by themselves.
“We are satisfied with the city court’s decision,” the festival’s organizers said in a statement. “Eventually, justice has triumphed.”
“We really hope that other NGOs, which are being persecuted under the law on “foreign agents,” will be able to find justice in Russian courts.”
Side by Side, which has been held in St. Petersburg since 2007, has recently been organizing film screenings and public discussions on LGBT issues in other Russian cities, including Tomsk, Arkhangelsk, Perm, Novosibirsk and Moscow.
Meanwhile, the festival’s director Gulya Sultanova was also fined $9,300 (300,000 rubles) as a private individual under the same “foreign agent” law. Her appeal is pending.
To many of us in the tech world, what's been going on in Washington, D.C., over the past two weeks is largely a puppet show, only most puppets are smarter. The government shutdown may be the talk of 24/7 cable networks and Twitter, but most of us who don't collect a government paycheck aren't really feeling the effects.
That is about to change in a big way. The shutdown is having an enormous impact on science and technology, and not a good one. For example, I've been hearing from Cringesters based in Antarctica who've been trundled off the ice pack, forced to board planes and leave their research posts just a few days after arriving.
The reason? The government contractor that runs the U.S. research facilities, Lockheed Martin, is no longer receiving funds from the National Science Foundation. Scientists have been ordered to drop those penguins and proceed to the nearest military transport.
The problem with shutting down Antarctica research right now is that right now is virtually the only time it can happen. This is Antarctica's summer: a 10-week window where people can survive being outside for any length of time and planes can take off and land. A shutdown means there's no data at all for the year 2013, throwing a monkey wrench into the reliability of long-term climate research.
Not coincidentally, the same forces behind the shutdown -- we all know who they are, even if they don't admit it -- are also not the biggest fans of either science or climate research. Funny how that happens.
Science is suffering all over Antarctica isn't the only science research that's been pole-axed because a small cadre of Congressmen decided to hold the government hostage while their more sensible yet timid comrades are hiding in the closet. As Live Science reports, the CDC has furloughed two-thirds of its staff, which means "it will not be able to monitor current flu activity, or link outbreak information across states." Let's hope there's not an outbreak of Egyptian flu over the next week or so.
If the shutdown continues, the nation's nuclear labs will close up shop. The FDA won't be inspecting meat or dairy plants, and the EPA won't be monitoring air or water pollution. Long-term weather forecasting will be put on hold. Your taxes will still be due, but there won't be anyone at the IRS around to answer your questions. The International Space Station won't fall out of the sky, but they'll have to deal with a skeleton crew as NASA sends 97 percent of its workforce home. NASA's Asteroid Watch program is also on hiatus, so I'd suggest not venturing out doors without a titanium-plated umbrella, lest you get bonked on the head by a space rock.
As talks between Republican and Democratic leaders lumber on in Washington, the American public sees an economic crisis looming if Congress is unable to raise the country's debt ceiling. But the people seem just as conflicted on the issue as their elected representatives.
An Associated Press-GfK poll released last week highlights the apparent conflict in public opinion. Six in 10 said that if no deal is reached and the U.S. defaults on its debts, a major economic crisis was likely. Yet only half as many, 30 percent, said they supported raising the debt limit to avoid such a default.
What gives?
There is a connection between the two questions. Those who said an economic crisis was "extremely likely" if the U.S. defaulted were most apt to say they backed an increase in the debt limit — 40 percent said they would support raising it and 17 percent said they opposed an increase in the debt limit to avoid default, while 42 percent were neutral. Similarly, those who said a crisis was unlikely were more apt to oppose raising the federal debt limit — 47 percent opposed it, 16 percent supported it and 37 percent were neutral.
The common thread? All those neutral views. On this deeply complex issue, a lot of people are just not sure what to do, regardless of how big a crisis they see in the distance. All told, nearly half of Americans say they neither support nor oppose raising the federal debt limit in order to avoid defaulting on U.S. government debts.
The plurality choosing a neutral position could reflect a public that hasn't yet sorted through the implications of such a policy change. Or it could reflect a lack of knowledge on the issue or simply a lack of strong feelings about it.
A CBS News poll conducted in early October found 77 percent of Americans would rather see an agreement on the debt ceiling that they didn't fully support than have Congress not reach an agreement and see the U.S. default on its debts.
A separate question in the AP-GfK poll prompted a similar response: Just 10 percent said they thought Congress should avoid increasing the debt ceiling under any circumstances, while 41 percent would support an increase if it is made at the same time as significant spending cuts, and 44 percent would support an increase with a separate debate on spending and deficits.
The AP-GfK Poll was conducted Oct. 3-7 and involved online interviews with 1,227 adults. The survey had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points for all respondents.
The survey used GfK's KnowledgePanel, a probability-based Internet panel designed to be representative of the U.S. population. Respondents to the survey were first selected randomly using phone or mail survey methods and were later interviewed for this survey online. People selected for KnowledgePanel who didn't have online access were given that access at no cost to them.
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Online:
AP-GfK Poll: http://www.ap-gfkpoll.com
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Follow Jennifer Agiesta on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/JennAgiesta
Google TV is dead, and its zombie successor will be called "Android TV," at least according to a report by GigaOM. The branding change isn't official yet, but it sounds plausible enough. The real question is what does this mean for devices? We'll have to wait and see. [GigaOM]
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