learning news stories on Newser

Air Pollution Tied to Brain Damage

Matt Cantor — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:03:32 CDT

Air pollution isn’t just a threat to the heart and lungs: It can also affect learning, memory, and mood, researchers find. They exposed mice to extended periods of polluted or filtered air, and found that those exposed to pollution were slower to learn, quick to forget, and possibly more vulnerable...

How Naps Can Help You Learn

Evann Gastaldo — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 09:20:57 CDT

If you’re a fan of the afternoon nap, there’s no need to be ashamed—in fact, new research gives you the perfect excuse to stop reading this right now and go grab some midday shuteye. In the study, volunteers who napped for 100 minutes prior to completing a memorization test...

Brain Learns New Words in 15 Minutes

Nick McMaster — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 14:52:38 CST

It takes the brain just 15 minutes to learn a new word, new research suggests. The trick is hearing it, oh, say 160 times in 15 minutes, the Telegraph reports. If that happens, the brain creates a neural network that is "virtually indistinguishable" from those surrounding familiar words, Cambridge scientists...

Let's Scrap Final Exams

John Johnson — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:52:15 CDT

Harvard made exactly the right move when it declared it would no longer require final exams, writes Jonathan Zimmerman. Critics immediately pounced, calling it yet another example of coddled students and weakened standards. (One example here .) Nope, writes NYU history professor Zimmerman in the Christian Science Monitor . That's an...

For True Knowledge, Close the Laptop and Grab a Book

John Johnson — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:38:00 CDT

David Brooks rounds up the latest studies on books vs. the Internet as a learning tool and comes down squarely on the side of paper and ink. The web may be better at imparting facts, but books are better at imparting knowledge to interpret those facts. The Internet produces "better...

Newborns Learn in Their Sleep

Rob Quinn — Wed, 19 May 2010 05:05:46 CDT

Babies start absorbing information about the world around them as soon as they're out of the womb and they do so even in their sleep, according to new research. Scientists played a tune to 26 sleeping newborns and followed it up with a puff of air to the eyelids. Most...

'Puberty Pill' Could Make Kids Smarter

Kevin Spak — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:44:00 CDT

Studying, schmudying: A pill that boosts teenagers’ ability to learn may be in the pipeline soon. A receptor in the hippocampus area of the brain appears to slow down learning when kids hit puberty, researchers at SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn report. Give kids a steroid to suppress that receptor, and...

Cash-Strapped School Districts Go to 4-Day Week

Harry Kimball — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 11:04:54 CST

As school districts across the nation find themselves battling massive budget shortfalls, some are turning to the relatively rare but controversial practice of shortening the school week. Four-day weeks usually don’t affect teacher pay or the amount of classroom time for students, as the days are simply lengthened. But if...

Web Puts 2nd Language at Your Fingertips

M. Morris — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 11:54:00 CST

The days of chanting vocabulary words in a classroom and dozing off in the language lab are fading from memory as language instruction becomes increasingly available on the Internet. Freestanding smartphone apps are one option, and more structured instruction comes at a price—and sometimes no price at all. The...