Links for 2010-11-26

"Women are underrepresented and on average perform more poorly than men in introductory physics. But a recent study finds that this gap arises predominantly from differential preparation prior to college and psychological factors, rather than differences in ability.

And the effects of these psychological factors can be largely overcome with a brief writing exercise focusing on important values, such as friends and family, learning or even music. This simple "values affirmation" writing exercise generally raised women's course grades from the "C" to "B" range, a study led by University of Colorado at Boulder researchers has found.

These self-affirming essays, the researchers suggest, assuaged women's stress about being seen in light of negative stereotypes about women in science. Besides getting better grades, the women also showed greater mastery over the conceptual material, the team found."

"Many people over the years have studied the Bible from a medical point of view offering diagnoses for the symptoms and signs that appear to have afflicted numerous individuals in the Bible. We review the biblical characters in the Old Testament and offer newer insights to their neurological diseases. We first look at the battle between Goliath and David. Interestingly, Goliath probably suffered from acromegaly. We propose autism as a diagnosis for Samson which would precede the first known case of autism by centuries. Isaac was a diabetic, and he probably had autonomic neuropathy. Few verses from the books of I Samuel, Psalms, and Ezekiel reveal symptoms suggestive of stroke. Jacob suffered from sciatica, and the child of the Shunnamite woman in II Kings had a subarachnoid hemorrhage. These instances among others found in the Old Testament of the Bible offer newer insights on the history of current neurological diseases."