Thursday, July 13, 2017

Links July 13, 2017

Beam me up, Scotty! Scientists teleport photons 300 miles into space from The Guardian
Students are Better Off without a Laptop in the Classroom from Scientific American
Don't leave health care to free market from The New York Times
How poverty affects the brain from Nature : (Via Lambert Strether) "EEG detected stronger electrical activity among children with stunted growth, along with a range of brainwaves that reflect problem solving and communication between brain regions. That was a surprise to the researchers, because studies in orphans and poor children have generally found dampened activity7. The discrepancy could be related to the different types of adversity that children in Dhaka face, including food insecurity, infections and mothers with high rates of depression.
Nelson's team is trying to parse out which forms of adversity seem to be most responsible for the differences in brain activity among the Dhaka children. The enhanced electrical signals in EEG tests are strongly linked to increases in inflammatory markers in the blood, which probably reflect greater exposure to gut pathogens.
If this holds up as more children are tested, it could point to the importance of improving sanitation and reducing gastrointestinal infections. Or maternal depression could turn out to be strongly linked to brain development, in which case helping mothers could be just as crucial as making sure their babies have good nutrition. “We don't know the answers yet,” says Nelson."

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