Should introverted schoolchildren be typecast into science?

SCIENCE suits shy people. A Dutch study has found that introverted students are more likely to choose science subjects at school, while more sociable peers tend to drop them at the first opportunity - regardless of their natural ability. The study raises the question: should teachers encourage students to choose subjects that "fit" their personality or to break out of the mould?

Education researcher Hanke Korpershoek and her colleagues at the University of Groningen used data from a study which followed thousands of Dutch students throughout their education and included personality tests.

Korpershoek analysed data from nearly 4000 students and found that their subject choices at age 15 were affected by personality. Students who chose science subjects tended to be less extroverted than those who chose non-science subjects. They also scored more highly on conscientiousness and emotional stability (Journal of Research in Personality, vol 44, p 649).

The result remained significant even after controlling for the effects of mathematical ability and gender.

This is the first study to investigate how personality differences affect students' subject choices, according to Korpershoek.

Smoke Pollution in Singapore from Indonesia illegal de-forestation Fires

A couple relaxes in an infinity pool overlooking the haze-covered skyline in Singapore.

Singapore, blanketed under a smoky haze for days, beseeched neighbouring Indonesia to douse fires lit for illegal clearing of forests that are causing the worst air pollution in the region since 2006.

Malaysia has also blamed poor air quality in some of its southern towns on fires on Indonesia's Sumatra island
Picture: REUTERS

ISS passes in front of Harvest Moon

The International Space Station, orbiting the Earth, passes in front of the full moon, in this photo captured by Bela Vingler from Gyoerugfalu, Hungary

Blood sucking Chupacabras: Goatsucker mite

As Halloween approaches, tales of monsters and creepy crawlies abound. Among the most fearsome is the legendary beast known as the chupacabras.

But the real fiend is not the hairless, fanged animal purported to attack and drink the blood of livestock; it’s a tiny, eight-legged creature that turns a healthy, wild animal into a chupacabras, says University of Michigan biologist Barry O' Connor.

The existence of the chupacabras, also known as the goatsucker, was first surmised from livestock attacks in Puerto Rico, where dead sheep were discovered with puncture wounds, completely drained of blood. Similar reports began accumulating from other locations in Latin America and the U.S.

Then came sightings of evil-looking animals, variously described as dog-like, rodent-like or reptile-like, with long snouts, large fangs, leathery or scaly greenish-gray skin and a nasty odor. Locals put two and two together and assumed the ugly varmints were responsible for the killings.

Scientists studied some of the chupacabras carcasses and concluded that the dreaded monsters actually were coyotes with extreme cases of mange—a skin condition caused by mites burrowing under the skin. OConnor, who studies the mites that cause mange, concurs and has an idea why the tiny assailants affect wild coyotes so severely, turning them into atrocities.

In a recent “Monster Talk” podcast posted on Skeptic magazine’s website, O' Connor explained that the mite responsible for the extreme hair loss seen in “chupacabras syndrome” is Sarcoptes scabiei, which also causes the itchy rash known as scabies in people.

Human scabies is an annoyance, but not usually a serious health or appearance problem, partly because our bodies are already virtually hairless and partly because the population of mites on a given person usually is relatively small—only 20 or 30 mites.

Evolutionary studies done by O' Connor and his former graduate student Hans Klompen, now an associate professor at Ohio State University, suggest that the scabies mite has been with us throughout our evolutionary history, giving humans plenty of time to develop defenses.

When humans began domesticating animals, Sarcoptes scabiei found a whole new realm of potential victims. Domestic dogs, like humans, have played host to the mites long enough to evolve the ability to fight off mange, but when the condition spreads to wild members of the dog family—foxes, wolves and coyotes—watch out.

Dark Matter may be hot stuff

"Cold, dark matter" has a certain ring to it, but new simulations of our corner of the cosmos suggest that dark matter – the stuff that is thought to underlie the universe – might be warm, with relatively fast-moving and lightweight particles.

In cosmology's standard model, dark matter is cold, made up of relatively heavy low-energy particles, and will happily settle into structures as small as planets.

Hot dark matter has already been ruled out because its particles would move too fast for galaxies to form. But warm dark matter has smaller, faster particles that still allow for our familiar starry sky.

Most computer models produce a generic universe that doesn't resemble ours in detail, but Gustavo Yepes at the Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain, and his collaborators on the Constrained Local Universe Simulations (CLUES) project have tuned theirs to resemble the galaxies and clusters nearest Earth.

YouTube - Baby Monkey (Going Backwards On A Pig)

ESA and DLR: Sentinel-2

 ESA and the German Aerospace Centre DLR, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for a state-of-the-art optical data relay terminal to be flown on the Sentinel-2 satellite.

Click on the picture to watch the animated movie

The contract was signed today at ESA headquarters in Paris by Volker Liebig, ESA Director of Earth Observation, Magali Vaissiere, ESA Director of Telecommunications and Integrated Applications, Jurgen Mallwitz, Head of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Administration Department and Christoph Hohage, DLR Director of national programmes.

The Sentinel satellites – numbered from Sentinel-1 to Sentinel-5 - will form the core of the European Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) programme. Sentinel-2 will be devoted to monitoring the land environment and will deliver high-resolution data (around 10 metres and above on the ground).

Its data will benefit services in areas such as land management, agriculture and forestry and environmental monitoring as well as disaster control and humanitarian relief operations.