Today children are often described as follows They live in social networks such as Facebook, MySpace, and Second Life gathering friends; they text more than they talk on the phone; and they Twitter the night away often sleeping with their cell phones vibrating by their sides. A recent study challenges the believes that children have multitasking skills and that these skills negatively affects the processing of information. This is about children doing their homework while twittering, texting, watching YouTube, using facebook and surfing the web. This explorative study examined whether differences exists in the academic performance of college student facebook users and .....read more »

Impressive collection of photos with great impact Photographs do more than document history -- they make it. At TED University, Jonathan Klein of Getty Images shows some of the most iconic, and talks about what happens when a generation sees an image so powerful it can't look away -- or back. Related posts: Manipulating Photos Photos of The Universe in 3D Free Photos ..read more »

We've discussed the use of online shopping and gender previously. Especially women are skeptical towards online shopping, they tend to fear risks and threats associated with online shopping. The acceptance of online transactions depend on the perceived risks involved, the technology used for the online transactions and the organizations as the other parties in the transactions. A recent review discusses the research of the determinants of online trust within e-commerce, e-government and e-health. The antecedents of online trust: Propensity to trust facilitates or moderates the impact of other attributes on trust information such as the system used, the websites used. Those with a .....read more »

Empathy or the ability to appreciate someone else's emotions and express this emotional awareness is a capacity that differs amongst individuals. Cognitive empathy refers to imaginatively understanding another person’s thoughts, feelings and actions. Emotional empathy is feeling the emotion of another person, but maintaining a compassionate, other-focused perspective Cognitive empathy can be tested with facial expression recognition. High scores on empathy is associated with higher accuracy at brief exposure of six different emotional expressions presented in 42 pictures during 50 milliseconds each picture. When these facial expressions of 6 different emotions were shown for a longer duration the social skills was significantly .....read more »

The month of April marks the 42nd anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They are commemorating the life and work of Dr. King by creating a memorial in our nation's capital. The Washington, DC, Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial will honor his life and contributions to the world through non violent social change. There's a website with a lot of other information video's on this good cause. After years of fund raising, the memorial is now $14 million away from its $120 million goal. This will be more than a monument to a great humanitarian, the .....read more »

Trying my macro lens on my camera, opens up a wonderful world, especially flowers. This flower is called vergeet me niet or you'll probably translate it as don't forget me. Here is another one, tulip season in The Netherlands. You can probably better see them on flickr: Tulipand Don't forget me....Related posts: ECT number 6 How to act when you bump into a psychiatrist on a party ..read more »

This blog carnival collects together the best non-technical science writing that has appeared around the blogosphere in the last few months, to promote and celebrate science, nature or medicine blogs written for the public. It's up at 360 Degree SkepticRelated posts: Scientia Pro Publica 28 is up at Mauka to Makai Scientia Pro Publica #14 is up at Genetic Inference Scientia Pro Publica #30 is up ..read more »

New ideas on home based health care from Intel's Eric Dishman! Related posts: Mobile Medicine From Your Mobile Phone ..read more »

What news stories will matter in the future: Science, China, Water on the Moon? How many of today's headlines will matter in 100 years? 1000? Kirk Citron's "Long News" project collects stories that not only matter today, but will resonate for decades -- even centuries -- to come. At TED2010, he highlights recent headlines with the potential to shape our future. Related posts: Good News and Bad News about The Medical Weblog Award 2009 Entrepreneur Feeling Good? Make Plans For The Future Read Medblogs instead of News Media for Health Issues ..read more »

Previously I quoted Bill Crosby about adolescents being "brain damaged people". Recently I read the latest book from the Dana Foundation: Cerebrum. In it is a worthwhile article about the teen brain. The chapters in this book vary in quality but may be later more on that. First the excellent chapter on the teen brain written by Jay N. Giedd. Adolescence is the period in life with many changes such as in body an behavior often resulting in conflicts with parents, mood swings and risky behavior. Adolescence is also the period in life in which the young adult is at his .....read more »