Today virtually every child grows up learning that the earth orbits the sun.
But four centuries ago, the idea of a heliocentric solar system was so controversial that the Catholic Church classified it as a heresy, and warned the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei to abandon it. (more…)
A widespread lack of understanding of the global scale and impact of the First World War has been revealed in a new report. Research by the British Council in the UK and six other countries shows that knowledge of the conflict – which began 100 years ago – is largely limited to the fighting on the Western Front.
University of Exeter historian, Dr Catriona Pennell, acted as historical consultant to the report ‘Remember the World as well as the War’. It explores people’s perceptions and knowledge about the First World War and highlights the truly global nature of the conflict and its lasting legacy. This links closely with Dr Pennell’s various research projects, including the ‘First World War in the Classroom’, an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded project that seeks to establish how the First World War is taught in English Literature and History classrooms in England, and will provide the data set that will inform the nature and content of the Institute of Education’s WW1 Centenary Battlefield Tours Project. (more…)
Social scientists are to examine whether action figure dolls help form children’s opinions on war and have a role to play in shaping the future of our armed forces.
It is the first time research has examined the role of toys in the making of young citizens. The £492,508 project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
The researchers, Dr Sean Carter, from Geography at the University of Exeter, Dr Tara Woodyer, of the University of Portsmouth and Professor Klaus Dodds, of Royal Holloway University of London, have expertise in human geography, children’s play, childhood studies, geopolitics and the culture of war. (more…)
AUSTIN, Texas — Two species of tawny brown singing mice that live deep in the mountain cloud forests of Costa Rica and Panama set their boundaries by emitting high-pitched trills, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered.
Although males of both the Alston’s singing mouse (Scotinomys teguina) and Chiriqui singing mouse (S. xerampelinus sing to attract mates and repel rivals within their respective species, the findings show for the first time that communication is being used to create geographic boundaries between species.
In this case, the smaller Alston’s mouse steers clear of its larger cousin, the Chiriqui. (more…)
Countries May Simply Have Less Ability to Fight
COLUMBUS, Ohio – While some researchers have claimed that war between nations is in decline, a new analysis suggests we shouldn’t be too quick to celebrate a more peaceful world.
The study finds that there is no clear trend indicating that nations are less eager to wage war, said Bear Braumoeller, author of the study and associate professor of political science at The Ohio State University.
Conflict does appear to be less common than it had been in the past, he said. But that’s due more to an inability to fight than to an unwillingness to do so. (more…)
YSPH Postdoc Examines how Armed Conflict Increases the Incidence of Intimate Partner Violence
The armed conflict in Burma is not one that receives much attention in the western media. But it has forced thousands of people to flee their homes and seek relative safety just over the border in Thailand.
But once there, refugee women face another peril entirely that continues to threaten their well-being: intimate partner violence.
In a research paper that was recently published in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Yale School of Public Health postdoctoral research associate Kathryn Falb found that refugee women living in three Thai border camps experience widespread physical violence, not by Burmese soldiers, but by the men who fled with them in the first place. (more…)
The UA’s Chris Impey has taught cosmology to Tibetan Buddhist monastics in remote parts of India each summer for the past five years. With a grant from the John Templeton Foundation, he detailed his experiences in a book, “Humble Before the Void,” which likely will publish in 2014.
Chris Impey thinks back to the time he spent living on the edge of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, teaching modern cosmology to Buddhist monastics in India: “On a typical day, they would be up at 5 a.m. and have prayed for a few hours or done meditation before you even see them. And their attention is just as good at the end of a long day as at the beginning.” (more…)
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Understanding how thoughts of mortality influence individuals’ beliefs sheds light on the commonalities among different groups’ motivations and could help ease tensions between opposing viewpoints, according to University of Missouri experiments that tested the relationship between awareness of death and belief in a higher power. The study found that thoughts of death increased atheists, Christians, Muslims and agnostics conviction in their own world views. For example, contrary to the wartime aphorism that there are no atheists in foxholes, thoughts of death did not cause atheists to express belief in a deity.
“Our study suggests that atheists’ and religious believers’ world views have the same practical goal,” said Kenneth Vail, lead author and doctoral student in psychological science in MU’s College of Arts and Science. “Both groups seek a coherent world view to manage the fear of death and link themselves to a greater and immortal entity, such as a supreme being, scientific progress or a nation. If people were more aware of this psychological similarity, perhaps there might be more understanding and less conflict among groups with different beliefs.” (more…)
