Here, recognizing the vastly different opinion held regarding device usage, the authors considered the effects of technology use on middle and high school students' learning effectiveness. Using an anonymous online survey they found partial support that device use at school increases learning effectiveness, but found strong support for a negative effect of technology use at home on learning effectiveness. Based on their findings they suggest that the efficacy of technology depends on environmental context along with other important factors that need consideration.
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A Crossover Study Comparing the Effect of a Processed vs. Unprocessed Diet on the Spatial Learning Ability of Zebrafish
The authors compared the short-term effects of processed versus unprocessed food on spatial learning and survival in zebrafish, given the large public concern regarding processed foods. By randomly assigning zebrafish to a diet of brine shrimp flakes (processed) or live brine shrimp (unprocessed), the authors show while there is no immediate effect on a fish's decision process between the two diets, there are significant correlations between improved learning and stress response with the unprocessed diet.
Read More...Reddit v. Wall Street: Why Redditors beat Wall Street at its own game
Here the authors investigated the motivation of a short squeeze of GameStop stock where users of the internet forum Reddit drove a sudden increase in GameStop stock price during the start of 2021. They relied on both qualitative and quantitative analyses where they tracked activity on the r/WallStreetBets subreddit in relation to mentions of GameStop. With these methods they found that while initially the short squeeze was driven by financial motivations, later on emotional motivations became more important. They suggest that social phenomena can be dynamic and evolve necessitating mixed method approaches to study them.
Read More...Rubik’s cube: What separates the fastest solvers from the rest?
In this study, the authors assess the factors that allow some speedcubers to solve Rubik's Cubes faster than others.
Read More...Development of a novel machine learning platform to identify structural trends among NNRTI HIV-1 reverse transcriptase inhibitors
With advancements in machine learning a large data scale, high throughput virtual screening has become a more attractive method for screening drug candidates. This study compared the accuracy of molecular descriptors from two cheminformatics Mordred and PaDEL, software libraries, in characterizing the chemo-structural composition of 53 compounds from the non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTI) class. The classification model built with the filtered set of descriptors from Mordred was superior to the model using PaDEL descriptors. This approach can accelerate the identification of hit compounds and improve the efficiency of the drug discovery pipeline.
Read More...Virtual Screening of Cutibacterium acnes Antibacterial Agent Using Natural Compounds Database
A common form of Acne is caused by a species of bacterium called Cutibacterium acnes. By using a predictive algorithm and structural analysis, the authors identified 5 small molecules with high affinity to growth factors in Catibacterium acnes. This has potential implications for supplemental skincare products.
Read More...Effects of Photoperiod Alterations on Stress Response in Daphnia magna
Here, seeking to better understand the effects of altered day-night cycles, the authors considered the effects of an altered photoperiod on Daphnia magna. By tracking possible stress responses, including mean heart rate, brood size, and male-to-female ratio they found that a shorter photoperiod resulted in altered mean heart rates and brood size. The authors suggest that based on these observations, it is important to consider the effects of photoperiod alterations and the stress responses of other organisms.
Read More...Reducing levels of C-Reactive Protein: An eight-week, open-label clinical trial of three oral supplements
In this study, the effects of vitamin C, ginger, or curcumin supplements on C-reactive protein levels in healthy participants are determined in an eight-week open-label trial.
Read More...COVID-19 pandemic impact on emotional aspects of high school students
In this study, the impact of shutting down schools on the emotional aspects of high school students was analyzed using survey responses.
Read More...Environmentally-friendly graphene conductive ink using graphene powder, polystyrene, and waste oil
In this article, the authors propose an effective, environmentally-friendly method of producing conductive ink using expired waste oil, polystyrene, and graphene.
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