Fish as Good as College Students in Numbers Test

Mosquitofish can "count" to a hundred but have trouble with ratios, study finds.
Are you as smart as a mosquitofish?

According to a new study, college students showed roughly the same numerical skills as the small fish when presented with a laboratory test.

Mosquitofish, freshwater fish with a taste for mosquito larvae, are highly social. When a mosquitofish finds itself alone, its top priority becomes finding others. A previous study showed that the fish can, in fact, "count"—differentiating between numerical quantities in a lab experiment.

The new study shows that the fish can not only tell the difference between small numbers such as 4 and 8, but they can also differentiate between quantities as large as 100 and 200.

"You just don't expect interesting results like this when dealing with animals like fish," said study leader Christian Agrillo of the University of Padova in Italy. "We thought this was really incredible."
But numerical skills break down for the fish when the ratios between two numbers change—an effect that was also seen among human volunteers.
Fish That Can "Count" to a Hundred
For the initial experiment, lone fish were trained in the lab to associate a door bearing a certain number of geometric shapes with the path to rejoining a larger group.

The fish were then placed in tanks where they had to chose between one of two identical doors bearing different numbers of symbols. For example, four shapes might be associated with door A and eight shapes with door B.

At the beginning of the test, the fish did not know where to go, and they chose randomly. Over time, however, the fish started to chose the correct door more often than by chance alone.

The new study repeated this experiment—but then the researchers started using bigger numbers of shapes on the doors.

"It was kind of funny, most of them appeared to be surprised when we switched from small numbers to hundreds. They swam inside the tank for a while, looking at the new stimuli as if they were trying to understand what was going on," Agrillo said.
 
"However, after a short while they started to solve the task as well."

Ratios Boggle Fish and Humans

As the researchers tinkered with the amounts on the doors, they found that when the sets of shapes were closer in number, the fish were less successful.

For example, when the ratio between the shapes on the two doors was 1:2 (8 versus 16) or 2:3 (8 versus 12), the fish chose the correct door more often than by chance. But when the ratio became 3:4 (9 versus 12), the fish showed no indication that they could detect a difference.

Keen to see how the numerical skills of fish compare to those of humans, the researchers asked a group of 25 undergraduate students to engage in a test that presented them with the same types of challenges.
The test forced the students to determine the difference bet

While humans were universally more accurate than fish, they showed the same degraded ability to judge number differences as ratios shifted from 2:3 to 3:4.

According to Agrillo and colleagues, the results add to evidence that humans, fish, and other vertebrates share the same abilities for processing numbers as a distant but common ancestor.

Why don't children's shoes fit?

Four million children are wearing the wrong-size shoes, according to new research. Why?

It's a common part of childhood, the trip to the shoe shop and your feet being measured. But according to new research conducted by Glasgow Caledonian University, there are still four million children in shoes that don't fit them.

Parents who squeeze their child's feet into the wrong-sized shoes could be condemning them to a lifetime of problems. From blisters, pressure sores and in growing toe nails in the short-term, to feet deformities like hammer toe and knee and posture problems in the long-term. The list goes on.

People need to take as much care of their children's feet as they do with their teeth, say podiatry professionals. If that's the case, why are so many children in shoes that don't fit?
Neglect, budget constraints, convenience and fashion are all to blame, says Dr Gordon Watt, lecturer in podiatry at Glasgow Caledonian University.

"People think of feet as smelly," he says. "They often just forget about them, when they should actually take much more of an interest."

Children's feet tend to grow rapidly in the first four years of their life, but it can take up to 18 years for the foot's bones, muscles and ligaments to harden into adult form. So teenage feet need to be looked after as well as those of smaller children.
According to the research, one in 10 parents say their children have continued to wear shoes that are too small for them. Half admit to only buying new shoes when their children complain their feet are hurting.

Podiatry experts say many people neglect their children's feet because they simply don't understand the problems an ill-fitting pair of shoes can cause. Only 40% of parents interviewed as part of the research took into account whether the shoes on their offspring's feet were well fitting and supportive.

False economy

Another issue is money. Two fifths of parents admitted to buying shoes that were too big so their children could grow into them over time, saving money. When it came to actually purchasing footwear, a quarter of parents said they based their decision on the cost.
The rise of cheaper shoes, sold without expert advice and proper fitting in stores and supermarkets, has also had an impact. Not only do they cost less, but they are often more convenient to buy than taking a child to a proper shoe shop for a fitting.
But it's a false economy in more ways than one, says Bob Hardy, a leading expert on shoe fitting and fellow of the Society of Shoe Fitters.
"Not only are the health of their child's feet at risk, cheaper shoes often fall apart and people end up going back two or three times for a new pair. They end up paying the same as they would have for well-made, properly-fitted shoes.
"Also, these shoe often don't come in half sizes or different widths, both of which are important if you want a shoe to fit properly."
Fashion trends also sway one in ten parents. This is a particular problem among older children and teenagers.
"Often fashionable shoes offer very little support," says Dr Watt.

Specialist training

"Take the current trend for ballet pumps among girls. They offer no support and are very flat. If you have an active child running around in them it could lead to Achilles [tendon] problems in the future."

There are checks that parents can do at home to make sure their child's shoe fits properly, says Mr Hardy.
A part of BBC News Magazine, Who, What, Why? aims to answer questions behind the headlines

There should be no more than a 14mm gap between the big toe and end of a shoe in a new pair. Anything less than 8mm and it's time to visit the shoe shop and get another pair. When it comes to width, the shoe should be supporting the foot, not squeezing it.

It is worth going to a shoe shop because proper shoe fitters will have undergone specialist training, either through their employer or with the Society of Shoe Fitters.

What parents should also remember is there are variations in shoe sizing due to factors like the place they are made, says Mr Hardy. German shoes, for example, are wider than Italian.

Because of this a child's foot should be measured every time they get new shoes and parents should not rely on the size printed inside the shoe, he says.

Finally, make sure both feet are measured, as one can be larger than the other.

Source: BBC.com

The World’s Most Beautiful Libraries

1-Abbey Library St. Gall in Saint Gallen, Switzerland

2-The Astronomy Library of the University of Utrecht in The Netherlands

3-Bristol Central Library

4-The British Library reading room at the centre of the Great Court of the British Museum in London, England.

5-Central Library of Vancouver in Vancouver, Canada

6-Delft University Library in The Netherlands

7-José Vasconcelos Library

8-Klementinum National Library in the Czech Republic

9-The Library of Melk Abbey, in Melk, Austria

10-Library of Parliament (reading room), Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

11-The Los Angeles Central Library in Los Angeles, California

12-Österreichische Nationalbibliothek (The Austrian National Library) in Vienna, Austria

13-Philology Library of the University Berlin in Russia

14-Royal Library El Escorial in Spain

15-City Library of Stockholm in Sweden

16-The Suzzallo library of the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington

Source: The Great Geek Manual .com

Scam: 'See who viewed your Facebook profile'!

Many of us are quite curious to know who viewed our Facebook profile. However, unfortunately scammers too are aware of this, and use the lure of such functionality as a way to trick users.

And, one such scam is again prowling on Facebook having claimed thousands of victims. The rogue application is spreading virally among Facebook users pretending to offer them a way of seeing who has viewed their profile.

According to security firm Sophos, "Messages spreading rapidly across the Facebook social network right now say: OMG OMG OMG... I can't believe this actually works! Now you really can see who viewed your profile!"

In fact, so far there is no application or way to find out who viewed your facebook profile. This means all those applications that promise you to show who has viewed your Facebook profile pages are actually scams.

Sophos warns that scams like these are used to earn commission for the mischief makers behind them, who have no qualms about using your Facebook profile to spread their spammy links even further.

However, in case, you've already fallen to the scam like this, remove references to it from your newsfeed, and revoke the right of rogue applications to access your profile via Account/ Privacy Settings/ Applications and Websites.