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POPS"Dumber in English" Biophysicist and author Stefan Klein wants to ensure the future of German as a language of science. Our academic language is on the verge of atrophy, he says. ... Anyone who only encounters scientific research in a foreign language pays a heavy price, even if he is a master of the idiom. "We are dumber in English" – this was the conclusion that researchers came to in Sweden and the Netherlands, where children were introduced to English on their first day of school. Lectures in English are part of every subject, but nevertheless, the test results are about ten percent lower on average than in courses taught in the mother tongue. In English seminars, students ask and answer fewer questions; they give the overall impression of being somewhat more helpless. Neither students nor teachers are generally aware of the problem, because they all overestimate their expertise in English. The entire article is interesting.
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POPSSave the languages, save the world Linguistic integrity is as important to our survival as a species as environmentalism. Check out the source to see why. Many resources and information at www.terralingua.org.
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POPSAdvanced Stone Age Culture Discovered in China Technologically they were very similar to European Mousterian cultures, which were characterized by flint flake tools dating from 70,000 to 32,000 BC and named after archaeological finds in the cave of Le Moustier, Dordogne, France. The Levalloisian technique describes the flaking method and is named after the French town of Levallois-Perret where it was identified.
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POPSStudy Of Countries I do not claim that sites such as this are the be all and end all of research regarding any given country. But still they are fairly comprehensive. If any given country or nation intrigues you then I recommend further research. If this site creates a even greater thirst for knowledge then I will have done something useful.
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POPSCup of tea may help boost memory! "Drinking regular cups of tea could help improve your memory, research suggests." Both green tea and black tea inhibit enzymes that help produce protein deposits in the brain which are associated with Alzheimer's disease. Green tea's inhibitive effect lasts longer. Good news for those of us who love to drink tea, particularly green tea. I'm going to brew a pot right now...
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POPSThe anatomy of sarcasm Very interesting article that gets into the various parts of the brain that play in a role in determining whether someone is being sarcastic.
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POPSAncient Texts Library You can find the Gilgamesh Epic, Enuma Elish, Sephir Yetzirah, Book of Dead, Celtic texts, Plato's dialogues or Rubaiyat of Omar Hayyam here.
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POPSBacteria provide horsepower for tiny motor When bacteria crawl clockwise in the circular groove underlying this motor, they brush past the tabs that support the motor's star-shaped rotor. Molecular bonds between the microbes and a coating on the rotor tug the device around.