Schools4Online

100,000 US students to visit China in four years

May 27th, 2010

Siril

China will receive 100,000 US students in the next four years as part of the education cooperation programme, a Chinese official has said.

The two countries have agreed on an exchange programme under which American students will come to study Chinese language or do research, said Zhang Xiuqin, director of Department of International Cooperation and Exchanges of the Ministry of Education.

The agreement was signed during the second round of the China-US Strategic and Economic Dialogue, which concluded on Tuesday in Beijing, Xinhua reported.

Principals of some US primary and secondary schools and Chinese language teachers in the US will be invited to China as part of the project.

American college students will also be invited to participate in summer language camps in China. And, under the agreement, 10,000 Chinese post-graduates will go to the US to pursue PhD.

How to Help Your Children Revise for Exams

May 26th, 2010

Siril

It’s a normal weekday afternoon, and my house – also, unfortunately, my workspace – is crammed with teenagers. Some of them are in their usual pose – lying on the sofa, TV zapper in hand, surrounded by the debris of several meals – and one has just made a large lunch, leaving the kitchen looking like a scene from a horror movie.

In the good old days my daughters – Rosie is taking A-levels, and Elinor GCSEs – would be out at school between 8am and 4.30pm, so during office hours our home would be a haven of peace. No longer: the dreaded “study leave” has now kicked in, and the only reason they go to school is to sit an exam. There is no alternative but to hunker down and get used to this new world in which the doorbell rings constantly (“It’s just Janine/Hetty/Molly/Charlotte/Freddie/Tom coming to help me revise”), the fridge is always empty, and the shower is in constant use. So how can a parent help? Here are the results of my straw poll, conducted above the din (loud music is essential to prolonged study):

1 “Buy revision food. That’s stuff like dried fruit, fruit juice, french bread, pasta, pesto. Chocolate biscuits. Cereal bars. Ice cream. More ice cream. Even more ice cream.”

2 “Don’t constantly tell me to work, mum. When I’m working ALL THE TIME.”

What Makes You Unique? Not Genes So Much as Surrounding Sequences, Study Finds

March 19th, 2010

Siril

The key to human individuality may lie not in our genes, but in the sequences that surround and control them, according to new research by scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine and Yale University. The interaction of those sequences with a class of key proteins, called transcription factors, can vary significantly between two people and are likely to affect our appearance, our development and even our predisposition to certain diseases, the study found.The discovery suggests that researchers focusing exclusively on genes to learn what makes people different from one another have been looking in the wrong place.

Scholarship Scheme For Math, Science Students

March 19th, 2010

mrudula

A GH¢4 million Mathematics, Science and Technology Scholarship Scheme for students at the secondary level will be instituted at the start of the 2010/11 academic year.

The scheme is to stimulate students to take up programmes in the field of Math and Science and make Science and technology the critical drivers for the country’s socio-economic development.

The Minister for Environment, Science and Technology, Ms. Sherry Ayittey, announced this at a national forum on Ghana’s Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) policy in Accra yesterday.

The forum was on the theme, “Achieving a middle-income status through science, technology and innovation”, and it was meant to discuss the STI policy before it gets to the higher realms of the Executive arm of the government.

The goal of the STI policy is to harness the nation’s total science and technology capacity to achieve national objectives for poverty reduction, competitiveness of enterprises, sustainable environmental management and industrial growth.

'Death Signal' Can Be Blocked; Discovery May Aid Drug Development

January 25th, 2010

mrudula

Biomedical scientists from the University of Central Florida and Louisiana State University have identified a way to block a “cell death signal” that they believe triggers brain damage during strokes.
Strokes, also known as cerebral ischemia, are caused by inadequate blood flow to the brain and are the third-leading cause of death in the United States.

The team’s work focused on a neurotransmitter that typically plays an important role in communication among nerve cells in the brain and fosters learning and memory. This glutamate neurotransmitter opens the NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptors, allowing the entry of calcium into the nerve cells.

Under normal conditions, the activity of the NMDA receptors is tightly regulated to prevent nerve cells from becoming overloaded with calcium. During a stroke, however, that process of regulation breaks down. The excessive influx of calcium through NMDA receptors kills the nerve cells and can cause severe brain damage.