GED Science Lesson: Stereotype Threat Claude Steele

Click on arrow below to watch Claude Steele YouTube Video

Link to Wikipedia Article about Stereotype Threat

Stereotype threat is a situational predicament in which people are or feel themselves to be at risk of confirming negative stereotypes about their social group.^[1] Since its introduction into the academic literature, stereotype threat has become one of the most widely studied topics in the field of social psychology.^[2] Stereotype threat has been shown to reduce the performance of individuals who belong to negatively stereotyped groups.^[3] If negative stereotypes are present regarding a specific group, group members are likely to become anxiousabout their performance, which may hinder their ability to perform at their maximum level. For example, stereotype threat can lower the intellectual performance of African Americanstaking the SAT test used for college entrance in the United States, due to the stereotype that African Americans are less intelligent than other groups.^[4] Importantly, the individual does not need to subscribe to the stereotype for it to be activated. The specific mechanism through which anxiety (induced by the activation of the stereotype) decreases performance is by depleting working memory (especially the phonological aspects of the working memory system).^[5]

Stereotype threat is a potential contributing factor to long-standing racial and gender gaps in academic performance. It may occur whenever an individual's performance might confirm a negative stereotype because stereotype threat is thought to arise from a particular situation, rather than from an individual's personality traits or characteristics. Since most people have at least one social identity which is negatively stereotyped, most people are vulnerable to stereotype threat if they encounter a situation in which the stereotype is relevant. Situational factors that increase stereotype threat can include the difficulty of the task, the belief that the task measures their abilities, and the relevance of the stereotype to the task. Individuals show higher degrees of stereotype threat on tasks they wish to perform well on and when they identify strongly with the stereotyped group. These effects are also increased when they expect discrimination due to their identification with a negatively stereotyped group.^[6] Repeated experiences of stereotype threat can lead to a vicious circle of diminished confidence, poor performance, and loss of interest in the relevant area of achievement.^[7]

Proponents of stereotype threat have been criticized for exaggerating its importance as an explanation of real-world performance gaps^[8][9] and misrepresenting evidence as more conclusive than it is.^[10][11] One review has voiced concerns that the effect has been over-estimated and that the field suffers from publication bias.^[12]

The opposite of stereotype threat is stereotype boost, which is when people perform better than they otherwise would have, because of exposure to positive stereotypes about their social group. A variant of stereotype boost is stereotype lift, which is people achieving better performance because of exposure to negative stereotypes about other social groups.^[1]

GED Science Lesson: New Human Species

From the article below

New Species of Human Ancestor from National Geographic

"A trove of bones hidden deep within a South African cave represents a new species of human ancestor, scientists announced Thursday in thejournal eLife. Homo naledi, as they call it, appears very primitive in some respects—it had a tiny brain, for instance, and apelike shoulders for climbing. But in other ways it looks remarkably like modern humans. When did it live? Where does it fit in the human family tree? And how did its bones get into the deepest hidden chamber of the cave—could such a primitive creature have been disposing of its dead intentionally?"

This is the story of one of the greatest fossil discoveries of the past half century, and of what it might mean for our understanding of human evolution.

"The Braided Stream - From National Geographic 

When a major new find is made in human evolution—or even a minor new find—it’s common to claim it overturns all previous notions of our ancestry. Perhaps having learned from past mistakes, Berger doesn’t make such assertions for Homo naledi—at least not yet, with its place in time uncertain. He doesn’t claim he has found the earliest Homo, or that his fossils return the title of “Cradle of Humankind” from East to South Africa. The fossils do suggest, however, that both regions, and everywhere in between, may harbor clues to a story that is more complicated than the metaphor “human family tree” would suggest.

“What naledi says to me is that you may think the record is complete enough to make up stories, and it’s not,” said Stony Brook’s Fred Grine. Maybe early species of Homo emerged in South Africa and then moved up to East Africa. “Or maybe it’s the other way around.”

Berger himself thinks the right metaphor for human evolution, instead of a tree branching from a single root, is a braided stream: a river that divides into channels, only to merge again downstream. Similarly, the various hominin types that inhabited the landscapes of Africa must at some point have diverged from a common ancestor. But then farther down the river of time they may have coalesced again, so that we, at the river’s mouth, carry in us today a bit of East Africa, a bit of South Africa, and a whole lot of history we have no notion of whatsoever. Because one thing is for sure: If we learned about a completely new form of hominin only because a couple of cavers were skinny enough to fit through a crack in a well-explored South African cave, we really don’t have a clue what else might be out there."

GED Science Lesson: Where is Earth located in the Universe

From YouTube 

From Upworthy For full article click here!

Just as a group of celestial bodies is a galaxy and a group of galaxies is a cluster, a group of galactic clusters is known as a "supercluster" (not very original, I know).

Scientists had previously thought that our own galaxy was positioned at the edge of the Local Supercluster that itself was centered on the Virgo Cluster, which they believed to be about 100 million light-years wide. That's the equivalent of 1.03461597 × 1022 American football fields (or so Google tells me), which is such a ridiculously huge number that it probably didn't do anything to help you understand the scope of it.

But that's OK, because that number was off. Like, waaaaaaay off. So throw away all your preconceived notions of incomprehensibly exponential intergalactic football fields and say hello to your new home supercluster!

For full article click here!

From Wikipedia 

The Laniakea Supercluster encompasses 100,000 galaxies stretched out over 160 megaparsecs (520 million light-years). It has the approximate binding mass of 10¹⁷ solar masses, or a hundred thousand times that of our Galaxy, which is almost the same as that of the massive Horologium Supercluster. It consists of four subparts, which are known previously as separate superclusters:

• Virgo Supercluster, the part where the Milky Way resides.
• Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster
  • the Great Attractor, the Laniakea central gravitational point near Norma
  • Antlia Wall, known as Hydra Supercluster
  • Centaurus Supercluster
• Pavo-Indus Supercluster
• Southern Supercluster, including Fornax Cluster (S373), Dorado and Eridanus clouds

The most massive galaxy clusters of Laniakea are Virgo, Hydra, Centaurus, Abell 3565, Abell 3574, Abell 3521, Fornax, Eridanus and Norma. The entire supercluster consists of approximately 300 to 500 known galaxy clusters and groups. The real number may be much larger, because some of these are transversing the Zone of Avoidance, making them essentially undetectable.

Superclusters are some of the universe’s largest structures, and have boundaries that are difficult to define, especially from the inside. The team used radio telescopes to map the motions of a large collection of local galaxies. Within a given supercluster, most galaxy motions will be directed inward, toward the center of mass. In the case of Laniakea, this gravitational focal point is called the Great Attractor, and influences the motions of our Local Group of galaxies (where our Milky Way Galaxy resides) and all others throughout our supercluster. Unlike its constituent clusters, Laniakea is not gravitationally bound and is projected to be torn apart by Dark energy.^[5]

Pluto and the GED: GED Science Lesson

http://www.popsci.com/why-i-still-love-pluto

CLICK HERE FOR FULL ARTICLE

They also show signs of geological activity on Pluto and its moon Charon.

On Wednesday, scientists presented the first pictures acquired by the New Horizons probe during its historic flyby of the dwarf planet.

The team has also named the prominent heart-shaped region on Pluto after the world's discoverer Clyde Tombaugh.

The spacecraft sped past the dwarf planet on Tuesday, getting as close as 12,500km and grabbing a huge volume of data.

This exceeds what we came for

Dr Cathy Olkin, New Horizons science team

Mission scientist John Spencer told journalists that the first close-up image of Pluto's surface showed a terrain that had been resurfaced by some geological process - such as volcanism - within the last 100 million years.

"We have not found a single impact crater on this image. This means it must be a very young surface," he said.

How to Answer GED Science Questions

https://www.eddigest.com/sub.php?page=product&product_id=131

How to Answer GED Science Questions

When you are reading a selection on the GED test, you should read anticipating the kinds of questions that the test will ask you. Here is a list of the kinds of information that the GED testers are looking for:

1. What is the main idea?
2. How would you restate the information in the graph or article in your own words?
3. Can you list some opinions opposed to the facts in the article?
4. Are there any unstated assumptions in the graph or article article?
5. What is the conclusion of this article?
6. How do the details support the conclusion?
7. How can you apply what you learned from the article to your real life?
8. What situations might this information relate to?
9. What fact or idea is implied by this article (idea not stated directly)?
10. What is one cause-and-effect relationship described in this article?
11. Is there enough information to support the generalization or conclusion?
12. What values are demonstrated in this article or graph  ?
13. What unstated fact or idea can you infer (figure out) based on the stated information?

14. What two important things are alike?
15. What two important things are unalike?
16. Are there any wrong arguments made in this article? Or…. Did the author jump to any conclusions?

GED Science Lesson: WORLD'S FIRST BIOLIMB (An artificially produced limb)

From Digital Trends:

"While there are those who have warned against the dangers of bionic beings and artificial intelligence, one solution to combating the rise of the machine may be to turn ourselves into one of them. And with the latest innovations at Massachusetts General Hospital, this may be closer to reality than to science fiction than ever before. Scientists in Boston have successfully grown a rat limb that may revolutionize the ability of doctors to perform whole-limb transplants. Already, the technique known as decel/recel has been used to create kidneys, lungs, and hearts in a petri dish, and now researchers believe that larger organs are in reach as well.

The rat’s forearm, grown entirely in a laboratory, is the world’s first biolimb, and scientists are cautiously optimistic about what this may suggest for the future of human medicine. This latest decel/recel approach is unique it its whittled-down mechanical application, as it examines biology from an engineering perspective. The technique effectively washes the limb of its deceased owner until only its most basic structure, or its “scaffold” remains. Once scientists are left with only the mold of the original, they provide the new cells that will grow into an entirely new limb."

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/scientists-develop-first-biolimb/#ixzz3cDLpS55G
Follow us: @digitaltrends on Twitter | digitaltrendsftw on Facebook

GED Science Lesson: Big Bang Video SuccessGED

PBS show NOVA Video on Big Bang and much more 

From Wikipedia

The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model for the universe from the earliest known periods through its subsequent large-scale evolution.^[1][2][3] It states that the universe was in a very high density state and then expanded.^[4][5] If the known laws of physics are extrapolated beyond where they are valid there is a singularity. Modern measurements place this moment at approximately 13.8 billion years ago, which is thus considered the age of the universe.^[6] After the initial expansion, the universe cooled sufficiently to allow the formation of subatomic particles, and later simple atoms. Giant clouds of these primordial elements later coalesced through gravity to form stars and galaxies.

In the mid-20th century, three British astrophysicists, Stephen Hawking, George F. R. Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the theory of relativity and its implications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which they extended Einstein's theory of general relativity to include measurements of time and space.^[7][8] According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy.

Since Georges Lemaître first noted, in 1927, that an expanding universe might be traced back in time to an originating single point, scientists have built on his idea of cosmic expansion. While the scientific community was once divided between supporters of two different expanding universe theories, the Big Bang and the Steady State theory, accumulated empirical evidence provides strong support for the former.^[9] In 1929, from analysis of galactic redshifts, Edwin Hubble concluded that galaxies are drifting apart, important observational evidence consistent with the hypothesis of an expanding universe. In 1964, the cosmic microwave background radiation was discovered, which was crucial evidence in favor of the Big Bang model, since that theory predicted the existence of background radiation throughout the universe before it was discovered. More recently, measurements of the redshifts of supernovae indicate that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, an observation attributed to dark energy.^[10]The known physical laws of nature can be used to calculate the characteristics of the universe in detail back in time to an initial state of extreme density and temperature.^[11][12][13]

GED Science Lesson: How Do Continents Move

Full story here at Huffington Post Tectonic Plates

Scientists have long known that the Earth's crust consists of at least 15 tectonic plates--continent-sized slabs of rock on the surface of the Earth that shift about to create mountains, volcanoes, and earthquake zones. But the exact mechanism by which the plates move has remained a mystery.

Until now.

A new study suggests that the plates glide about on a six-mile-thick hidden channel of "soft" rock located between the base of the plates and the upper portion of the Earth's mantle (the layer of molten rock above the planet's core), Live Science reported.

“The idea that Earth’s surface consists of a mosaic of moving plates is a well-established scientific paradigm, but it had never been clear about what actually moves the plates around," study co-author Dr. Tim Stern, a professor of geography, environment and earth sciences at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, said in a written statement. “To work this out requires an understanding of what happens at the bottom of a tectonic plate."

The data showed that the seismic waves slowed abruptly at the base of the plate--which suggests that they must have hit a hidden layer of jelly-like rock, Cosmos magazine reported.

The researchers hypothesize that the soft rock creates a slippery base upon whichplates drift when they are pushed or pulled--though exactly what is doing the pushing or pulling is still up for debate.