July 19, 2019

In the News

This week, the DEA database that tracks pain pills sold in the United States was made public for the first time by the Washington Post. The data tracks almost 380 million transactions made in the U.S. between 2006 and 2012, and the Post breaks it down to the state and county level. Here’s the data on North Carolina:

opioids NC

Find data for your county here.

Dropping Knowledge

A new study in the journal Frontiers for Psychology contributes to a body of research showing that toddlers do not learn as well from video as from human interaction. The study comes at a time when more parents are putting their kids in front of screens to help them learn earlier and earlier.

What’s unique about this study is that it focused on new word learning from in-person interactions as compared to video chat interactions. Despite the fact that the adult in the video could provide clues and be responsive to the children, the researchers found that the toddlers in the study were more likely to learn new words when someone was teaching them in person as compared to on a video chat.

One drawback of this study is it only looked at 176 toddlers in one city, 95% of whom were white.

While we were out

In case you missed it, check out these articles by North Carolina authors:

How Gentrification by Urban Millennials Improves Public School Diversity

Can parks help cities fight crime?


  • MyPass Austin Secures Personal Records for Homeless Populations

    Stanford Social Innovation Review | 07/14/2019

  • The Future of the City Is Childless

    The Atlantic | 07/18/2019

  • Google Glass May Have an Afterlife as a Device to Teach Autistic Children

    New York Times | 07/17/2019

  • Why It's Probably Better for the Planet to Throw Plastic in the Trash

    Real Clear Science | 07/15/2019

  • The Vaccine That Could Prevent Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

    Vice | 07/15/2019

  • San Francisco Financial Justice Project Enacts Landmark Reforms

    Spotlight on Poverty & Opportunity | 07/17/2019


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