Little Polka's Blog

I’m DJ KatieKay reporting from Fusion 93 KMSC Sioux City. In today’s news, we have three stories that talk about student loans, music, and science that just might interest you.

Your student debt is probably part of the $1.5 trillion dollars that stands in the U.S. right now. We all know loans can be helpful during college years, but then it’s a pain for graduates to pay back as the years go on.

Leslie Turner, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Maryland, and her colleague Benjamin Marx at the University of Illinois are studying students being offered loans in their award letters. The students took the offers, and they attempted more courses, earned more credit, and had higher grade point averages according to Leslie Turner.

Recent college graduate Dallas says he wishes he had this opportunity these students do, and also comments about his feelings on student loans. “Student loans are a pain to pay off, but it also helped me through my years of college.”

It’s obviously too soon to know the results of this new research, but time will only tell.

National Public Radio launched the American Anthem series this past summer, and individuals have responded with their personal stories about the anthem they chose, and one popular choice was “America” by Simon & Garfunkel released in 1968.

Gila Cohen, who spoke with Morning Edition about what the anthem, and looking for America, means to her says, “For me, getting to know America, is more about the questions that we ask then the sort of sureness that we might reach in our own experience.”

Preliminary evidence shows teens being on their cell phones too much causes memory loss.

A new study’s finding says teenagers who talk on the phone a lot, and hold their cell phones up to their right ear, score worse on one type of memory test. This may be one side-effect to the radiation that the phones use to keep all of us connected while we are traveling.

Seven hundred Swiss teenagers have taken part in a test of figural memory, which assesses short-term and long-term memory. This type of test is one that helps us recall abstract shapes and symbols. Milena Foerster, a medical doctor who studies disease patterns within a population, worked on the study as part of a team while she was at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute in Basel, Switzerland.

The teens in this study participated in the memory test twice, one year apart from each other. For the test they had one minute to memorize thirteen pairs of abstract shapes and they were shown one item from each pair and had to match it with one of the five choices they were given.

The researchers in this study also surveyed the teenagers on how they use mobile phones, and got the call records from phone companies. They used the records to guesstimate how long the teens were using their phones, which allowed them to calculate how big a radiation exposure each individual could have received while talking.

The teens’ scores in the figural memory tests were about the same from one year to the other.  But those who normally held their phone near their right ear, and who were also exposed to higher levels of radiation, scored a little bit worse after a year.

Foerster and her colleagues think that one type of memory being linked to cell phone use, but not another could have to do with where different memory centers sit in the brain. The site that deals with the ability to remember shapes is near the right ear.

Bridget comments on what she thinks about this study. “I believe this could be very true. The study was well thought through and I think teens are exposed to radiation everyday just by the use of their cellular devices.”

This has been today’s news, featuring three stories that talk about student loans, music, and science. I’m DJ KatieKay reporting from Fusion 93 KMSC Sioux City.

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