This Quality Counts 2020 Highlights Report captures all the data you need to assess your state's performance on key educational outcomes.

Thousands of Washington’s kindergartners haven’t shown up or logged in to their public schools this year.

Nov. 12—Jarrett Gronski wasn't expecting to cry the morning before playing Wayne State. Like most athletes, the Bemidji State football team's senior running back has his pregame rituals. But that routine shook out a little differently before the Beavers' game against the Wildcats. John Gronski — Jarrett's father and a prolific running back for BSU back in the late 1980s — was officially ...

The CFP's annual love affair with the SEC appears finished. The latest rankings dropped a hammer on the mighty league where "it just means more."

The GHSA football playoffs kick off Friday night with several area teams competing, while the GIAA playoffs move to the state semifinal round, where two local schools look to secure a spot in the championship game. Friday night’s matchups: Luella (5-5) at No. 6 Westover (9-1) Luella travels to Albany after finishing 4-2 in Region 5, capping their regular season with a 35-25 win over ...

The Mississippi education department will be the first to operate a teacher residency program, which aims to increase retention and diversity in the profession.

Nearly 45 percent of children in rural McDowell County, West Virginia do not live with their parents and many are being raised by grandparents.

A handful of districts and other groups are reshaping the after-school space to provide a wide range of social and linguistic supports for newcomer students.

A federal investigation of Chicago's failures to respond to sexual violence in schools raises troubling questions for school districts nationwide.

Lawmakers in Illinois are considering a bill that would require children to start kindergarten if they are 5 on or before May 31, with exceptions for summer birthdays.

Jacy Sheldon and Katie Smith are both returning to their alma mater to join the staff ran by Kevin McGuff.

UConn women’s basketball freshman Sarah Strong earned the first Big East Freshman of the Week honors of her career on Monday after a pair of impressive performances in the Huskies’ Week 1 wins. Strong was the No. 1 recruit in the Class of 2024 and lived up to her elite billing with a game-high 17 points in her college debut against Boston University on Thursday. She also led the team with six ...

LSU women's basketball bucked a bit of a slow start to blowout Charleston Southern Tuesday morning.

LSU women's basketball coach Kim Mulkey provided updates for Shayeann Day-Wilson and Last-Tear Poa on Tuesday after LSU's win vs Charleston Southern.

Lady Vols basketball relied on its best 3-point shooting night of the season to close out a win over Middle Tennessee State on Tuesday

Krista L. Hyde
Mar 11, 2009; 29:3019-3025
Development Plasticity Repair

Fadel Zeidan
Nov 18, 2015; 35:15307-15325
BehavioralSystemsCognitive

Randy L. Buckner
Aug 24, 2005; 25:7709-7717
Neurobiology of Disease

Recent visual experience heavily influences our visual perception, but how neuronal activity is reshaped to alter and improve perceptual discrimination remains unknown. We recorded from populations of neurons in visual cortical area V4 while two male rhesus macaque monkeys performed a natural image change detection task under different experience conditions. We found that maximizing the recent experience with a particular image led to an improvement in the ability to detect a change in that image. This improvement was associated with decreased neural responses to the image, consistent with neuronal changes previously seen in studies of adaptation and expectation. We found that the magnitude of behavioral improvement was correlated with the magnitude of response suppression. Furthermore, this suppression of activity led to an increase in signal separation, providing evidence that a reduction in activity can improve stimulus encoding. Within populations of neurons, greater recent experience was associated with decreased trial-to-trial shared variability, indicating that a reduction in variability is a key means by which experience influences perception. Taken together, the results of our study contribute to an understanding of how recent visual experience can shape our perception and behavior through modulating activity patterns in the mid-level visual cortex.

Rodent jaws evolved structurally to support dual functionality, for either biting or chewing food. Rodent hands also function dually during food handling, for actively manipulating or statically holding food. How are these oral and manual functions coordinated? We combined electrophysiological recording of muscle activity and kilohertz kinematic tracking to analyze masseter and hand actions as mice of both sexes handled food. Masseter activity was organized into two modes synchronized to hand movement modes. In holding/chewing mode, mastication occurred as rhythmic (~5 Hz) masseter activity while the hands held food below the mouth. In oromanual/ingestion mode, bites occurred as lower-amplitude aperiodic masseter events that were precisely timed to follow regrips (by ~200 ms). Thus, jaw and hand movements are flexibly coordinated during food handling: uncoupled in holding/chewing mode and tightly coordinated in oromanual/ingestion mode as regrip–bite sequences. Key features of this coordination were captured in a simple model of hierarchically orchestrated mode-switching and intramode action sequencing. We serendipitously detected an additional masseter-related action, tooth sharpening, identified as bouts of higher-frequency (~13 Hz) rhythmic masseter activity, which was accompanied by eye displacement, including rhythmic proptosis, attributable to masseter contractions. Collectively, the findings demonstrate how a natural, complex, and goal-oriented activity is organized as an assemblage of distinct modes and complex actions, adapted for the divisions of function arising from anatomical structure. These results reveal intricate, high-speed coordination of disparate effectors and show how natural forms of dexterity can serve as a model for understanding the behavioral neurobiology of multi-body-part coordination.

Aggression involves both sexually monomorphic and dimorphic actions. How the brain implements these two types of actions is poorly understood. We found that in Drosophila melanogaster, a set of neurons, which we call CL062, previously shown to mediate male aggression also mediate female aggression. These neurons elicit aggression acutely and without the presence of a target. Although the same set of actions is elicited in males and females, the overall behavior is sexually dimorphic. The CL062 neurons do not express fruitless, a gene required for sexual dimorphism in flies, and expressed by most other neurons important for controlling fly aggression. Connectomic analysis in a female electron microscopy dataset suggests that these neurons have limited connections with fruitless expressing neurons that have been shown to be important for aggression and signal to different descending neurons. Thus, CL062 is part of a monomorphic circuit for aggression that functions parallel to the known dimorphic circuits.

A new exhibition co-presented by the National Portrait Gallery and the Archives of American Art explores the seminal artist’s work

Written by the former chief historian of NASA, the book examines the evolution of our cosmic understanding—from early civilizations to the present day

Countries today endorsed a set of wide-reaching guidelines that will boost the already vital [...]

Policy makers should support a broad array of approaches to overhauling global food systems, [...]

Marrakesh, 15 December 2014 – African Ministers of Agriculture recognized the facilitating role of FAO “under the new strategic framework established with the leadership of the [...]

South-South Cooperation is the mutual sharing and exchange of development solutions - knowledge, experiences and good practices, policies, technology and resources - between and among countries in the global [...]

MANUEL PLANELLES, EL PAÍS, Paris- “Agriculture is seen as a threat in the fight against climate change,” Maria Helena Semedo warns. The Deputy Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization [...]

Mr Chairman,

I wish to convey, through you, to the Committee on Fisheries, the considered views of the FAO Secretariat on the item on the proposed Fisheries University.  

So far, the [...]

Washington, 15 September 2016 - The recent entry into force of a ground-breaking international accord on illegal fishing is a welcome development but it now requires "strong and effective implementation", FAO [...]

Cancun, Mexico. On [...]

Further to Council-endorsed adjustments to the 2016-17 Programme of Work and Budget (PWB) made in 2015, an assessment of the technical capacity of the Organization by a team of independent [...]

In order to celebrate Malta’s presidency to the European Union Council for 2017 FAO is hosting an exhibit in the atrium, focusing on issues of migration and oceans - both [...]

Today, FAO launched two new reports in time for the 160^th session of the Council:

-          FAO + Belgium: Inclusive approaches to end hunger and promote [...]

Over the last twenty years, the FAO corporate website has expanded to meet diverse Organizational needs and promote the work of divisions and country offices across FAO. When Director [...]

Help shape FAO’s digital publishing programme by answering a 5-minute survey on the The State of the World’s Forests (SOFO) and Global Forest Resources Assessment (FRA).

The survey seeks to gather [...]

The Holy See and the FAO join hands again to celebrate the World Fisheries Day.

The celebrations, which this year mark the 75^th Anniversary of the FAO and the [...]

In 2020, FAO’s flagship ‘The State of the World’ collection was released in a new easy-to-read digital format, providing audiences with a responsive reading experience to discover FAO’s work and [...]

The Tripartite organizations (FAO, OIE, WHO) invite partners to join public discussion on the establishment of the AMR Multi-Stakeholder Partnership Platform.

Rome – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), on behalf of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) has joined forces with the Comité de [...]