Most girls as young as 6 are already beginning to think of themselves as sex objects, according to a new study of elementary school-age kids in the Midwest.

Researchers have shown in the past that women and teens think of themselves in sexually objectified terms, but the new study is the first to identify self-sexualization in young girls. The study, published online July 6 in the journal Sex Roles, also identified factors that protect girls from objectifying themselves.

Psychologists at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., used paper dolls to assess self-sexualization in 6- to 9-year-old girls. Sixty girls were shown two dolls, one dressed in tight and revealing "sexy" clothes and the other wearing a trendy but covered-up, loose outfit.

Using a different set of dolls for each question, the researchers then asked each girl to choose the doll that: looked like herself, looked how she wanted to look, was the popular girl in school, she wanted to play with.

Across-the-board, girls chose the "sexy" doll most often. The results were significant in two categories: 68 percent of the girls said the doll looked how she wanted to look, and 72 percent said she was more popular than the non-sexy doll.

"It's very possible that girls wanted to look like the sexy doll because they believe sexiness leads to popularity, which comes with many social advantages," explained lead researcher Christy Starr, who was particularly surprised at how many 6- to 7-year-old girls chose the sexualized doll as their ideal self.

Other studies have found that sexiness boosts popularity among girls but not boys. "Although the desire to be popular is not uniquely female, the pressure to be sexy in order to be popular is."

MPEC 2012-N19, issued on 2012 July 14, reports the discovery by J75 OAM Observatory, La Sagra with a 0.45-m f/2.8 reflector + CCD of the unusual minor planet 2012 NJ. According to the latest orbital solution available, this object moves along a comet-like orbit with an Inclination of 84.32 deg, Eccentricity = 0.85, Perihelion distance = 1.29 AU and Period = 24.23 years.

We performed some follow-up measurements of this object, while it was still on the neocp, remotely from the H06 ITelescope network (near Mayhill, NM) on 2012, Jul. 14.3, through a 0.51-m f/6.9 reflector + CCD. No cometary features are visible in our images, the object has the same aspect of the nearby field stars of similar brightness.

Our confirmation image, stack of 10x10-second exposures;
You can also see an animation showing the movement of 2012 NJ (each frame is 10-second exposure).

On mpml mailing list you can find an interesting discussion about the orbit of this object.

"Woman brane reel gud, better then men brane."

Here's another study for the "obvious" file: Women are smarter than men. As you reach for this file (which by now should be located in an easy-to-reach spot on your desk) you'll likely notice several other stories bearing the same headline.

For example, a 2008 Higher Education Policy Institute report said women are not only more likely to get into better schools, they're also more likely to outperform the men once there.

Then, in 2009, a British researcher named Adrian Furnham released a report which said men and women likely have the same levels of intelligence, but men are more apt to think they are smarter than women. Another story for the "Obvious" file.

In 2010, some researchers created an online version of the popular board game "Trivial Pursuit" to study which sex has the better brain. Five months and more than 15 million questions later, the researchers said women answered more questions correctly than men.

Today's report says women, on average, score 5 points higher than men in IQ tests. According to James Flynn, an expert on IQ tests, this is the first time in over 100 years women have scored higher than men, and it's likely due to all that multi-tasking women are so gosh-darned good at.

"In the last 100 years the IQ scores of both men and women have risen but women's have risen faster," said Flynn.

"This is a consequence of modernity. The complexity of the modern world is making our brains adapt and raising our IQ," he added.

Lots of time spent in front of a TV early in life may have lasting consequences, indicates a study that connected the viewing habits of Canadian toddlers with waist circumference and muscular fitness later in childhood.

Using data collected periodically for 1,314 kids participating in the Québec Longitudinal Study of Child Development, researchers found increases in TV viewing starting when kids were 29 months old were linked to reduced jumping ability in second grade and bigger waist circumferences in fourth grade.

The implications may be lifelong, write the researchers: "The preschool years represents a period of remarkable sensitivity to environments and experiences, and thus account for the origins of many lifestyle behaviors and preferences."

Past research has found that too much TV-watching at age 2 is associated with less engagement in classroom activities, less weekend exercise and a greater chance of being picked on by classmates in fourth grade.

In the new study, the researchers used the standing long jump as a measure of physical fitness, because it requires the explosive leg strength necessary for many sports.

Waist circumference, meanwhile, is a measure of abdominal fat and can be linked to poor cardiovascular health and other problems. Plus, extra weight carried when a child is heading into adolescence likely represents more health risks than weight gained during other periods of development, they write.

More than six months after regulators ordered an intense probe of a California power plant, authorities say that conditions at the San Onofre nuclear facility are actually much worse than ever thought.

"This reveals a far greater problem than has been previously disclosed, and raises serious questions about whether it is safe to restart either unit," Daniel Hirsch, a nuclear expert at the University of California, Santa Cruz, tells the AFP of the latest news regarding an investigation into problematic reactors at the site.

What were originally just minor concerns caused the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to order an investigation in January, closing one reactor at the San Onorfre site between San Diego and Los Angeles in the interim. More than half a year later, though, the publishing of their latest findings suggest that the problems with the plant are more than just a few frayed wires.

Last week the infamous "un-planet" Pluto grabbed science headlines with the report of yet anther moon whirling around it.

The Hubble Space Telescope discovery brings the tally of icy moons orbiting Pluto to five.

Or is it really four?

A reader wrote to me to make the case that Pluto really has only four moons (all discovered by Hubble over the past seven years). He argued that the largest moon in the system, Charon (found in 1978), is really a planet in its own right.

Why? Because Charon is 12 percent the mass of Pluto. That may not seem like much, but our moon is only .01 percent the mass of Earth. Pluto's four other satellites are a very tiny fraction of the mass in the system.

The consequences are that Pluto and Charon pivot like a waltzing pair of ice skaters around a center of mass. So do the Earth and moon, but the center of mass, or barycenter, is inside Earth's radius.

Discovery Date: July 13, 2012

Magnitude: 14.6 mag

Discoverer: La Sagra Sky Survey

The orbital elements are published on M.P.E.C. 2012-N19.

With current automobile safety systems like crumple zones and air bags focused on mitigating the damage caused by a crash, MIT researchers have shifted their attention to preventing automobile accidents altogether.

In pursuit of this goal, Sterling Anderson, a PhD student at MIT, and Karl Iagnemma, a principal research scientist in MIT's Robotic Mobility Group, have developed an automated 'co-pilot' that guides the vehicle along a safe route if it detects an impending collision or dangerous maneuver.

The system uses an onboard camera and laser rangefinder to locate potential hazards in the vehicle's environment. An algorithm then analyzes the data collected by the camera and rangefinder to identify a safe path just ahead of the car. When the driver is about to exit the safety area, the system compensates with the minimal amount of correction necessary to keep the car within the predetermined path.

"When you are driving safely, the system runs in the background monitoring the vehicles environment and your performance," explained Anderson in an online video. "But if you make a mistake, one serious enough to cause and accident or loss of control, it intervenes to ensure you avoid it."

Anderson went on to say that the system he is developing is different from the autopilot used by commercial aircraft, which does the majority of the work while the plane is in flight. The aircraft's system typically hands over control during times of crisis, when a human pilot is expected to react better than the autopilot.

"This abrupt transfer of control, particularly in fast-paced or high-stress scenarios where humans tend to perform poorly, can be tricky," he said. "Many aircraft crashes in recent memory have been caused by human error in times like these."

It was likely no coincidence New York's most violent week of the year occurred as mid-Atlantic US faced scorching temperatures

You can't ignore the headlines. Violent crime has been up in New York in recent weeks. What's causing the increase?

One interesting theory that has popped up is that the crime wave is a consequence of the hot weather. But does hot weather actually cause increases in crime?

A Wall Street Journal study of New York City weather patterns from 2002 to 2009 apparently found there was no increase in crime in the summer as opposed to other times of the year. That study, however, is in a distinct minority.

Four private companies have paid deposits in order to use the LauncherOne in the future

Virgin Galactic announced its new rocket called the LauncherOne at the Farnborough International Air Show 2012 this week.

Virgin Galactic, which is the first commercial spaceline, introduced the LauncherOne as a new air-launched rocket that will send small satellites into orbit. The LauncherOne will be a two-stage vehicle that can launch up to 500 pounds into orbit for less than $10 million, which helps Virgin achieve its goal of sending both astronauts and satellites into space for cheap. The rocket will eventually launch from Virgin's WhiteKnightTwo aircraft.

"Virgin Galactic's goal is to revolutionize the way we get to space," said Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Galactic. "I'm immensely proud of what we have already achieved as we draw near to regular suborbital flights on SpaceShipTwo. Now, LauncherOne is bringing the price of satellite launch into the realm of affordability for innovators everywhere, from start-ups and schools to established companies and national space agencies. It will be a critical new tool for the global research community, enabling us all to learn about our home planet more quickly and affordably."

In addition to the announcement of the LauncherOne, Branson also noted that four new private companies have paid deposits in order to use the LauncherOne in the future. The companies plan to purchase "several dozen launches."

Also, Branson announced that Virgin is accepting deposits for suborbital flights on SpaceShipTwo. So far, a total of 529 people have paid the deposit.

The private space industry has become increasingly important recently, with Virgin Galactic offering affordable spaceflight to the public and Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (SpaceX) making history with the launch of its Dragon capsule to the International Space Station (ISS) in May 2012, which marked the first private launch to the orbiting station. NASA retiring its space shuttle fleet last year basically put the future of American spaceflight in the hands of the private industry, which seems to be filling the void sufficiently.