By Greg Filiano

NEWSWISE — STONY BROOK, N.Y. – Talking on a cell phone or texting while walking may seem natural and easy, but it could be dangerous and result in walking errors and interfere with memory recall. Researchers at Stony Brook University found this to be the case in a study of young people walking and using their cell phones. The study is reported in the online edition of Gait & Posture.
Thirty-three men and women in their 20s, all of whom reported owning and using a cell phone and familiar with texting, participated in the study. To assess walking abilities, participants completed a baseline test. Each participant was shown a target

NEWSWISE — Wikipedia and other sites plan to go dark to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act under consideration in Congress. Three law professors from Washington University in St. Louis, Kevin Collins, Gregory Magarian and Neil Richards, signed a letter to Congress in opposition to the PROTECT IP Act (http://www.scribd.com/doc/72807693/Law-Profs-Letter-Against-SOPA-PROTECT-IP).

By Terry Goodrich

NEWSWISE — Passersby who stopped to answer surveys taken next to churches in the Netherlands and England reported themselves as more politically conservative and more negative toward non-Christians than did people questioned within sight of government buildings — a finding that may be significant when it comes to voting, according to a Baylor University study.

Event to benefit College’s Reagan-related programs

EUREKA — Eureka College will hold its 5th annual Ronald Reagan Day Feb. 6 to celebrate and benefit its Reagan-related programs. Keynote speaker will be political analyst and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics, Michael Barone, who will discuss “Ronald Reagan: The Next 100 Years.”
The event will begin with a social hour at 6:30 p.m. at the Embassy Suites Hotel, East Peoria.

NEWSWISE — A hemispherewide phenomenon – and not just regional forces – has caused record-breaking amounts of freshwater to accumulate in the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea.

Frigid freshwater flowing into the Arctic Ocean from three of Russia’s mighty rivers was diverted hundreds of miles to a completely different part of the ocean in response to a decades-long shift in atmospheric pressure associated with the phenomenon called the Arctic Oscillation, according to findings published in the Jan. 5 issue of Nature.
The new findings show that a low pressure pattern created by the Arctic Oscillation from 2005 to 2008 drew Russian river water away from the Eurasian Basin,

By Remaining Unaware, People Can Justify Trusting Government
By Lisa S. Bowen

NEWSWISE — WASHINGTON -- The less people know about important complex issues such as the economy, energy consumption and the environment, the more they want to avoid becoming well-informed, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.

And the more urgent the issue, the more people want to remain unaware, according to a paper published online in APA’s Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.
“These studies were designed to help understand the so-called ‘ignorance is bliss’ approach to social issues,”

National Newspaper Association Speaks Out

The U.S. Postal Service must change, but the needs of customers must be the first consideration, the National Newspaper Association told the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs today.
“The need for a cost-efficient, customer-oriented Postal Service is compelling and urgent,” NNA Chief Executive Officer Tonda F. Rush told the committee. “We share the views of many that the Postal Service has been unfairly burdened with the way payments into benefits systems have been structured. We agree the mail-processing network carries a heavy cost of excess capacity. But the Postal Service’s solution cannot be to push mail out of the system.”