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Welcome to The Visible Embryo, a comprehensive educational resource on human development from conception to birth.
The Visible Embryo provides visual references for changes in fetal development throughout pregnancy and can be navigated via fetal development or maternal changes.
The National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development awarded Phase I and Phase II Small Business Innovative Research Grants to develop The Visible Embryo. Initally designed to evaluate the internet as a teaching tool for first year medical students, The Visible Embryo is linked to over 600 educational institutions and is viewed by more than one million visitors each month.
Today, The Visible Embryo is linked to over 600 educational institutions and is viewed by more than 1 million visitors each month. The field of early embryology has grown to include the identification of the stem cell as not only critical to organogenesis in the embryo, but equally critical to organ function and repair in the adult human. The identification and understanding of genetic malfunction, inflammatory responses, and the progression in chronic disease, begins with a grounding in primary cellular and systemic functions manifested in the study of the early embryo.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has created a new Web site to help researchers, doctors and patients obtain reliable information on high-quality clinical trials. Now you can go to one website and search all registers to identify clinical trial research underway around the world!
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CLICK ON weeks 0 - 40 and follow along every 2 weeks of fetal development
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Home | Pregnancy Timeline | News Alerts |News Archive Jun 22, 2015
Bloomington, Indiana's own Lil Bub is one of the more popular felines on the Internet.
Image Credit: Mike Bridavsky at www.lilbub.com |
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Cat videos make you 'feel-good' and boost energy!
If you get a warm, fuzzy feeling after watching cute cat videos, the effect may be more profound than you think!
The Internet phenomenon of watching cat videos, from Lil Bub to Grumpy Cat, does more than simply entertain. It boosts a viewers' energy and positive emotions while decreasing negative feelings. All results from a new study done by at Indiana University Media School.
Assistant professor Jessica Gall Myrick, surveyed almost 7,000 people about cat videos and how they affected their moods. The study results were published in the latest issue of Computers in Human Behavior. Lil Bub's owner, Mike Bridavsky, who lives in Bloomington, helped distribute the survey via social media.
"Some people may think watching online cat videos isn't a serious enough topic for academic research, but the fact is it's one of the most popular uses of the Internet today. If we want to better understand the effects the Internet may have on us as individuals and on society, then researchers can't ignore Internet cats anymore.
"We all have watched a cat video online, but there is really little empirical work done on why so many of us do this, or what effects it might have on us. As a media researcher and online cat video viewer, I felt compelled to gather some data about this pop culture phenomenon."
Jessica Gall Myrick PhD, Assistant professor (and pug owner - but no cats).
Internet data show there were more than 2 million cat videos posted on YouTube in 2014, with almost 26 billion views. Cat videos had more views per video than any other category of YouTube content.
In Myrick's study, the most popular sites for viewing cat videos were Facebook, YouTube, Buzzfeed and I Can Has Cheezburger.
Among the possible effects Myrick hoped to explore: Does viewing cat videos online have the same kind of positive impact as pet therapy? And do some viewers actually feel worse after watching cat videos because they feel guilty for putting off tasks they need to tackle?
Of the participants in the study, about 36 percent described themselves as a "cat person," while about 60 percent said they liked both cats and dogs.
Participants in Myrick's study reported:
They were more energetic and felt more positive after having watched cat-related online media.
They had fewer negative emotions — anxiety, annoyance, sadness — after watching cat-related online media.
They often view Internet cats at work or during study.
The pleasure from watching cat videos outweighed any guilt felt about procrastinating.
Cat owners and people with personality traits such as agreeableness and shyness, were more likely to watch cat videos.
About 25 percent of cat videos watched were sought out; the rest were happened upon.
Viewers were familiar with many so-called "celebrity cats," such as Nala Cat and Henri, Le Chat Noir.
Overall, watching cat videos was largely positive.
"Even if they are watching cat videos on YouTube to procrastinate or while they should be working, the emotional pay-off may actually help people take on tough tasks afterward," Myrick concluded. The results also suggest that future work could explore how online cat videos might even be used as a form of low-cost pet therapy.
Abstract
Anecdotes abound about the frequent use of the Internet to view cat-related media. Yet, research has yet to seriously address this popular culture phenomenon rooted largely in social media platforms. It is possible that viewing of online cat media improves mood, but this activity may also foster negative outcomes linked to using the Internet for procrastination. The present survey of Internet users (N = 6795) explored the correlates of viewing “Internet cats,” motivations for consuming this media, and its potential effects on users. It also tested a conceptual model predicting enjoyment as a function of the relationships between procrastination, guilt, and happiness. Results reveal significant relationships between viewing and personality types and demonstrate conceptual nuances related to the emotional benefits of watching Internet cats.
For each participant who took the survey, Myrick donated 10 cents to Lil Bub's foundation, raising almost $700. The foundation, Lil Bub's Big Fund for the ASPCA, has raised more than $100,000 for needy animals.
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