Public Policy Institute of California researchers Magnus Lofstrom and Laura Hill discuss their research examining the potential labor market outcomes and other possible economic effects of a legalization program. The discussion was moderated by Doris Meissner, MPI Senior Fellow and Director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program, with comments from MPI Senior Policy Analyst Randy Capps and Sherrie A. Kossoudji, Associate Professor, School of Social Work, and Adjunct Professor, Department of Economics, University of Michigan.

A broad consensus exists that the long-term impact of immigration on Americans' average income is small but positive, improving employment, productivity, and income. In the short term, however, immigration may slightly reduce native employment and average income. This report provides an analysis of short- and long-run impacts of immigration over the business cycle.

Briefing and discussion of the release of the latest paper by MPI's Labor Markets Initiative: The Impact of Immigrants in Recession and Economic Expansion.

Briefing and discussion of the release of the latest paper by MPI's Labor Markets Initiative. Speakers are report author Giovanni Peri, UC Davis Professor of Economics; Ross Eisenbrey, Vice President, Economic Policy Institute; and Demetrios G. Papademetriou, MPI President.

Report release on the immigrant workforce and skills with the U.S. Department of Education Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education; the Director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce; and report authors.

Immigrants have been disproportionately hit by the global economic crisis that began in 2008 and now confront a number of challenges. The report, which has a particular focus on Germany, Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom, and United States finds that the unemployment gap between immigrant and native workers has widened in many places.

Notwithstanding the broad consensus on the benefits of highly skilled immigration, the economic role of less-skilled immigrants is one of the more controversial questions in the immigration debate. While less-skilled immigrants bring economic benefits for U.S. consumers, employers, and skilled workers, they impose some costs on U.S. workers competing for similar jobs.

In a report by MPI's Labor Markets Initiative, noted economist and Georgetown University Public Policy Institute Professor Harry J. Holzer examines the economic reasoning and research on these questions and looks at the policy options that shape the impact of less-skilled immigration on the economy. The discussion is on what policy reform would best serve native-born American workers, consumers, and employers, as well as the overall U.S. economy.

This discussion focuses on the MPI report, "Executive Action on Immigration: Six Ways to Make the System Work Better," which outlines administrative actions that can be implemented to improve the immigration system.

The release event for MPI’s book, Migration and the Great Recession: The Transatlantic Experience, which reviews how the financial and economic crisis of the late 2000s marked a sudden and dramatic interruption in international migration trends, and the effects of the economic turmoil on immigrant workers in major immigrant-receiving countries in Europe as well as the United States.

This report highlights gaps and anomalies in labor protection, while recognizing that U.S. law sets significant standards for minimum wage, overtime pay, child labor, safe and healthy workplaces, antidiscrimination, labor organizing, and collective bargaining.

This Migration Policy Institute webinar discusses labor enforcement laws during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations and chronicles gaps in labor protection.

This webinar discusses labor enforcement laws during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama administrations and chronicles gaps in labor protection, while also discussing the elements necessary for an effective labor standards enforcement system and why labor standards enforcement should become a pillar of immigration policymaking.

This volume, which brings together research by leading economists and labor market specialists, examines the role immigrants play in the U.S. workforce, how they fare in good and bad economic times, and the effects they have on native-born workers and the labor sectors in which they are engaged. The book traces the powerful economic forces at play in today’s globalized world and includes policy prescriptions for making the American immigration system more responsive to labor market needs.

With the prospects for immigration reform greater than they have been in more than a decade and the U.S. economy slowly shrugging off the effects of the recession, the United States may be on the cusp of historic changes that make the immigration system a more effective tool for innovation, economic growth and the competitiveness of its firms—large and small. 

The release of MPI's book Immigrants in a Changing Labor Market and discussion with Jason Furman, Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Principal Deputy Director of the National Economic Council; Harry Holzer, Georgetown University Professor of Public Policy; and MPI's Demetrios G. Papademetriou, Madeleine Sumption, and Michael Fix.

The current U.S. legal immigration system includes few visas for low-skilled workers, and employers have relied heavily on an unauthorized workforce in many low-skilled occupations. This issue brief explains the questions that policymakers must grapple with when designing programs for admission of low-skill workers, for temporary as well as permanent entry. The brief focuses in part on the recent agreement by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and AFL-CIO regarding admission of future low-skilled workers.

At this release event in Washington, DC, co-sponsored by MPI, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, and ImmigrationWorks USA, the Chicago Council's independent task force on immigration released its report, U.S. Economic Competitiveness at Risk: A Midwest Call to Action on Immigration Reform.

New research suggests that neurons which track our movements are also involved in imaginary navigation

Brain cells involved in spatial navigation and mapping the environment also fire when we merely imagine moving through familiar surroundings, according to a new study by researchers at University College London. The research, published today in the journal Current Biology, shows that memory and imagination are intimately linked in the brain at the cellular level, and could help to explain some of the changes that occur in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease.

Related: The fly's neural compass works just like a mammal's

Related: 3D compass cells found in the bat brain

The discovery of an inhibitory memory circuit could lead to novel treatments for conditions such as PTSD

In order to remember, we must forget. Recent research shows that when your brain retrieves newly encoded information, it suppresses older related information so that it does not interfere with the process of recall. Now a team of European researchers has identified a neural pathway that induces forgetting by actively erasing memories. The findings could eventually lead to novel treatments for conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

We’ve known since the early 1950s that a brain structure called the hippocampus is critical for memory formation and retrieval, and subsequent work using modern techniques has revealed a great deal of information about the underlying cellular mechanisms. The hippocampus contains neural circuits that loop through three of its sub-regions – the dentate gyrus and the CA3 and CA1 areas – and it’s widely believed that memories form by the strengthening and weakening of synaptic connections within these circuits.

Related: Light switches memories on and off | Mo Costandi

Related: The Homer Simpson effect: forgetting to remember

“Badass” new method uses a magnetised protein to activate brain cells rapidly, reversibly, and non-invasively

Researchers in the United States have developed a new method for controlling the brain circuits associated with complex animal behaviours, using genetic engineering to create a magnetised protein that activates specific groups of nerve cells from a distance.

Understanding how the brain generates behaviour is one of the ultimate goals of neuroscience – and one of its most difficult questions. In recent years, researchers have developed a number of methods that enable them to remotely control specified groups of neurons and to probe the workings of neuronal circuits.

Related: Remote control of brain activity with heated nanoparticles

Related: Researchers read and write brain activity with light

State-of-the-art electron microscopy reveals the large-scale organization of the proteins that regulate neurotransmitter release

This spectacular image – which took the best part of a year to create – shows the fine structure of a nerve terminal at high resolution, revealing, for the very first time, an intricate network of fine filaments that controls the movements of synaptic vesicles.

The brain is soft and wet, with the consistency of a lump of jelly. Yet, it is the most complex and highly organized structure that we know of, containing hundreds of billions of neurons and glial cells, and something on the order of one quadrillion synaptic connections, all of which are arranged in a very specific manner.

Related: 3D model of a nerve terminal in atomic detail | Mo Costandi

Related: Blowing up the brain to reveal its finer details

Research suggests that gut bacteria may directly affect brain structure and function, offering new ways to treat multiple sclerosis and psychiatric conditions

Far from being silent partners that merely help to digest food, the bacteria in your gut may also be exerting subtle influences on your thoughts, moods, and behaviour. And according to a new study from researchers at University College Cork, your gut microbes might affect the structure and function of the brain in a more direct way, by regulating myelination, the process by which nerve fibres are insulated so that they can conduct impulses properly.

The surprising new findings, published today in the journal Translational Psychiatry, provide what is perhaps the strongest evidence yet that gut bacteria can have a direct physical effect on the brain, and suggest that it may one day be possible to treat debilitating demyelinating diseases such as multiple sclerosis, and even psychiatric disorders, by altering the composition of the gut’s microbial menagerie in some way or another.

Related: Brain’s immune cells hyperactive in schizophrenia

Related: White matter might matter much more than we thought | Mo Costandi

New research provides the first direct evidence that Zika virus causes severe birth defects, and explains exactly how it does so

“I lifted up my T-shirt to check on what I thought had just been a small heat rash,” writes BuzzFeed correspondent Ali Watkins. “It had shown up along the right of my back, extending out from a handful of mosquito bites I had picked up… it had seemed relatively tame [but] now, it was inching across the front of my stomach and down my legs... Meanwhile, my right eye was inflamed and bright red, almost akin to a busted blood vessel.”

Watkins is describing the symptoms of a Zika virus infection that she contracted on a recent trip to Mexico. For many people, infection with this mosquito-borne virus causes an illness with symptoms just like those experienced by Watkins: fever, skin rash, joint pain and conjunctivitis. For others, these symptoms are so mild that they go completely unnoticed.

Related: Zika virus spreads across Americas - in pictures

Related: Zika forest: birthplace of virus that has spread fear across the world

Mechanosensory hairs covering bumblebees’ bodies detect the small electrical fields emitted by flowers

Bumblebees use the fine hairs covering their bodies to detect electrical fields produced by the flowers they feed on and pollinate, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Bristol. The findings, just published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may help to solve the mystery of how insects and other terrestrial creatures detect and respond to electric fields.

It’s well known that bumblebees use their sense of smell, as well as visual cues such as the colour, shape, and patterning of flowers, to find nectar, and in 2013, biologist Daniel Robert and his colleagues reported the surprising finding that they can also detect floral electric fields.

Related: Electric eels curl up to deliver double strength shocks

Related: Ancient arthropod brains surprise paleontologists

A toxin isolated from the Togo starburst tarantula provides new insights into pain mechanisms and could lead to new treatments for irritable bowel syndrome

With their large, hairy bodies and long legs, tarantulas are an arachnophobe’s worst nightmare. For pain researchers, however, these outsized spiders are a dream come true: Their venom contains a cocktail of toxins, each of which activates pain-sensing nerve fibres in different ways, and researchers in the United States have now identified one such toxin that will help them to better understand pain, and could also lead to treatments for the chronic pain associated with irritable bowel syndrome.

Physical pain signals are transmitted from the body to the brain by specialised sensory neurons called nociceptors. These pain-sensing neurons have cell bodies located just outside the spinal cord, and possess a single conductive fibre that splits in two, with one branch extending out towards the skin surface, and the shorter one entering the back of the cord.

Related: Uncomfortably numb: The people who feel no pain

Related: Researchers identify gatekeeper neurons that control pain and itch

New research reveals the secret behind the remarkable intelligence of some bird species

Related: Blind cave fish evolved a shrunken brain to save energy

Calling someone “bird brain” used to be considered as an insult. Birds’ brains are very small compared to those of mammals, and what’s more, they lack the heavily wrinkled cerebral cortex, which is characteristic of the human brain, and widely believed to the seat of intelligence. It was, therefore, widely assumed that birds aren’t very clever creatures, but recently this has started to change.

Related: Ravens cooperate with friends not foes

New research demonstrates an extreme form of inattentional blindness in which we fail to see the unexpected

There’s much more to visual perception than meets the eye. What we see is not merely a matter of patterns of light falling on the retina, but rather is heavily influenced by so-called ‘top-down’ brain mechanisms, which can alter the visual information, and other types of sensory information, that enters the brain before it even reaches our conscious awareness.

Related: Memory contaminates perception | Mo Costandi

Related: Language boosts invisible objects into visual awareness | Mo Costandi

New research shows that frigatebirds can sleep on the wing, with just one or both halves of their brain

When Charles Darwin arrived at the Galápagos Islands in 1839, he had the opportunity to observe the habits of frigatebirds, and marvelled at their graceful flight manoeuvres and their ability to soar up high. “When it sees any object on the surface of the water,” he wrote, “[it] descends from a great height… with the swiftness of an arrow; and at the instant of seizing with its long beak and outstretched neck, the floating morsel, it turns upwards, with extraordinary dexterity, by the aid of its forked tail, and its long, powerful wings.”

Related: Sleepy brains neglect half the world | Mo Costandi

Related: Birds pack more cells into their brains than mammals

A new imaging technique may give researchers fresh insights into brain development, function, and disease

The human brain is often said to be the most complex object in the known universe, and there’s good reason to believe that it is. That lump of jelly inside your head contains at least 80 billion nerve cells, or neurons, and even more of the non-neuronal cells called glia. Between them, they form hundreds of trillions of precise synaptic connections; but they all have moveable parts, and these connections can change. Neurons can extend and retract their delicate fibres; some types of glial cells can crawl through the brain; and neurons and glia routinely work together to create new connections and eliminate old ones.

These processes begin before we are born, and occur until we die, making the brain a highly dynamic organ that undergoes continuous change throughout life. At any given moment, many millions of them are being modified in one way or another, to reshape the brain’s circuitry in response to our daily experiences. Researchers at Yale University have now developed an imaging technique that enables them to visualise the density of synapses in the living human brain, and offers a promising new way of studying how the organ develops and functions, and also how it deteriorates in various neurological and psychiatric conditions.

Related: Brain’s immune cells hyperactive in schizophrenia

Related: 3D model of a nerve terminal in atomic detail | Mo Costandi

New research shows that a genetic mutation associated with schizophrenia alters the process of cellular differentiation, disturbing the balance of neurons and glia in the brain

Stem cells obtained from patients with schizophrenia carry a genetic mutation that alters the ratio of the different type of nerve cells they produce, according to a new study by researchers in Japan. The findings, published today in the journal Translational Psychiatry, suggest that abnormal neural differentiation may contribute to the disease, such that fewer neurons and more non-neuronal cells are generated during the earliest stages of brain development.

Schizophrenia is a debilitating mental illness that affects about 1 in 100 people. It is known to be highly heritable, but is genetically complex: so far, researchers have identified over 100 rare genetic variations and dozens of mutations associated with increased risk of developing the disease.

Related: Brain’s immune cells hyperactive in schizophrenia

Related: Turning urine into brain cells | Mo Costandi

It’s not just your waistline that suffers as you put on weight. Researchers are beginning to find puzzling new links between obesity, memory loss and dementia

Lucy Cheke and her colleagues at the University of Cambridge recently invited a few participants into her lab for a kind of ‘treasure hunt’.

The participants navigated a virtual environment on a computer screen, dropping off various objects along their way. They then answered a series of questions to test their memory of the task, such as where they had hidden a particular object.

Related: How your eyes betray your thoughts

Related: How to optimise your brain's waste disposal system

Related: Gut bacteria regulate nerve fibre insulation

Related: Obesity linked to memory deficits

New research shows that the rhythm of breathing directly impacts neural activity in a network of brain areas involved in smell, memory and emotions

The rhythm of breathing co-ordinates electrical activity across a network of brain regions associated with smell, memory, and emotions, and can enhance their functioning, according to a new study by researchers at Northwestern University. The findings, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, suggest that breathing does not merely supply oxygen to the brain and body, but may also organise the activity of populations of cells within multiple brain regions to help orchestrate complex behaviours.

Related: Your nose knows death is imminent | Mo Costandi

Related: A cooler way to evaluate brain surgery patients

New findings challenge our understanding of how the brain matures

Faces are important to us. From the moment we are are born, we prefer to look at faces than at other, inanimate objects, and, being social animals, we encounter faces every day of our lives. The face is the first thing we look to when identifying other people; faces also convey emotions, informing us of peoples’ mood, and from them we can usually determine a person’s sex and, sometimes, roughly how old they are. Eye movements can also reveal to us something about another person’s intentions.

Related: How your eyes betray your thoughts

Related: Live imaging of synapse density in the human brain

New research provides evidence for the idea that sleep restores cellular homeostasis in the brain and helps us to forget irrelevant information

We spend one third of our lives sleeping, but we still do not know exactly why we sleep. Recent research shows that that the brain does its housekeeping while we sleep, and clears away its waste. According to another hypothesis, sleep plays the vital role of restoring the right balance of brain synapses to enhance learning, and two studies published in today’s issue of Science now provide the most direct evidence yet for this idea.

We do know that sleep is important for consolidating newly formed memories. During waking hours, we learn all kinds of new information, both consciously and unconsciously. To store it, the brain modifies large numbers of synaptic connections, making some of them stronger and larger, and it’s now thought that as we sleep other synapses are weakened or destroyed, so that the important new information is stored for later use, while irrelevant material, which could interfere with learning, is not.

Related: The Homer Simpson effect: forgetting to remember

Related: How to optimise your brain's waste disposal system

New research shows that we can train our brains to become memory champions

To many of us, having to memorize a long list of items feels like a chore. But for others, it is more like a sport. Every year, hundreds of these ‘memory athletes’ compete with one another in the World Memory Championships, memorising hundreds of words, numbers, or other pieces of information within minutes. The current world champion is Alex Mullen, who beat his competitors by memorizing a string of more than 550 digits in under 5 minutes.

You may think that such prodigious mental feats are linked to having an unusual brain, or to being extraordinarily clever. But they are not. New research published in the journal Neuron shows that you, too, can be a super memorizer with just six weeks of intensive mnemonic training, and also reveals the long-lasting changes to brain structure and function that occur as a result of such training.

Related: The Homer Simpson effect: forgetting to remember

Related: A neural pathway that erases memories

Researchers at MIT have developed a new method of electrically stimulating deep brain tissues without opening the skull

Since 1997, more than 100,000 Parkinson’s Disease patients have been treated with deep brain stimulation (DBS), a surgical technique that involves the implantation of ultra-thin wire electrodes. The implanted device, sometimes referred to as a ‘brain pacemaker’, delivers electrical pulses to a structure called the subthalamic nucleus, located near the centre of the brain, and effectively alleviates many of the physical symptoms of the disease, such as tremor, muscle rigidity, and slowed movements.

DBS is generally safe but, like any surgical procedure, comes with some risks. First and foremost, it is highly invasive, requiring small holes to be drilled in the patient’s skull, through which the electrodes are inserted. Potential complications of this include infection, stroke, and bleeding on the brain. The electrodes, which are implanted for long periods of time, sometimes move out of place; they can also cause swelling at the implantation site; and the wire connecting them to the battery, typically placed under the skin of the chest, can erode, all of which require additional surgical procedures.

Related: Blowing up the brain to reveal its finer details

Related: Traces of memory in a dish | Mo Costandi

Why did right-winger Yosemite Sam have problem with the leftist Bugs Bunny?

Or better yet go back to Africa, we don’t need any feminazis ruining our society

I know AB and angle ABD, does anyone know how to work out BD and the area of ABD? Thanks

I say - Lock everything down, as we are, and keep everything locked down for years  This way, what every these people are complaining about will be long gone 

So once I went on a night out and I kissed a drunk girl and she was hinting she wanted to come home with me but I didn't let it happen. If this happens again will it be weird if I bring a girl home at like 3 in the morning and I live with my parents. Do I have to hide her? What if we have sex? In the morning my mum just come in and opens the door to get my washing. What if she does this and there is a girl in the bed? Will I get in trouble? I don't know anything about this stuff. I'm 21 do people this age even do this or is it only people in there 30s? It will be nice to spend the night with a girl. Is it a bad idea. I have no brothers or friends so I don't know what people do. I want to know for the next time?

Ok, so I have tried and do not get the same as as the book (1.6m). Can someone show the forces diagram or something , please?

happy, sad, meh, mad, or what?