Title: Yes, it turns: Experimental evidence of pearl rotation during its formation Abstract: Cultured pearls are human creations formed by inserting a
nucleus and a small piece of mantle tissue into a living
shelled mollusc, usually a pearl oyster. Although many
pearl observations intuitively suggest a possible rotation
of the nucleated pearl inside the oyster, no experimental
demonstration of such a movement has ever been done. This
can be explained by the difficulty of observation of such a
phenomenon in the tissues of a living animal. To investigate
this question of pearl rotation, a magnetometer system was
specifically engineered to register magnetic field variations
with magnetic sensors from movements of a magnetic nucleus
inserted in the pearl oyster.We demonstrated that a continuous
movement of the nucleus inside the oyster starts after a
minimum of 40 days post-grafting and continues until the pearl
harvest. We measured a mean angular speed of 1.27◦ min−1
calculated for four different oysters. Rotation variability was
observed among oysters and may be correlated to pearl shape
and defects. Nature’s ability to generate so amazingly complex
structures like a pearl has delivered one of its secrets. Source: Google Scholar @topic:5


Title: Learning to read in mother tongue or foreign language: Comparing Papiamento-Dutch reading skills in the post-colonial Dutch Caribbean Abstract: We studied the Papiamento (L1) and Dutch (L2) reading of 293 fourth grade students in the postcolonial Dutch Caribbean, where L1 just latterly has been introduced into the school curriculum. We examined the effect of language of alphabetization (L1 first vs L2 first) and other L1 and L2 cognitive-linguistic predictors on reading skills. The results show that children's mother tongue, Papiamento, occupies a strong position in both the cognitive-linguistic precursors to learning to read and in the reading comprehension outcomes. In general, higher Papiamento predictor scores and Papiamento reading comprehension were found. However, children's word decoding was generally higher in Dutch. Phonological awareness and rapid naming predicted Papiamento word decoding, vocabulary, phonological awareness, and rapid naming and word span predicted Dutch decoding. Word decoding predicted reading comprehension in Papiamento and grammar predicted reading comprehension in Dutch. There was evidence of linguistic interdependencies for decoding and reading comprehension between languages. Source: Google Scholar @topic:6