Culture

According to researchers at Brandeis University, the University of North Florida and Johns Hopkins University, policymakers must look beyond painkiller abuse, also called non-medical use, in their efforts to reduce opioid overdose deaths. In a comprehensive investigation, the scientists show that since 2002, new cases of non-medical abuse have declined, yet painkiller overdose deaths have soared; evidence, they say, that recreational use of painkillers is not a key driver of the opioid crisis.

College women who have been sexually victimized not only fear their attackers -- or those similar to them -- but often have trouble trusting anyone after being assaulted. But religion can help them cope and overcome the emotional damage, according to Baylor University research.

The study -- "Religious Coping: The Role of Religion in Attenuating the Effect of Sexual Victimization of College Women on Trust" -- is published in the journal Review of Religious Research.

Men on lower incomes are more likely to help their partners with housework than higher-earners, although women are still by far doing the most around the home, no matter how many hours they work or how much they are paid.

While the burden of keeping the home clean is starting to be shared more equally between couples, signs of a class divide are beginning to emerge, a researcher from the University of Warwick has found.

More than 180 million people in the world have hepatitis C, compared with the 34 million with HIV/AIDS and 30,000 who have had Ebola. Yet very little is heard about the hepatitis C virus (HCV) in the way of awareness campaigns, research funding or celebrity fundraisers. In the United States, HIV gets an alarming amount of funding compared to hep c, far more per person than heart disease and other illnesses.

Archaeologists from the University of York and Queens College, City University New York (CUNY) have discovered the first use of pottery in north-eastern North America was largely due to the cooking, storage and social feasting of fish by hunter-gatherers.

Studying how pottery production in north-eastern North America developed 3000 years ago, researchers found that the increasing use of pottery was not simply an adaptive response to increased reliance on specific kinds of wild foodstuffs, as previously thought.

Browsing Facebook has become a daily activity for hundreds of millions of people. Because so many people engage with the website daily, researchers are interested in how emotionally involved Facebook users can be with the social networking site and how regular use can affect their mental health. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri have found that Facebook use can lead to symptoms of depression if the social networking site triggers feelings of envy among its users.

Kidney function can affect the potency and metabolism of drugs that are eliminated by the kidneys or other pathways, but little information is available on how to interpret the effects of kidney function on the benefits and risks of drugs in development.

A new review highlights important considerations when designing clinical studies in individuals with kidney disease, and it highlights techniques such as mathematical modeling tools that will help provide optimal dosing recommendations in these patients.

Suicides in Greece reached a 30 year all-time high in 2012, with a sustained upward trend starting in June 2011, the month that the government introduced further austerity measures to help pay down the country's debts, reveals a 30 year study, published in the online journal BMJ Open.

Jogging may be best in small quantities according to a study published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Researchers looked at 5,048 healthy participants in the Copenhagen City Heart Study and questioned them about their activity. They identified and tracked 1,098 healthy joggers and 413 healthy but sedentary non-joggers for 12 years.

New research shows a pattern of underreporting of on-campus sexual assaults by universities and colleges across the nation, and some schools have continued to underreport even after being fined for violations of federal law, according to a study published by the American Psychological Association.

15 years ago, the name "Aidan" was hardly on the radar of Americans with new babies. It ranked a lowly 324th on the Social Security Administration's list of popular baby names. But less than a decade later, the name became a favorite, soaring into the top 20 for five years and counting.

Bowhunting during the Neolithic period may have been one of the pillars of unity as a group of primitive human societies. This is one of the main conclusions reached by a team of Spanish archaeologists with the participation of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), which has analyzed the Neolithic bows found in the site of La Draga (Girona, Spain). The study has been published in the 'Journal of Archaeological Science'.

New research could lead to a better understanding of how the brain works in people with autism. Little is known about the cognitive processes involved.

Researchers from Monash University and Deakin University looked at new hypotheses of autism that focused on the way in which the brain combines new information from its senses with prior knowledge about the environment. Using the 'rubber-hand' illusion, the researchers examined how adults with autism experienced 'ownership' of a fake prosthetic hand.

In a study to be presented Thursday in an oral plenary session, at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine's annual meeting, The Pregnancy Meeting, in San Diego, researchers will report that changes to the labor and delivery care system can reduce cesarean delivery rates.

A new study suggests that confidence in government may play a key role in the public's willingness to get at least some vaccines.

The study re-analyzed national survey data from 2009 that examined Americans' views on a then-new vaccine for the H1N1 virus - commonly known as swine flu.