The survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which struck Burma (also known as Myanmar) in May 2008, continue to face challenges in rebuilding their lives, in lack of access to relief and reconstruction efforts, and in violations of basic rights more than one year after the storm, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Emergency Assistance Team—Burma.
Culture
Local papers are not cultural dinosaurs yet, though they are dwindling in numbers. Some good news: In areas where members of Congress get lots of ink in local newspapers, voters are more informed and representatives do more to serve local interests, according to a study to be published next week in the Journal of Political Economy.
However, the researchers say the findings also suggest that the current trend toward fewer local newspapers could make for less responsive politicians in the future.
Eat seaweed to lose weight? Red wine will make you live longer?
Claims about the health benefits of foods and nutritional supplements have proliferated in recent years, most of them based on studies measuring ingredients' effects on biomarkers as substitutes for actual clinical outcomes.
Drug studies financed by pharmaceutical companies frequently show positive results in favor of the sponsor, says a research group headed by the Chairman of the Drug Commission of the German Medical Association in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2010; 107(16): 279-85).
Prof. Wolf-Dieter Ludwig and colleagues describe the influence of sponsoring on the results, protocol and quality of drugs studies and conclude that pharmaceutical companies exploit a wide variety of possibilities of manipulating study results.
Access to sustainable energy and increased energy efficiency is a prerequisite for achieving the MDGs.
According to the new report from the UN, the lack of access to modern energy is a significant barrier to economic development. Today, more than 1.6 billion people worldwide have no access to electricity and close to one billion people depend on firewood, etc. as their energy supply for cooking and heating. A reliable, affordable energy supply is key to economic growth and the alleviation of poverty in the world.
Los Angeles, CA (May 6, 2010) The majority of students (about 80%) are never sent out of class to the principal's office or it happens only once in a year and why children are referred changes as they age, according to an article in the April 2010 issue of the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions (published by SAGE). Elementary school-aged students primarily are disciplined for fighting with fellow classmates, middle school students for being defiant or disruptive with teachers and staff, and high school students for being late or skipping class.
In a study of residents of Assisted Living Facilities (ALFs) in Los Angeles showed that 65% had clinically significant sleeping problems and that poor sleep was associated with declining quality of life and increased depression over a six month follow-up period. This study is published today in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
PITTSBURGH— Straying from the grocery list can yield some surprises in your shopping cart, but not necessarily in your wallet, according to University of Pittsburgh researchers and a coresearcher from Baylor University who have coauthored a new study. The researchers found that shoppers often expect to buy a certain number of unplanned items, and most have a fairly accurate estimate as to how much they will spend on them. The study's coauthors use the term "in-store slack" to describe the room shoppers leave in their budget for unplanned purchases.
In the wake of 'hide the decline' and words like 'trick' regarding the 'hockey stick graph', ClimateGate and the resulting drop in confidence among the public about climate science researchers, two hundred fifty-five members of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, including 11 Nobel Prize laureates, have joined together to defend the rigor and objectivity of climate science.
Their statement, "Climate Change and the Integrity of Science," will be published in Science tomorrow as the lead Letter, along with a supporting editorial.
An international research team has sequenced the Neandertal genome, using pill-sized samples of bone powder from three Neandertal bones found in a cave in Croatia. The results appear in the 7 May issue of Science.
ST. LOUIS – A residential summer weight-loss camp markedly improved obese children's health, a study in the April edition of Pediatrics reports. A Saint Louis University physician found the camp improved children's weight, body mass index (BMI), physical fitness and blood pressure.
Nationwide, black women are twice as likely to be obese as white women - but that doesn't tell the whole story (unless you have an agenda)unless it includes other factors.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – When it comes to talking to parents about most dating issues, teen girls tend to disclose more than boys, and both sexes generally prefer to talk to their mothers.
However, a new study found that girls and boys are equally close-mouthed about issues involving sex and what they do with their dates while unsupervised. And in this case, teens were no more eager to talk to their mothers than they were their fathers.
The moment is ripe to join thousands of other citizen scientists this spring in observing when the leaves come out and flowers bloom, when insects emerge, and when birds start migrating.
By observing and reporting these plant and animal life cycle events, you can help determine how they are influenced by long-term variations in climate.
For example, through citizen scientist observations, researchers can see that tree swallows now nest on average 9 days earlier than they did in 1959. Frogs in New York are calling 10-13 days earlier than in the beginning of the 1900s.