PITTSBURGH—Once defined by heavy-industry and blue-collar masses, Pittsburgh now hosts the fifth most educated young workforce in the United States, a distinction that groups the city with such bastions of erudition as Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., according to a recent report in the Pittsburgh Economic Quarterly published by the University of Pittsburgh's University Center for Social and Urban Research (UCSUR).
Culture
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — An approach to teaching young children the principles of writing and literacy that prohibits them from borrowing from our common cultural landscape is a problematic one, according to a University of Illinois professor who studies childhood learning and literacy development.
Ann Arbor, Mich. – Black men with chronic pain related to an accident, injury, illness, surgery or other causes were more likely to experience depression, affective distress and disability than white men with chronic pain, according to a new study by the University of Michigan Health System.
The persistent pain black men experienced was more severe which might lead to greater disability, but the study by U-M researchers give clues to other factors that drive the downward spiral to depression and disability.
Washington, D.C. -- Disease statistics buried within patient records or detailed in newspaper clippings can be sorted and organized to depict geographic patterns, allowing the discovery of trends that were previously overlooked, according to a Penn State geographer.
"The use of interactive maps and graphs, combined with word search interfaces, can lead to greater insight into complex events like the spread of Swine flu," said Frank Hardisty, research associate, Penn State GeoVISTA Center.
It's popular to assume retiring baby boomers will benefit from Social Security and Medicare at the expense of younger generations, as analysts estimate that these government-run programs will pay out more than they collect in payroll taxes by 2017.
But a far-reaching new study from the University of California, Berkeley, concludes that younger Americans – specifically those born between 1972 and 2060 – are actually getting the better deal when the value of public education is factored in as an intergenerational entitlement program on a par with Social Security and Medicare.
Tapio Videman says back disorders in the working population are among the most costly illnesses in developed countries around the world. Disc degeneration is the main suspected origin of severe back symptoms and the main target in spine surgery. But Videman, a researcher in the University of Alberta's Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, wants to dispute the common perception that disc degeneration is caused by physical loading, the pressure put on the spine that comes with, for example, frequent lifting.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Math teachers in the United States need better training if the nation's K-12 students are going to compete globally, according to international research released today by a Michigan State University scholar.
William Schmidt, University Distinguished Professor of education, found that prospective U.S. elementary and middle-school math teachers are not as prepared as those from other countries. And this, combined with a weak U.S. math curriculum, produces similarly weak student achievement, he said.
Kansas State University researchers are discovering the challenges aging creates for drivers.
To help improve traffic safety, K-State engineers identified the characteristics of older drivers in Kansas and the types of crashes they are involved in. Their research found most car accidents involving older drivers occur during the daytime and are more severe, often ending in injury or fatality, than those for younger populations.
ATHENS, Ohio (April 15, 2010) – A new study suggests that early Native Americans left a bigger carbon footprint than previously thought, providing more evidence that humans impacted global climate long before the modern industrial era.
Chemical analysis of a stalagmite found in the mountainous Buckeye Creek basin of West Virginia suggests that native people contributed a significant level of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere through land use practices, such as burning trees to actively manage the forests and yield the nuts and fruit that were a large part of their diets.
The election campaign may be under way but new research from The University of Nottingham shows that the parties are in danger of immediately writing off at least four million young working class female voters.
The lead author of the report: 'Lambrini Lady — the forgotten political generation' — is Professor Steven Fielding, Director of the University of Nottingham's Centre for British Politics.
Eradicating smallpox was one of the greatest human accomplishments of the 20th century, but new research shows initiatives of this kind are not as good a use of health dollars as people might think. McGill University Biologist Dr. Jonathan Davies explains that reducing the prevalence of diseases in areas most affected by them is a far more effective and efficient strategy than trying to eradicate them altogether, which is extremely difficult and costs billions of dollars.
U.S. church attendance rates have held relatively steady over the past three and a half decades, a new study shows. But the makeup of the nation's congregations has undergone significant changes during that same stretch.
University of Nebraska-Lincoln sociologist Philip Schwadel applied a new multi-level estimation method to uncover several original findings about how often Americans – and certain groups of Americans – worship.
Dr James White from Cardiff University's School of Medicine undertook a three-year-study, involving some 3,500 11 to 15 year-olds, as part of the British Youth Panel Survey – a self report survey of children in the British Household Panel survey.
Results indicated that one of the strongest protective factors for reducing the risk of experimenting with smoking in early adolescence was how often fathers talked with their children, both boys and girls, about 'things that mattered'.
Far more people in India have access to a cell phone than to a toilet and improved sanitation, according to UN experts who published today a 9-point prescription for achieving the world's Millennium Development Goal (MDG) for sanitation by 2015.
They also urge the world community to set a new target beyond the MDG (which calls for a 50 percent improvement in access to adequate sanitation by 2015) to the achievement of 100 percent coverage by 2025.
Restrictions should be placed on the use of Ginkgo biloba (G. biloba) — a top-selling herbal remedy — because of growing scientific evidence that Ginkgo may increase the risk of seizures in people with epilepsy and could reduce the effectiveness of anti-seizure drugs, a new report concludes. The article appears in ACS' monthly Journal of Natural Products. It also suggests that Ginkgo may have harmful effects in other people after eating raw or roasted Ginkgo seed or drinking tea prepared from Ginkgo leaves.