The vast majority of the world’s glaciers are retreating as the planet gets warmer. But a few, including ones south of the equator, in South America and New Zealand, are inching forward.
A new study in the journal Science puts this enigma in perspective; for the last 7,000 years New Zealand’s largest glaciers have often moved out of step with glaciers in the northern hemisphere, pointing to strong regional variations in climate.
The mysterious disappearance of Everett Ruess, a 20-year-old artist, writer and footloose explorer who wandered the Southwest in the early 1930s on a burro and who has become a folk hero to many, has been solved with the help of University of Colorado at Boulder researchers and the National Geographic Society.
In 1918 a human influenza virus known as the Spanish flu spread through the central United States while a swine respiratory disease occurred concurrently. A Kansas State University researcher has found that the virus causing the pandemic was able to infect and replicate in pigs, but did not kill them, unlike in other mammalian hosts like monkeys, mice and ferrets where the infection has been lethal.
Evanston, Ill. (April 30, 2009) – As President Barack Obama commemorates his 100th day as the country's first black commander-in-chief, a new study by Kellogg School of Management researchers examines the intersection of race and power in corporate America. While many traits of successful leaders transcend racial or ethnic bounds, this study sought to focus on one particular facet of blacks' ascensions to power: the physical characteristics of so-called "babyfaces," and their influence on perception and achievement.
April 30, 2009 (Portland, Ore.) A brief intervention program – consisting of one counseling session and two follow-up phone calls – boosted by tenfold the number of women correctly performing breast self- exams. These are the findings of a Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research study in the American Journal of Health Promotion.
Electrofluidic Display Technology developed at the University of Cincinnati puts electronic book readers ahead by a wide margin.
For the first time "e-paper" will achieve the brilliance of printed media, as described in the May issue of Nature Photonics.
WASHINGTON -- The current policy and legal framework regulating use of cyberattack by the United States is ill-formed, undeveloped, and highly uncertain, says a new report from the National Research Council. The United States should establish clear national policy on the use of cyberattack, while also continuing to develop its technological capabilities in this area. The U.S. policy should be informed by open national debate on the technological, policy, legal, and ethical issues of cyberwarfare, said the committee that wrote the report.
Dallas, TX—April 29, 2009— A recent study in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management shows that as a result of a variety of interior enforcement initiatives implemented in 2002-2005, such as the ramping up of the Social Security no-match program, employers' demand for undocumented workers fell. This led toan erosion of the wages and employment opportunities of recent low-education male immigrants from Latin America with potentially negative implications for U.S. taxpayers.
ST. LOUIS – In a case study of a type of melanoma skin cancer typically found on chronically sun-exposed skin, Saint Louis University researchers found that imiquimod, a topical cream, produced good results for patients when used together with surgery to treat the cancer, potentially helping doctors cut less.
Any educational reform, no matter how effective it may seem today, will have to change in order to last, according to University of Chicago education researcher Jeanne Century.
The oxymoron stems from the reality of complex social processes. But this complexity is paralyzing educational reform efforts, said Century, director of science education at the University of Chicago's Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education.
A comprehensive assessment of the risk factors for preventable deaths in the United States has found that smoking and high blood pressure are responsible for the greatest number of preventable deaths – each accounting for around 1 in 5 deaths in US adults. The study, published in the open-access journal PLoS Medicine this week, finds that other dietary, lifestyle and metabolic risk factors also cause a substantial number of deaths in the United States.
Boston, MA – Smoking, high blood pressure and being overweight are the leading preventable risk factors for premature mortality in the United States, according to a new study led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), with collaborators from the University of Toronto and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. The researchers found that smoking is responsible for 467,000 premature deaths each year, high blood pressure for 395,000, and being overweight for 216,000.
People with higher measures of cognitive ability are more likely to make good choices in several different types of economic decisions, according to a new study with researchers from the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities and Morris campuses.
New research published today (Monday April 27) from the University of Leicester and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust warns of a six-month time lag before effective vaccines can be manufactured in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak.
By that time, the first wave of pandemic flu may be over before people are vaccinated, says Dr Iain Stephenson, Consultant in Infectious Diseases at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and a Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Leicester.
A new multicenter study involving UCLA and the RAND Corp. has found that perceived racial or ethnic discrimination is not an uncommon experience among fifth-grade students and that it may have a negative effect on their mental health.