Culture
Sustainable materials, ecofriendly, and produced under good work conditions - convincing arguments for most of us. But how do consumers weigh compliance or non-compliance with such ethical standards in reality? Not as much as they think: Researchers of Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) used an example from textile industry to demonstrate that customers unconsciously use a single ethical aspect as an excuse for a less moral behavior regarding other aspects of the same product and compared to other people.
The interest expressed by the general public in social aspects is constantly growing and there are more and more companies and organisations that want to know what social contribution they make. The tool used to analyse this aspect is social accounting, "an information system that incorporates the social value that is generated in society", explained Leire San Jose, leader of the ECRI research group.
A new study conducted at IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca shows that the subjective feeling of well-being experienced by many people with the practice of meditation is correlated with specific changes in the brain.
The research, which appeared in Brain and Cognition, examined the effects of the technique known as Transcendental Meditation (TM), which consists in the silent repetition of a meaningless sound, a "mantra".
Studying the African turquoise killifish, which enters into a suspended state called "diapause" during dry and unfavorable growing seasons, researchers uncovered mechanisms that allow the arrested fish to be maintained for long periods while being protected from the normal consequences of aging. Their results are potentially relevant to understanding human aging and aging-associated disease. To survive extreme environments, many species throughout the animal kingdom have evolved the ability to enter one of several unique types of suspended life.
Demonstrating an unprecedented degree of cognitive complexity in an insect, researchers report that bumblebees are capable of recognizing objects across senses. While cross-modal object recognition was previously thought to be a highly complex cognitive capacity capable by few animals outside humans, the results suggest that the bumblebee - with a brain with fewer than one million neurons - can create mental images of objects using information from multiple senses and form sophisticated mental representations of their surrounding world.
How are we able to find things in the dark? And how can we imagine how something feels just by looking at it?
It is because our brain is able to store information in such a way that it can be retrieved by different senses. This multi-sensory integration allows us to form mental images of the world and underpins our conscious awareness.
It turns out that the ability to recognise objects across different senses is present in the tiny brains of an insect.
For three years, anthropologist Alan Rogers has attempted to solve an evolutionary puzzle. His research untangles millions of years of human evolution by analyzing DNA strands from ancient human species known as hominins. Like many evolutionary geneticists, Rogers compares hominin genomes looking for genetic patterns such as mutations and shared genes. He develops statistical methods that infer the history of ancient human populations.
Researchers at McMaster University have peered into the most intimate moments of sexually active women and men across Canada to ask if they're using condoms, all in an effort to gather data that could inform decisions around public health and sex education.
What's emerged is a blended picture of trends in the use of condoms to prevent sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy.
The lack of oxygen in the period antipating child birth - a condition that may affect children of pregnant women subjected to a high blood pressure disorder called pre-eclampsia - has been pointed as was one of the causes of schizophrenia.
February 20, 2020 - A pilot program introducing bundled payments for hip and knee replacement (HKR) in Medicare patients hasn't led hospitals to "cherry-pick" healthier patients at lower risk of complications, reports a study in the February 19, 2020 issue of The Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery.
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 20, 2020 -- Treating stroke patients in specialized ambulances speeds treatment and reduces patients' disability, according to late breaking science presented today at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2020. The conference, Feb. 19-21 in Los Angeles, is a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science of stroke and brain health.
LOS ANGELES, Feb. 20, 2020 -- New research confirms that the lower 0.25mg/kg dose of the clot-busting agent tenecteplase is appropriate for eligible stroke patients and can reduce the need for mechanical clot removal, according to late breaking science presented today at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2020. The conference, Feb. 19-21 in Los Angeles, is a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science of stroke and brain health.
After 50 years of research and the testing of over 1,000 drugs, there is new hope for preserving brain cells for a time after stroke. Treating acute ischemic stroke patients with an experimental neuroprotective drug, combined with a surgical procedure to remove the clot improves outcomes as shown by clinical trial results published today in The Lancet.
MIAMI--In several new studies, University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science researcher Katharine Mach and colleagues explore the importance of learning and knowledge in environmental decision-making and the different ways in which scientific knowledge can become more relevant and useful for societies.
EAST LANSING, Mich. - A Michigan State University researcher is adding new evidence to the argument that the fat around our arteries may play an important role in keeping those blood vessels healthy.
The finding could affect how researchers test for treatments related to plaque buildup in our arteries, or atherosclerosis, an issue that can often lead to a heart attack, which is currently a leading cause of death in the United States.