Culture
It has long been assumed that the content of dreams can tell us something about the person's well-being. However, so far dream researchers have mostly studied the dreams of people suffering from various disorders and we know very little about the positive side of well-being: do happier people have happier dreams? Well-being researchers, on the other hand, have specifically studied happiness, but have neglected an important aspect of well-being - peace of mind.
The market share of a company does not have a strong influence on its financial performance, a new study in marketing at the Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences of the University of Cologne shows. Companies should instead invest in building customer relationships and a strong brand. If the market share increases by 1%, the financial performance of companies only increases by 0.13% on average.
Throughout the alluvial plains of Amazonia, there are immense forests that are flooded for almost half the year. These Amazonian wetlands encompass a wide array of types of vegetation in or near stream gullies, including blackwater (igapó) and whitewater (várzea) inundation forest, swamp (pântano), white sand savanna (campina), and mangrove (mangue) types.
According to a new study, the region's wetlands are inhabited by 3,615 tree species--three times more than previously estimated, making these the world's most diverse wetland forests in terms of tree species richness.
Leishmania is a microorganism that enters the human body via a sandfly bite. Instead of fleeing the white blood cells deployed by the immune system to destroy it, the parasite allows itself to be swallowed up. In doing so, Leishmania has developed the ideal strategy for continuing its life cycle, threatening the health of over 500 million people at risk of crossing its path in Africa, Europe, Asia, and the Americas.
EAST LANSING, Mich. -- A new Michigan State University study has found that a malfunctioning gene associated with a common arthritic disease that often starts in teenagers is now directly linked to the loss of vital immune cells that may prevent it.
Endoplasmic Reticulum Aminopeptidase 1, or ERAP1, is a gene widely known to be associated with the debilitating disease ankylosing spondylitis. Also known as AS, the autoimmune disorder affects millions worldwide, mostly developing in the hips and spines of those as young as 17 years old and lasting throughout life.
DES PLAINES, IL -- Sociodemographic risk adjustment of emergency care-sensitive mortality improves apparent performance of some hospitals treating a large number of nonwhite, Hispanic, or poor patients. That is the finding of a study published in the August 2018 issue of Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM), a journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM).
WASHINGTON (Aug. 23, 2018)--Social media bots and Russian trolls promoted discord and spread false information about vaccines on Twitter, according to new research led by the George Washington University. Using tactics similar to those at work during the 2016 United States presidential election, these Twitter accounts entered into vaccine debates months before election season was underway. The study, "Weaponized Health Communication: Twitter Bots and Russian Trolls Amplify the Vaccine Debate" was published today in the American Journal of Public Health.
DURHAM, N.C. -- Duke University researchers have developed a handheld probe that can image individual photoreceptors in the eyes of infants.
The technology, based on adaptive optics, will make it easier for physicians and scientists to observe these cells to diagnosis eye diseases and make early detection of brain-related diseases and trauma.
August 23, 2018 - Do you wish you could decrease your waistline? Reducing abdominal obesity can lower health risks - but despite claims you may have seen on the Internet, no trending diet can help you specifically eliminate belly fat, according to an article in
Take a look at your favorite mug; it probably looks the same as it always has, but your neurons may not think so. Neurons are firing in response to the visual stimuli they see but they don't fire in exactly the same way every time.
Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine wanted to know the significance of that variability and whether portions of that variability might be due to changes in an individual's focus of attention.
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Parents who positively engage with their children during play time -- and gently steer them to clean up afterward -- may help toddlers with low-self regulation have lower body mass indexes (BMIs) later on as preschoolers.
In a study, researchers found that toddlers who had poor self-regulation skills -- the ability to control their behaviors and emotions -- went on to have lower BMIs as preschoolers if their mothers engaged with them during playtime and then helped direct them during clean up.
Every summer, cownose rays stream into Chesapeake Bay to mate and give birth to their pups. When autumn comes, they disappear--presumably to migrate south, but no one knew for certain where they spent the winter. Now, after a three-year tagging study published Aug. 23 and led by the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC), scientists have solved the mystery. Cownose rays all along the Atlantic winter near Cape Canaveral, Florida, and it is likely they return to the same spots each summer.
Turning up the thermostat may help manage hypertension, finds a new UCL study into the link between indoor temperatures and high blood pressure.
Comparing blood pressure readings of people in their own homes with temperature readings, the researchers found that lower indoor temperatures were associated with higher blood pressure, according to the new study in the Journal of Hypertension.
Bottom Line: Compared with non-drinkers, men who consumed at least seven drinks per week during adolescence (ages 15-19) had three times the odds of being diagnosed with clinically significant prostate cancer.
Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Prevention Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research
Author: Emma Allott, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Philadelphia, August 23, 2018 - Dietary risk factors are among the key contributors to mortality and morbidity in the United States and globally, and there is increasing emphasis on understanding the influence of total diet quality and overall dietary patterns rather than single aspects of what we eat and drink. In order to evaluate the quality of what people eat and drink, researchers often rely on recommendations such as the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA).