Culture
FINDINGS
In a small study of military personnel who had suffered head trauma and had reported memory and mood problems, UCLA researchers found brain changes similar to those seen in retired football players with suspected chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease linked to repeated blows to the head.
BACKGROUND
Anyone lost in a desert hallucinating mirages knows that extreme dehydration discombobulates the mind. But just two hours of vigorous yard work in the summer sun without drinking fluids could be enough to blunt concentration, according to a new study.
July 17, 2018 - Professional baseball players who score higher on a test of hand-eye coordination have better batting performance - particularly in drawing walks and other measures of "plate discipline," reports a study in the July issue of Optometry and Vision Science, the official journal of the America
"To be or not to be?" Hamlet asked aloud as he pondered the meaning of life.
Maybe he was a liberal.
A new USC Dornsife-led psychology study shows that conservatives, more so than liberals, report feeling that their lives are meaningful or have purpose.
"Finding meaning in life is related to the sense or feeling that things are the way they should be, and that there is a sense of order," said David Newman, a doctoral candidate at USC Dornsife's Mind and Society Center. "If life feels chaotic, then that would likely dampen your sense that life is meaningful."
SEATTLE (July 17, 2018) -- A large prospective study has found that sexual and physical abuse in childhood and adolescence is associated with a greater risk of endometriosis diagnosed during adulthood. The study found that women reporting severe-chronic abuse of multiple types had a 79 percent increased risk of laparoscopically-confirmed endometriosis.
Patients with persistent facial pain are costing the economy more than £3,000 each per year, new research has revealed.
Experts at Newcastle University, UK, say introducing an electronic referral system to speed up diagnosis and treatment is likely to improve quality of life and save money.
The team has assessed the hidden costs of people suffering from long-term face and mouth pain that wasn't caused by toothache.
An independent inquiry by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics has concluded that editing the DNA of a human embryo, sperm, or egg to influence the characteristics of a future person ('heritable genome editing') could be morally permissible. If that is to happen, a number of measures would need to be put in place first to ensure that genome editing proceeds in ways that are ethically acceptable.
Children with autism have structural and functional abnormalities in the brain circuit that normally makes social interaction feel rewarding, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine.
The study, which will be published July 17 in Brain, documented deficits in children with autism in a crucial reward circuit, called the mesolimbic reward pathway, that's buried deep within the brain. The degree of abnormality in this pathway predicted the degree of social difficulty in individual children with autism, the study found.
New research on how cannabis use alters eating behavior could lead to treatments for appetite loss in chronic illness, according to experts at Washington State University. Using a new procedure to dose lab rats with cannabis vapor, the researchers found how the drug triggers hunger hormones. They also identified specific brain regions that shift to 'hungry' mode while under the influence, according to a report they shared this week at the Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior, an international meeting of scientific experts on eating.
Hormones that signal the body's state of hunger and fullness could be the key to new treatments for drug and alcohol addiction. That is the consensus of an expert panel convened this week at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study Ingestive Behavior, the leading international research conference on food and fluid intake. Gut hormones have received considerable attention from scientists seeking to understand overeating and obesity, which led the panelists to discover that those hormones are also involved in addiction.
A simple instruction to change your thinking as mealtime approaches can help cut calories, according to new research from the University of Tübingen, Germany. By encouraging study participants to concentrate on different types of information when planning their meal, the experimenters saw portion sizes shift. Adopting a health-focused mindset produced better outcomes than focusing on pleasure or the desire to fill up.
New federal restrictions on the temporary H-1B visa, which allows high-skilled foreign workers to be employed by U.S. companies, have increased debate on the economic impacts of the program, but little is known about its effect on product innovation--until now. New research from the University of California San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy shows that hiring high-skilled workers from abroad may have a meaningful impact on the birth of new products and phasing out of older ones, with implications on both firm profIts and consumer welfare.
At an archaeological site in northeastern Jordan, researchers have discovered the charred remains of a flatbread baked by hunter-gatherers 14,400 years ago. It is the oldest direct evidence of bread found to date, predating the advent of agriculture by at least 4,000 years. The findings suggest that bread production based on wild cereals may have encouraged hunter-gatherers to cultivate cereals, and thus contributed to the agricultural revolution in the Neolithic period.
A study into some of the earliest known pottery remains has suggested that the rise of ceramic production was closely linked with intensified fishing at the end of the last Ice Age.
Scientists examined 800 pottery vessels in one of the largest studies ever undertaken, focussing mainly on Japan- a country recognised as being one of the earliest centres for ceramic innovation.
Imagine piloting a drone using the movements of your torso only and leaving your head free to look around, much like a bird. EPFL research has just shown that using your torso to pilot flying machines is indeed more immersive - and more effective - than using the long-established joystick. The results are published in today's issue of PNAS.