Culture
Participating in the Eurovision Song Contest may be linked to an increase in a nation's life satisfaction, according to new research.
The study, by scientists at Imperial College London, found that people were four per cent more likely to be satisfied with their life for every increase of ten places on the final score board - e.g. their country finishing 2nd rather than 12th.
The research, published in the journal BMC Public Health, also found doing badly in the contest was associated with a greater increase in life satisfaction compared to not taking part at all.
Recent studies in the journal Molecular & Cellular Proteomics have shed light on pathogenic mechanisms of the sexually-transmitted parasite Trichomonas vaginalis and the HIV-associated opportunistic lung fungus Aspergillus.
Fatty acid addition lets a parasite stick
New York, NY--May 10, 2018--Computer scientists at Columbia Engineering have invented FontCode, a new way to embed hidden information in ordinary text by imperceptibly changing, or perturbing, the shapes of fonts in text. FontCode creates font perturbations, using them to encode a message that can later be decoded to recover the message. The method works with most fonts and, unlike other text and document methods that hide embedded information, works with most document types, even maintaining the hidden information when the document is printed on paper or converted to another file type.
While a wide majority of oncologists do not feel informed enough about medical marijuana's utility to make clinical recommendations, most do in fact conduct discussions on medical marijuana in the clinic and nearly half recommend it to their patients, say researchers who surveyed a population-based sample of medical oncologists.
Washington DC - A new study from the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP), with collaborators from Johns Hopkins University and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, found that infections caused by one of the most common drug resistant bacteria in the US--methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, known as MRSA--are no more expensive to treat than MSSA, the methicillin-susceptible version of the same bacteria.
[Background]
A molecule adsorbed on a surface (Figure 1A) vibrates on the surface (Figure 1B). The vibration energy is determined by the mass of the molecule and by the restoring forces exerted on the molecule. The restoring force originates from the interaction within the molecule and with the surface. By measuring the vibration energy, therefore, we are able to learn details of the interaction of a molecule and a surface. This knowledge is useful in understanding important processes in applied sciences like catalytic reactions*1) that take place on a surface.
Jackdaws recognise each other's voices and respond in greater numbers to warnings from familiar birds than strangers, new research shows.
The birds produce a harsh "scolding call" when they spot a predator, calling fellow jackdaws to mob the intruder and drive it away.
University of Exeter researchers have discovered that each bird has a unique call, and the size of the mob depends on which bird calls the warning.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- While men have benefited from a gender bias against women when seeking financing for business start-ups, the opposite may be true for female entrepreneurs seeking initial investment through crowdfunding efforts, according to research from Indiana University's Kelley School of Business.
In vitro fertilized (IVF) embryo transfer has become an important innovation in the agricultural sectors, such as in cattle production. Approximately half of all bovine embryos produced worldwide were derived from IVF. However, the pregnancy success rate of IVF embryos transplanted into recipients remains low. To increase the success of pregnancy, key technological issues affecting the in vitro production of embryos and the assessment of viable embryos must be addressed. This is also true for human artificial reproductive technology (ART).
An international team of scientists led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Kiel has successfully reconstructed genomes from Stone Age and Medieval European strains of the hepatitis B virus. This unprecedented recovery of ancient virus DNA indicates that hepatitis B was circulating in Europe at least 7000 years ago. While the ancient virus is similar to its modern counterparts, the strains represent a distinct lineage that has likely gone extinct and is most closely related to chimpanzee and gorilla viruses.
Women who experience vaginal bleeding for more than one day during the first trimester of pregnancy may be more likely to have a smaller baby, compared to women who do not experience bleeding in the first trimester, suggest researchers at the National Institutes of Health. On average, full-term babies born to women with more than one day of bleeding in the first trimester were about 3 ounces lighter than those born to women with no bleeding during this time.
Many national recommendations on whether to screen newborn babies for rare conditions do not assess the evidence on the key benefits and harms of screening, warn researchers in a study published by The BMJ today.
Effective screening programmes can save lives, whereas ineffective programmes can do more harm than good, yet decisions about which conditions to screen for vary widely between countries, despite similar populations and healthcare systems.
The British Medical Association recently proposed guidance to cap the number of patients a GP sees each day to prevent unsafe working levels, but should this be recommended? Experts debate the issue in The BMJ today.
Limits to workload could protect GPs and patients in a system that has become dangerous, says Laurence Buckman, a GP partner in London.
10 minute consultations are too short for the amount of work patients' needs require and the pressure to perform better and longer for more patients is now dangerous for both doctors and patients, he explains.
Researchers have identified six genes that predispose carriers to develop the brain tumor medulloblastoma and have used the discovery to craft genetic counseling and screening guidelines. The study appears today in the journal The Lancet Oncology.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Hopp Children's Cancer Center at the NCT Heidelberg (KiTZ), Germany, and The Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto, led the research.
A new result from the Q-weak experiment at the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility provides a precision test of the weak force, one of four fundamental forces in nature. This result, published recently in Nature, also constrains possibilities for new particles and forces beyond our present knowledge.