Culture | Page 1673 | Science Codex

Psychosomatic medicine: Why 'positive outlook' treatments are taking off in Germany

Europe has a rabid distrust of science and medicine and a corresponding higher level of belief in in naturopathy, homeopathy and various other alternative techniques.

Given that, it is little surprise that psychosomatic medicine has taken off in Europe. and especially in Germany. Psychosomatic issues - "it's all in your head" - have a long history but it was popularized by German psychiatrist Dr. Sigmund Freud in the early part of the 20th century. Today, psychiatrists officially disavow treatment for people who might be making it up but others have pursued mind-body relations.

How The Ten Commandments Survived The Centuries

During the first centuries after having been written down, the Bible’s Ten Commandments were not nearly as set in stone (pardon the pun) as has been assumed, according to new claims.

Will CEOs Give Clinton the US Presidential Election?

Big Business may have failed to stop Trump from getting the nomination, but CEOs could still be insuring that Clinton wins, according to a new analysis.

Females lead in molecular biology PhDs, but not in genomics faculty

Females outnumber men in biology at the undergraduate and Ph.D. levels and have this entire century. Where do they still lag? Faculty positions.

The issue is clearly not sexism, academia prides itself on being more liberal and inclusive than private sector science, it is the tenure system. Tenured scientists are living longer, continuing to do fine work, and therefore not making way for younger female scientists who have an advantage in hiring now.

Putting a price on healthcare innovation in cancer

Most media attention is awarded to cancer’s success stories – new treatment breakthroughs are celebrated as researchers (and journalists) search for an exciting new “cure” for cancer.

But what happens after these innovations hit the news? And who is going to buy them?

The newest drugs are frequently the most costly, and healthcare systems are already struggling. Where is the money going? And is there evidence that the money spent on innovation actually benefits cancer patients?

Proximity Helps: 90 Percent of Consumers Make Everyday Purchases Close To Home

Proximity is an important influence in consumer decisions on everyday purchases, according to a new survey.

In the survey, 93.2 percent of respondents said they typically travel less than 20 minutes to buy groceries, clothing, gas, and other routine transactions, while 87 percent said they won’t travel beyond 15 minutes for such purchases. For purchases that consumers make at least once per week, the distance they’re willing to travel shrinks even further to ten minutes.

In surveys, obesity is as dangerous to the public as cancer

The war on fat is back, thanks to an aggressive campaign by food pundits related to sugar, GMOs and corporations.

For a while, it looked like all thin people were going to be placed into mandatory body image counseling, the Kardashians had made plump the new natural, but doctors have overruled activists like Michael Pollan and Marion Nestle and their beliefs about nutrition and affirmed that it's calories that matter, not the scary story of the week.

It's in your Tylenol, but does paracetamol even work?

Paracetamol has been around for over 50 years. It’s safe and many guidelines recommend it as the go-to treatment. At least, that’s the conventional view of the drug. It’s a view so ingrained that it’s rarely questioned. The trouble is that the conventional view is probably wrong.

Why Big Business couldn’t stop Trump

If corporate money controls our politics, as Bernie Sanders and others have claimed, then how did the Republican Party – the reputed party of business – manage to nominate a candidate whom almost no one in Big Business supports? And why have so many been so silent about it?

Drug deaths: Western drug policies are failing

England has a failing national drug policy, shown in a steep rise in drug related deaths since 2012, warn public health experts in The BMJ this week. Oddly, they claim fiscal responsibility and say giving addicts more free housing would solve the problem, which will baffle economists.

Americans Don't Know How Much Food They Waste

By some estimates, about 2 billion tons of food, about 50 percent of all the food produced on the planet, is wasted before it ever reaches a human stomach.

That's bad, but science, like apples and potatoes that look more appealing for a longer time, can fix some of that, while better pesticides and scientific optimization can improve yields at the agriculture stage, if environmentalists would stop terrorizing people about food.

Using traffic light colors may increase sensitivity to health

Chocolate or apple? Most people are in two minds when buying food: one motivation is to purchase whatever tastes best – so something that is generally sweet or fatty. At the same time, we know attention should be paid on health factors and, for instance, making sure we don’t consume too many calories. A new survey finds that if the packaging information also features food traffic light colors, fewer products are chosen purely based on taste and more based on health aspects compared with nutritional information purely in percentages and grams.

Soda Company Sponsorship of Health Groups Analyzed

The US has one of the highest rates of obesity in the world, with soda consumption identified as one of the factors. On average, Americans consumed 46 gallons of soda in 2009, giving the US one of the highest rates of per capita soda consumption of any country. A recent report estimated that soda consumption caused one-fifth of weight gain in the US between 1977 and 2007.

PSA - prostate screening unaffected by changes in guidelines

Controversy over prostate cancer screening guidelines that discourage use of PSA tests did not significantly reduce use of the test, a five-year review of more than 275,000 visits at UT Southwestern Medical Center showed.

New psychotherapy for substance abuse

German scholars headed by professor Brakemeier have introduced a new form of psychotherapeutic treatment for substance abuse with depression: The Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy.