Culture

Dr John Fry told the British Sociological Association's annual conference in Glasgow today [Friday 17 April] that he interviewed 20 professionals, including Ryder Cup players and a former world number one, to reveal the "particular stresses" behind the glamour of the game.

The tobacco industry kills about 5 million smokers a year, plus another 600,000 non-smokers. With the health risks involved, it’s perhaps unsurprising that e-cigarettes that release nicotine in vapor form are increasingly being promoted as an alternative.

The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001 have left a legacy of chronic ill health among emergency medical services workers who came to the rescue of the victims, reveals research published online in Occupational & Environmental Medicine.

Those who arrived in the immediate aftermath of the attacks are most at risk of physical and mental ailments, the findings show.

Facebook users with so-called optimistic bias think they're less likely than other users to experience cyberbullying, depression and other negative social and psychological effects from using the site, a Dartmouth-Cornell study finds.

The study suggests that optimistic bias, or an intrinsic tendency to imagine future events in a favorable light that enhances positive self-regard - in other words, wishful thinking - leaves those Facebook users vulnerable to the negative realities of social media.

"We contend that the health awareness day has not been held to an appropriate level of scrutiny given the scale at which it has been embraced," write Jonathan Purtle, DrPH and Leah Roman, MPH in a peer-reviewed commentary published online ahead of print today in the American Journal of Public Health.

The rapid increase in use of e-cigarettes has led to heated debates between opponents who question the safety of these devices and proponents who claim the battery-operated products are a useful cessation tool. A study, published online on April 16 in the American Journal of Public Health, suggests proponents are in error.

With human rights violations by government police forces on the increase, it might seem like a bad time for cops to decide who gets a gun to defend themselves but Massachusetts police chiefs say it should be not be an equal right for all people legally allowed, it should remain up to the police.

Literacy has been getting declining support in recent years. The Obama administration only wants to spend $187 million for its Effective Teaching and Learning: Literacy initiative while the Bush administration devoted $1 billion annually to the Reading First program. That means it is necessary to find out which programs work best. A new study uses a scientific lens to look at the conversational art of instruction, a team of researchers identify specific ways teachers talk to students that measurably impact literacy skills.

A global study on canine rabies has found that 160 people die every single day from the disease. The report is the first study to consider the impact in terms of deaths and the economic costs of rabies across all countries. Even though the disease is preventable, the study says that around 59,000 people die every year of rabies transmitted by dogs.

With poor sanitation estimated to cause 280,000 deaths per year worldwide, improving sanitation is a key policy goal in many developing countries. Yet governments and major development institutions disagree over how to address the problem. A new study released in Science today found that in Bangladesh, a community-motivation model that has been used in over 60 countries to increase use of hygienic latrines had no effect, yet latrine coverage expands substantially when that model is combined with subsidies for hygienic latrines targeted to the poor.

A national survey suggests that slightly more than half of the older adults in the United States are now taking a daily dose of aspirin, even though its use is not recommended by the Food and Drug Administration for most people who have not yet had a heart attack or stroke.

The analysis was published today in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. It observed that aspirin use is continuing to surge, especially among adults who are using it for "primary prevention," meaning in order to prevent an initial cardiovascular event, and in some cases to prevent cancer.

If you are looking to raise money online for your favorite cause, listen up. A real-world analysis of human behavior reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 16 shows that men treat online giving as a competitive enterprise. Men will donate four times more money to an attractive female fundraiser in response to the contribution of another male.

Researchers say that they suspect this tendency is a subconscious part of human psychology that exists because it is (or was) evolutionarily beneficial to us.

Over 2001-2011, the national incidence of firearm-related hospitalizations has closely tracked the national stock market performance, suggesting that economic perturbations and resultant insecurities might underlie the perpetuation of firearm-related injuries, according to a new study published in The American Journal of Medicine. Although the fatality rates have remained stable over the last two decades, the average length of stay and hospitalization costs have increased, imposing additional burden on existing healthcare resources.

Faced with requests to meet with potential doctoral students of easily identifiable gender, race or ethnicity, faculty in almost every academic discipline are significantly more responsive to white males than to women and minorities, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.

And faculty in higher-paid disciplines, such as business, engineering/computer science and the life sciences, and those at private universities, show more of this bias than their counterparts in lower-paying disciplines and public universities, the study found.

There is concern about e-cigarettes that they may cause addiction rather than cure it - California advocates are spending millions claiming Big Tobacco is marketing them to children - but like nicotine patches and chewing gum, teens may try them but unless they already smoke, they don't embrace them.