Influenza has a long history of being one of the most deadly diseases to afflict humanity, but what exactly makes it so dangerous?
Certainly one reason is that influenza viruses have a history of jumping from other animals to humans, which, when the trans-species virus is new to the human population, generally means that human immune systems have no natural resistance. Another reason is that influenza viruses, with their rapidly mutating single-strand RNA genomes, are highly variable over time.
Human papillomavirus is a virus that is responsible for almost all cases of cervical cancer but a new study by University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers indicates that only about half of the girls receive the vaccine at the recommended age to best protect themselves.
Every January, hundreds of wealthy elites gather for an annual meeting in the exclusive Swiss ski resort of Davos to "improve the state of the world." Yet, the World Economic Forum's influence on society and consumption is surprisingly little understood. A new paper tries to sort out what they really do.
To find out, the authors undertook the first ethnographic analysis of the World Economic Forum. For eight years, they conducted in-depth interviews with Davos delegates about their activities, their beliefs, and their self-understanding.
Racial disparities in tip size can't be explained by discriminatory service. Shutterstock
In response to deeply unpopular drone strikes, a public rally in Karachi demands the blocking of NATO supplies from Pakistan to neighbouring Afghanistan. The banner reads, in Urdu 'Rulers! Come out of the US war'. EPA/Rehan Khan
A little bit of sensitivity training can help people form better first impressions of those with facial paralysis, reducing prejudices against people with a visible but often unrecognizable disability, new research from Oregon State University indicates.
There is a natural tendency to base first impressions on a person's face, but those impressions can be inaccurate and often negative when the person has facial paralysis, said Kathleen Bogart, an assistant professor of psychology in the College of Liberal Arts at Oregon State University.
Shakespeare's religious beliefs are the subject of an ongoing scholarly debate. In 1616, the year Shakespeare died, the Jesuit press at the College of St. Omer—then in the Spanish Flanders but now in France—published an edition of poems by the Jesuit martyr Robert Southwell in which the preface, ‘The Author to his loving Cousin,’ was altered to read, ‘To my worthy good cousin Maister W.S.’ from ‘Your loving cousin, R.S.’ Scholars are now wondering whether the recipient of the poems was William Shakespeare.
Disparities in cancer screening, incidence, treatment, and survival are worsening globally. In a new study on colorectal cancer, researchers found that the mortality-to-incidence ratio (MIR) can help identify whether a country has a higher mortality than might be expected based on cancer incidence.
Countries with lower-than-expected MIRs have strong national health systems characterized by formal colorectal cancer screening programs. Conversely, countries with higher-than-expected MIRs are more likely to lack such screening programs.
In a survey of 348 workers at a large psychiatric hospital, 99% of the staff reported verbal conflict with patients, and 70% reported being assaulted during the previous 12 months. Verbal conflict with other staff was also high, at 92%.
The findings, which are published in the Journal of Advanced Nursing, indicate that efforts are needed to identify the factors that contribute to conflict in psychiatric hospitals and to determine how staff should respond to conflicts and assaults.
The wild tiger Panthera tigris is considered critically endangered, and it faces threats from habitat loss and fragmentation, depletion of prey and in natural medicine cases for illegal poaching for trade of tiger bones for alternative medical potions and still rarely as skins for ornamentation and collection.
Current government-mandated nutrition labeling is ineffective in improving nutrition, but there is a better system available, according to a study by McGill University researchers published in the December issue of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
The majority of young women and men today would prefer an egalitarian relationship in which work and family responsibilities are shared equally between partners if that possibility were available to them, according to a new study from the University of Texas at Austin and the University of California-Santa Barbara.
The paper in the American Sociological Review was co-authored by David S. Pedulla, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, and Sarah Thébaud, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California-Santa Barbara.
p>Poorer parents are just as involved in education, leisure, and sports activities with their children as better-off parents, a new study has found.
Dr Esther Dermott and Marco Pomati analysed survey data on 1,665 UK households and found that poorer parents were as likely to have helped with homework, attended parents' evenings, and played sports or games with their children in the previous week.
Dr Dermott, of the University of Bristol, and Mr Pomati, Cardiff University, say they found no evidence of a group of poor parents who failed their children.
Commonly accepted domestication hypotheses suggest: "Dogs have become tolerant and attentive as a result of humans actively selecting for these skills during the domestication process in order to make dogs cooperative partners."
One in eight children born in 2002 or 2003 and living in remote Fitzroy Valley communities in Western Australia have Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, finds the The Lililwan study published today in the Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health.