Culture

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (www.ucr.edu) — Two professors at the University of California, Riverside Bourns College of Engineering have developed a new method that doubles the efficiency of wireless networks and could have a large impact on the mobile Internet and wireless industries.

With grilled chicken, salads and oatmeal now on fast food menus, you might think fast food has become healthier. And indeed, there has been greater attention in the media and legislatively, paid to the healthfulness of fast food. But a close look at the industry has found that calorie counts have changed little, while the number of food items has doubled.

Older North American farmers work fewer hours than their younger peers but spend more time operating heavy machinery and equipment—raising their risk of serious injury, according to new research from the University of Alberta.

A survey of 2,751 Saskatchewan farmers showed that as farmers age they turn to less physically strenuous work such as operating machinery. Farmers aged 45 to 64 years spent six to eight more days a year operating tractors and combines than farmers 20 years their junior—a situation that puts older farmers at risk, say the study authors.

An investigation into the molecular causes of a debilitating condition known as "Man on Fire Syndrome" has led Yale researchers to develop a strategy that may lead to personalized pain therapy and predict which chronic pain patients will respond to treatment.

More than a quarter of Americans suffer from chronic pain and nearly 40 percent do not get effective relief from existing drugs. In many common conditions such as diabetic neuropathy, no clear source of pain is found.

Philadelphia, PA, November 13, 2012 – Advocates of planned home birth have emphasized its benefits for patient safety, patient satisfaction, cost effectiveness, and respect for women's rights. A clinical opinion paper published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology critically evaluates each of these claims in its effort to identify professionally appropriate responses of obstetricians and other concerned physicians to planned home birth.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Why do so many beginning teachers quit the profession or change schools? Surprising new research finds it's not a heavy workload or lack of resources that has the most significant effect, but instead the relationship between teachers and their principal.

Peter Youngs, associate professor of educational policy at Michigan State University and lead investigator on the study, said the findings reinforce the need for principals to serve as strong, supportive leaders in their schools.

Big fish that have grown up in marine reserves don't seem to know enough to avoid fishers armed with spear guns waiting outside the reserve.

The latest research by an Australian team working in the Philippines into the effects of marine reserves has found there is an unexpected windfall awaiting fishers who obey the rules and respect reserve boundaries – in the form of big, innocent fish wandering out of the reserve.