Los Angeles, CA (February 23, 2012) Do strict underage drinking laws really have a positive impact on society? A recent study finds that strictly enforcing possession of alcohol under the legal age or PULA (also known as PAULA) laws on teenagers reduces the likelihood that they will engage in alcohol-related crime as adults. This study was documented in the article "The Relationship between Underage Alcohol Possession and Future Criminal Behavior: An Empirical Analysis Using Age-Period Cohort Characteristics Models," published in SAGE Open.
Culture
NEW YORK (February 23, 2012) – The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP) announced today Sumatra's first ever successful sentence of an illegal orangutan owner and trader in Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia.
The seven-month prison sentence is only the third for Indonesia, despite orangutans being strictly protected under Indonesian law since 1924.
Calorie listings on fast-food chain restaurant menus might meet federal labeling requirements but don't do a good job of helping consumers trying to make healthy meal choices, a new Columbia University School of Nursing (CUSON) study reports.
Washington, D.C. –Today the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues posted on its website, www.bioethics.gov, hundreds of supporting documents related to its investigation into the U.S. Public Health Service (PHS) studies conducted in Guatemala in the 1940s. The documents include a spreadsheet that Commission staff painstakingly created to document the research subjects in Guatemala.
HUNTSVILLE, TX (2/23/12) – A Sam Houston State University professor is working on a series of studies that examine the effects of race and ethnicity on state and federal sentencing outcomes, including incarceration and sentence length decisions.
BEER-SHEVA, Israel, February 23, 2012 – A new study on the prevalence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among firefighters in Israel indicates that approximately 90 percent show some form of full or partial symptoms.
According to the study by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev's Dr. Marc Lougassi, a firefighter himself, 24 percent of active firefighters in Israel suffer from full PTSD, 67 percent display partial PTSD while only nine percent showed no symptoms.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 23, 2012) -- A pilot study led by University of Kentucky researchers shows that the gene expression analysis of urine sediment could provide a noninvasive way to analyze interstitial cystitis in some patients.
EVANSTON, Ill. --- If your political candidate of choice falls behind in the polls, will you lose faith in his ability to win? Probably not. A new study from Northwestern University suggests that people tend to believe that their preferred candidate will win an election, no matter what the polls predict.
The study was published Feb. 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
A new report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has documented 149 potential sources of human error in the analysis of crime scene fingerprints. The study by a working group of 34 experts recommends a series of improvements to significantly reduce or eliminate the errors, based on the findings from its three-year scientific assessment of the effects of human factors on forensic latent print analysis.
Some Parkinson's Disease patients can suddenly become creative when they take dopamine therapy, producing pictures, sculptures, novels and poetry. But their new-found interests can become so overwhelming that they ignore other aspects of their everyday life, such as daily chores and social activities, according to research published in the March issue of the European Journal of Neurology.
Investigators from Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center (VICC) and 12 other centers in the United States and Australia have found that a new drug for patients with metastatic melanoma nearly doubled median overall survival.
More than half of patients who were treated with the novel drug vemurafenib, known commercially as Zelboraf, responded to treatment and experienced an impressive median overall survival of nearly 16 months – far longer than the typical survival of just six to 10 months for most patients whose melanoma has spread beyond the initial tumor site.
NEW ORLEANS – New research suggests women who have migraine or have had them in the past are at an increased risk for developing depression compared to women who have never had migraine. The study was released today and will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 64th Annual Meeting in New Orleans April 21 to April 28, 2012.
NEWS ARTICLES LINKING ALCOHOL TO CRIMES OR ACCIDENTS INCREASE SUPPORT FOR LIQUOR LAW ENFORCEMENT
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Reading a newspaper article about the role alcohol played in an injury accident or violent crime makes people more supportive of enforcing alcohol laws, a new study suggests.
Researchers had participants read actual news reports, randomly selected from newspapers across the United States, about violent crimes and various accidental injuries – half of which were edited to mention the role of alcohol and half of which were edited not to make such mention.
A fundamental discovery reported in the March 1st issue of the journal Nature, uncovers the first molecular evidence linking the body's natural circadian rhythms to sudden cardiac death (SCD). Ventricular arrhythmias, or abnormal heart rhythms, are the most common cause of sudden cardiac death: the primary cause of death from heart disease. They occur most frequently in the morning waking hours, followed by a smaller peak in the evening hours.
TAMPA, Fla. (Feb. 22, 2012) – Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Fla., and the University of South Florida (USF) College of Medicine evaluated the experience of medical students who participated in videotaped sessions where they practiced conveying difficult news to "standardized patients" (SPs). The SPs role-played patients with a variety of cancers and who were receiving bad medical news.