Culture

DENVER – With all of the media attention on young people being tormented by bullies and cyberbullies, parents may wonder what they can do to protect their children. The question they may want to ask instead is how can they prevent their child from becoming a bully.

New research to be presented on Sunday, May 1, at the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) annual meeting in Denver shows that parents can play a key role in decreasing the chances that their son or daughter will harass or intimidate other children.

People with a chronic condition such as diabetes or arthritis may find themselves taking on a more active role in maintaining or improving their own health if there is an ongoing relationship with a primary healthcare (PHC) provider, according to University of British Columbia research.

Being tall and obese may increase your risk for potentially dangerous blood clots, according to new research in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Obesity is a well-known risk factor for clots in deep veins (usually in the legs) and for pulmonary embolism, a clot in blood vessels of the lungs that can result in sudden death or strain on the heart. Together, the two conditions are called venous thromboembolism (VTE).

A study of H1N1 and seasonal influenza vaccination in a sample of black and Hispanic children in Atlanta found a low rate of vaccine acceptance among parents and caregivers. Only 36 percent of parents and caregivers indicated they would immunize children against H1N1, and 22 percent indicated their children received the seasonal influenza vaccine in the previous three months. The majority of children in the sample (71 percent) were from households with less than $40,000 in annual income.

Male peacock tail plumage and courtship antics likely influence their success at attracting and mating with females, according to recent Queen's University research.

Roz Dakin and Robert Montgomerie have found that natural variation in the number of eyespots on a peacock's tail does not impact a male's mating success. However, peacocks whose tails are clipped to considerably reduce the number of eyespots are less successful at mating.

It may not be as catchy a combination as "Miss Scarlet in the parlor with a revolver," but "polyester-rayon wipes in the field followed by saline-surfactant extraction and vortexing" is the most efficient solution to an important biological game of "Clue" deduced by researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Scientists at the Fisher Center for Alzheimer's Disease Research at The Rockefeller University, led by Paul Greengard, Ph.D., and Jennifer Warner-Schmidt, Ph.D., have shown that anti-inflammatory drugs, which include ibuprofen, aspirin and naproxen, reduce the effectiveness of the most widely used class of antidepressant medications, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, taken for depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety disorders.