Culture | Science Codex

68 percent of New England and Mid-Atlantic beaches eroding

WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- An assessment of coastal change over the past 150 years has found 68 percent of beaches in the New England and Mid-Atlantic region are eroding, according to a U.S. Geological Survey report released today.

Scientists studied more than 650 miles of the New England and Mid-Atlantic coasts and found the average rate of coastal change – taking into account beaches that are both eroding and prograding -- was negative 1.6 feet per year. Of those beaches eroding, the most extreme case exceeded 60 feet per year.

Careful sleuthing reveals a key source of sedimentation

Much of the Mississippi River's sediment load doesn't come from field runoff, according to work by scientists at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Instead, the scientists with USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) have confirmed that stream bank collapse and failure can be chief contributors to high sediment levels in the silty streams and rivers that flow into the Mississippi. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency.

Americans and Canadians get different drug information online: UBC study

Americans and Canadians are getting vastly different search results when they look up prescription drug information online, says a study by researchers at the University of British Columbia.

Residents of the United States searching on Google for both brand and generic drug names get directed to the government-run National Library of Medicine. However, Canadians performing the same searches end up getting Wikipedia for generic drug searches, and drug company sites for brand searches, according to the study, published online yesterday by the Annals of Pharmacotherapy.

Study says, with counseling and education, there is life after bankruptcy

URBANA – Although declaring bankruptcy was once thought to be a desperate, when-all-else-fails solution, in this new millennium of economic uncertainty, it has become a common option for people who are in deep debt. The question is, can they learn from their mistakes, change their behavior, and recover? A recent study says, yes, with counseling and education.

Prevalence of bunions increases with age; more common in women

New research determined that an increase in the severity of hallux valgus, or bunion deformity, progressively reduced both general and foot-specific health related quality of life (HRQOL). Bunion deformity was found in 36% of the study population and occurred more frequently in women and older individuals. Pain in other parts of the body beyond the foot was associated with increased bunion severity.

Lantian biota: Oldest fossils of worm-like animals tell story of ancient oxygen

Almost 600 million years ago, before the rapid evolution of life forms known as the Cambrian explosion, a community of seaweeds and worm-like animals lived in a quiet deep-water niche near what is now Lantian, a small village in south China.

Then they simply died, leaving some 3,000 nearly pristine fossils preserved between beds of black shale deposited in oxygen-free and unbreathable waters.

Protesters should protest for help in designing a city for safer protests

Civil protests, from peaceful sit-ins at the Pentagon to violent riots in Cairo, nonetheless share some common characteristics. To study how protests evolve in public spaces, Dr. Tali Hatuka, an architect and head of Tel Aviv University's Laboratory of Contemporary Urban Design, has dissected some of the world's most publicized protests — those in Washington, Istanbul, Tel Aviv, Beijing, and Leipzig.

Brontomerus mcintoshi: New 'thunder-thighs' dinosaur discovered

LONDON – A new dinosaur named Brontomerus mcintoshi, or "thunder-thighs" after its enormously powerful thigh muscles, has been discovered in Utah, USA. The new species is described in a paper recently published in the journal Acta Palaeontologica Polonica by an international team of scientists from the U.K. and the U.S.

Long-term use of osteoporosis medication associated with increased risk of atypical fractures

Older women who used bisphosphonates (medications that prevent loss of bone mass) for five years or more were more likely to experience "atypical" fractures involving the femoral shaft (bone in the leg that extends from the hip to the knee) or subtrochanteric (fractures in the bone just below the hip joint), compared to women with less usage. However, the absolute risk of these "atypical" fractures was low and bisphosphonate use was associated with a reduced risk of typical osteoporotic fractures, according to a study in the February 23 issue of JAMA.

Gender gap: Selection bias snubs scholarly achievements of female scientists

Women scientists must confront sexism when competing for awards that recognize their research, according to a new analysis.

Higher vitamin D intake needed to reduce cancer risk

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine and Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha have reported that markedly higher intake of vitamin D is needed to reach blood levels that can prevent or markedly cut the incidence of breast cancer and several other major diseases than had been originally thought. The findings are published February 21 in the journal Anticancer Research

'Climategate' undermined belief in global warming among meteorologists - study

A new paper shows that 'Climategate', the release in late 2009 of e-mails between climate scientists in the U.S. and United Kingdom, undermined belief in global warming and possibly also trust in climate scientists among meteorologists.

Society may be willing to pay a high price to prevent child abuse and neglect, study suggests

Athens, Ga. – The amount the public will pay to prevent the death of a child may be twice that of an adult, according to a new University of Georgia study that asked 199 individuals how much they would pay to prevent a death from child abuse or neglect.

The research, published in the March edition of the American Journal of Public Health, found that respondents were willing to pay an average of $150 to reduce the mortality risk associated with child maltreatment by one in 10,000.

The difference in workers' contracts is one of the main causes of unemployment

Parenting stress affects new mothers postpartum lifestyle

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Post-pregnancy excess weight is likely caused by theimpact of new parenthood stress on physical activity, Georgia HealthSciences University researchers say.

In a study of 60 first-time mothers, researchers linked higherpost-pregnancy body mass index – weight in relation to height – to acombination of a high BMI before pregnancy, excessive weight gain duringpregnancy, parenting stress and a sedentary lifestyle, according to astudy published in Women & Health.