In a paper evaluated by f1000 Medicine, six studies tested relationships between reminders of money, social exclusion and physical pain.
In The symbolic power of money: reminders of money alter social distress and physical pain published in the journal Psychological Science, Xinyue Zhou, Kathleen Vohs and Roy Baumeister explored how money could reduce a person's feeling of pain and also negate their need for social popularity.
CHAPEL HILL – A new study shows that parents are more likely to understand a body mass index (BMI) chart if it's color-coded, like a traffic light, than the standard charts currently in use.
"We think that better communication of BMI from doctor to parent could lead to parents earlier awareness of their child's weight status in time to help them make important lifestyle changes," says Eliana Perrin, M.D., M.P.H., senior and corresponding author of the study and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine.
New mobile phone software will help epidemiologists and ecologists working in the field to analyse their data remotely and map findings across the world, without having to return to the lab, according to research published in PLoS One today. The authors of the study, from Imperial College London, say the software will also enable members of the public to act as 'citizen scientists' and help collect data for community projects.
Two new expert commentaries released in the September 16 issue of The Journal of Neuroscience spotlight the increasingly violent animal rights attacks and the need for an educated public and engaged research community to ensure the safety of animals and researchers, as well as the continuation of health advances. The commentaries, written by Jeffery H. Kordower, and by Dario L. Ringach and J. David Jentsch, outline the strong efforts by The Society for Neuroscience (SfN) and the research community to ensure humane and responsible animal research.
Hospitalized patients who experience acute kidney problems that require dialysis are at increased risk of receiving chronic dialysis once discharged, but do not have an increased risk of death, according to a study in the September 16 issue of JAMA.
Black patients have lower rates of successful resuscitation and are less likely to survive an in-hospital cardiac arrest compared to white patients, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
In the study, black patients had a 12 percent lower overall rate of surviving the cardiac emergency in which the heart stops beating. Much of the racial difference was associated with the poor-performing hospitals where black patients received their care.
Two Iowa State University researchers are examining a new method of controlling soybean aphids without the use of chemical pesticides.
Bryony Bonning, professor of entomology, and Allen Miller, professor of plant pathology and director of the Center for Plant Responses to Environmental Stresses, are looking at a way to genetically modify soybeans to prevent damage from aphids.
A team led by Denis Reale, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at UQAM and Canada Research Chair in Behavioral Ecology, recently completed a study showing the link between personality, survival and reproductive success in male bighorn sheep. Their results were published in an article entitled "Male personality, life-history strategies and reproductive success in a promiscuous mammal" in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology . The research offers insight into personality differences in animals and humans, from an evolutionary perspective.
A skeleton, found at one of the most important, but least understood, Roman sites in Britain is puzzling experts from The University of Nottingham.
Dartmouth's Paul E. Palumbo, M.D., and his fellow researchers are fighting more than the disease in the race to fight HIV in the developing world.
"We have this big quandary in resource-limited countries," says Palumbo, a Dartmouth Medical School professor of medicine and pediatrics. "We have a simple approach that is cost-effective, and reduces transmission [of HIV] by 50 percent. The Achilles heel of that approach is that in the mother and in any infant who does become infected, the virus learns to become drug-resistant."
In a first step toward engineering a drug-free Cannabis plant for hemp fiber and oil, University of Minnesota researchers have identified genes producing tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive substance in marijuana. Studying the genes could also lead to new and better drugs for pain, nausea and other conditions.
The finding is published in the September issue of the Journal of Experimental Botany. Lead author is David Marks, a professor of plant biology in the College of Biological Sciences.
Successfully introducing Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) into classrooms is one of the biggest challenges proposed by new educational plans. A research group from the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) has studied substituting the current way in which education is structured for a new one that takes full advantage of the potential of new technologies.
Haifa, Israel – September 15, 2009 – A rare and surprising archaeological discovery at Tel Dor: A gemstone engraved with the portrait of Alexander the Great was uncovered during excavations by an archaeological team directed by Dr. Ayelet Gilboa of the University of Haifa and Dr. Ilan Sharon of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "Despite its miniature dimensions – the stone is less than a centimeter high and its width is less than half a centimeter – the engraver was able to depict the bust of Alexander on the gem without omitting any of the ruler's characteristics" notes Dr.
A new longitudinal study that looks at how low-income parents discipline their young children has found that spanking 1-year-olds leads to more aggressive behaviors and less sophisticated cognitive development in the next two years. Verbal punishment is not associated with such effects, especially when it is accompanied by emotional support from moms. In addition, 1-year-olds' fussiness predicted spanking and verbal punishment at ages 1, 2, and 3.
American infants and toddlers watch TV an average of two hours a day, and much of the programming is billed as educational. A new study finds that children under age 3 learn less from these videos that we might think—unless there's an adult present to interact with them and support their learning.
The study, by researchers at Temple University and the University of Delaware, can be found in the September/October 2009 issue of the journal Child Development.