The public health measures taken in response to swine flu may be seen as alarmist, overly restrictive, or even unjustified, says a US expert in a paper published on bmj.com today.
Peter Doshi, a doctoral student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argues that our plans for pandemics need to take into account more than the worst case scenarios, and calls for a new framework for thinking about epidemic disease.
Recent NHS reforms, such as the introduction of patient choice and provider competition, have not had a deleterious impact on equity with respect to waiting times for elective surgery in England, concludes a study published on bmj.com today.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Rewards go further than punishment in building human cooperation and benefiting the common good, according to research published this week in the journal Science by researchers at Harvard University and the Stockholm School of Economics. While previous studies have focused almost exclusively on punishment for promoting public cooperation, here rewards are shown to be much more successful.
A new study led by Northern Arizona University and involving the University of Colorado at Boulder indicates Arctic temperatures have reversed from a long-term cooling trend and are now the warmest they have been in at least 2,000 years, bad news for the world's coastal cities facing rising seas in the coming decades.
Analysis of ancient DNA from skeletons suggests that Europe's first farmers were not the descendants of the people who settled the area after the retreat of the ice sheets. Instead, the early farmers probably migrated into major areas of central and eastern Europe about 7,500 years ago, bringing domesticated plants and animals with them, says Barbara Bramanti from Mainz University in Germany and colleagues. The researchers analyzed DNA from hunter-gatherer and early farmer burials, and compared those to each other and to the DNA of modern Europeans.
ST. PAUL, MN—The emerging trend toward healthier, fresher foods that are also gentle on the environment presents new dilemmas for conscientious consumers. Marketers tout the attributes of "organic" food, while the "local foods movement" is gaining popularity throughout the world. The "organic-or-local" debate is particularly interesting when it comes to fruits and vegetables; proponents of each system offer strong evidence to support their cause. Consumers frequent local farmers' markets because they expect higher quality, freshness and taste, and lower prices.
Society needs science, and scientists need an informed, thoughtful, and open-minded citizenry. Thus, the obvious dependence of American society on science is strikingly inconsistent with the low level of scientific literacy among U. S. citizens. By establishing 2009 as the "Year of Science," professional scientific organizations and grassroots, citizens-for-science groups hope to bring a renewed and invigorated focus on the importance of science now and in the future. As knowledge experts and educators,practicing scientists are key players in advancing the scientific literacy agenda.
The discoveries continue to surprise for a team of UC students digging in Shawnee Lookout Park, with a major new mound being located and a rare kiln used to fire pottery excavated in recent weeks, along with even more evidence emerging to support the theory that the site could be the largest continuously occupied hilltop Native American site in the United States.
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Giving insecticide-treated bed nets to nearly 18,000 mothers at prenatal clinics in the Democratic Republic of Congo prevented an estimated 414 infant deaths from malaria, a study by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers concludes.
A new study into the research of the renowned Lamarckian experimentalist Paul Kammerer may help to end the controversy which has engulfed his research for almost a century. The study, published in The Journal of Experimental Zoology, suggests that far from being a fraud Kammerer may have discovered the field of epigenetics, placing him decades ahead of his contemporaries.
Thousands of children and adolescents are using anti-obesity drugs that in the UK are only licensed for use by adults. The number of young people receiving prescriptions for these drugs has increased 15-fold since 1999, but most stop using them before they could expect to see any benefit, according to a new study.
Ninety percent of voting Iowans believe the government should be given additional authority to ensure the food they eat does not make them sick, according to a new poll commissioned by The Pew Charitable Trusts and conducted by Hart Research and Public Opinion Strategies.
High school football and wrestling athletes experienced the highest rate of severe injuries, according to a study that examined severe injuries. "Severe" was defined as injuries that caused high school athletes to miss more than 21 days of sport participation among a nationally representative sample of high school athletes. Severe injuries accounted for 15 percent of all high school sport-related injuries.
What do abrupt changes in ocean circulation and Earth's climate, shifts in wildlife populations and ecosystems, the global finance market and its system-wide crashes, and asthma attacks and epileptic seizures have in common?
According to a paper published this week in the journal Nature, all share generic early-warning signals that indicate a critical threshold of change dead ahead.
Research expeditions by NOAA scientists to track the habitat preferences and movements of fish at Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary may help managers protect overfished species such as red snapper and grouper. Research from the two expeditions appears in the Bulletin of Marine Sciences.
"It's important to know exactly what areas to protect," says Matt Kendall, principle investigator on the habitat mapping project. "Certain fish gravitate to certain bottom types. If you want to protect red snapper, for example, you have to know where they live."