Culture | Science Codex

Few food adverts during children's TV are likely to be banned under new regulations

Advertisements shown during children's television before new restrictive regulations were introduced were not any more focused on unhealthy food than adverts shown at other times, according to research published ahead of print in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

A common belief that TV advertisers were targeting children in particular with unhealthy foods before new Ofcom regulations were introduced in 2007 to prevent this, was not the case, researchers found, questioning what real impact the regulations will actually have.

When is it safe to hire someone with a criminal record?

PITTSBURGH—Carnegie Mellon University researchers have created a model for providing empirical evidence on when an ex-convict has been "clean" long enough to be considered "redeemed" for employment purposes.

Sea-level rise may pose greatest threat to Northeast US, Canada

The melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet this century may drive more water than previously thought toward the already threatened coastlines of New York, Boston, Halifax and other cities in the northeastern United States and Canada, according to new research.

Contracts adding legal twist to family health care

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Financial contracts to care for sick or aging relatives – nearly unthinkable just a decade ago – are drawing new interest as everyday Americans wrestle with the time and expense of providing long-term health care, a University of Illinois legal expert says.

Law professor Richard L. Kaplan says the rise in so-called family caregiver agreements is far from a groundswell, and most people still bristle at the notion of being paid to care for parents or other relatives who may have once cared for them.

Melting Greenland ice sheets may threaten Northeast United States, Canada

BOULDER--Melting of the Greenland ice sheet this century may drive more water than previously thought toward the already threatened coastlines of New York, Boston, Halifax, and other cities in the northeastern United States and in Canada, according to new research led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

Research suggests we are genetically programmed to care about climate change

Humans may be programmed by evolution to care about the future of the environment, suggests research published today.

Dr Peter Sozou suggests that individuals may have an innate tendency to care about the long-term future of their communities, over timescales much longer than an individual's lifespan. This in turn may help to explain people's wish to take action over long-term environmental problems.

The findings are published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, in a paper entitled Individual and social discounting in a viscous population.

Following a healthy lifestyle is on the decline in the US

New York, NY, May 27, 2009 – Despite the well-known benefits of having a lifestyle that includes physical activity, eating a diet high in fruits and vegetables, maintaining a healthy weight, moderate alcohol use and not smoking, only a small proportion of adults follow this healthy lifestyle pattern, and in fact, the numbers are declining, according to an article published in the June 2009 issue of The American Journal of Medicine. Lifestyle choices are associated with the risk of cardiovascular disease as well as diabetes.

Policy making for sexual health - PLoS editors get political

It is time to realign research and policy making to promote better sexual health for all, according to the latest editorial from the PLoS Medicine team.

Sexual health problems arise from curable and incurable sexually transmitted infections, lack of access to contraceptives, lack of access to services and unsafe abortion, and occur at the intersection of health, culture, religion and politics. Curable sexually transmitted infections such as gonorrhea, syphilis, chlamydia, and trichomoniasis, cause a significant burden of disease in both high and low income countries.

The vaccine-autism controversy: what scientists can learn from it

Researchers long ago rejected the theory that vaccines cause autism, yet many parents don't believe them. Can scientists bridge the gap between evidence and doubt?

This week, PLoS journalist Liza Gross investigates why the debunked vaccine-autism theory won't go away.

Oldest evidence of leprosy found in India

BOONE, N.C. – A biological anthropologist from Appalachian State University working with an undergraduate student from Appalachian, an evolutionary biologist from UNC Greensboro, and a team of archaeologists from Deccan College (Pune, India) recently reported analysis of a 4000-year-old skeleton from India bearing evidence of leprosy. This skeleton represents both the earliest archaeological evidence for human infection with Mycobacterium leprae in the world and the first evidence for the disease in prehistoric India.

New way of assessing professional behavior in medical students

A new way of assessing professionalism among medical students could help to make better doctors, a new research study suggests.

A score given to medical students, called the Conscientiousness Index, can detect behaviours which may need investigation at an early stage, allowing targeted support to be given to ultimately make for better doctors, according to the Durham University study.

Study questions impact of GP pay incentives on patient care

The care of patients with diabetes has improved over the last decade, but this does not seem to be a direct result of the quality and outcomes framework – the scheme that rewards UK general practices for delivering quality care.

The scheme in its present form may even lead to reduced levels of care for some patients, say researchers in a paper published on bmj.com today.

NFL players, despite being huge, have overall health similar to other young men

Despite being larger in size and heavier in weight, an analysis of the cardiovascular disease risk factors of about 500 National Football League players finds that overall, they have a similar cardiovascular risk profile compared to the general population. The NFL population was found to have a lower incidence of impaired fasting glucose and similar prevalence of abnormal cholesterol and triglyceride levels as compared to a sample of healthy young-adult men, but have an increased prevalence of high blood pressure, according to a study in the May 27 issue of JAMA.

M. D. Anderson study finds dramatic increase in metastatic colon cancer survival

HOUSTON ― Novel chemotherapy and biological agents for metastatic colorectal cancer, combined with surgical advances in liver resection, have resulted in a dramatic increase in survival for patients with advanced disease, according to researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.

National study finds youth baseball-related injuries down 25 percent

Spring marks baseball season for more than 19 million children and adolescents who play each year as part of a team or in backyards throughout the United States. The good news for these players is that the number of injuries from the sport is on the decline.