Culture

Do you know someone who claims to remember their first day of kindergarten? Or a trip they took as a toddler? While some people may be able to recall trivial details from the past, laboratory research shows that the human memory can be remarkably fragile and even inventive.

In fact, people can easily create false memories of their past and a new study shows that such memories can have long-term effects on our behavior.

TORONTO, ON. – Individuals with a more senior level of job authority have higher levels of interpersonal conflict according to new research out of the University of Toronto.

The study conducted by Scott Schieman, a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto and Sarah Reid, a PhD candidate, involved data from a 2005 sample of 1,785 working adults in the United States. This is the first study of a nationally representative sample that documents the link between power and conflict in the workplace across a broad cross-section of jobs and sectors.

OAK BROOK, Ill. – Repeat exams using widely available and inexpensive ultrasound imaging could help identify patients at high risk for a heart attack or other adverse cardiovascular events, according to a study published in the September issue of the journal Radiology.

The impact of global warming in the Arctic may differ from the predictions of computer models of the region, according to a pair of Penn State biologists. The team -- which includes Eric Post, a Penn State associate professor of biology, and Christian Pederson, a Penn State graduate student -- has shown that grazing animals will play a key role in reducing the anticipated expansion of shrub growth in the region, thus limiting their predicted and beneficial carbon-absorbing effect.

DALLAS – Aug. 18, 2008 – An infectious ocean-dwelling bacterium found in oysters and other shellfish kills its host's cells by causing them to burst, providing the invader with a nutrient-rich meal, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found.

The bacterium, a relative of the one that causes cholera, co-opts and makes fatal a normal cell process that starving or stressed organisms use to disassemble and recycle expendable proteins into more vital metabolites.

CHAPEL HILL – Families with disabled children are struggling to keep food on the table, a roof over their heads, and to pay for needed health and dental care. But according to a new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, these challenges are now falling on middle-income households and not just on poor families as previous research has found.

BOSTON – More than half of 26,000 students across 70 colleges and universities who completed a survey on suicidal experiences reported having at least one episode of suicidal thinking at some point in their lives. Furthermore, 15 percent of students surveyed reported having seriously considered attempting suicide and more than 5 percent reported making a suicide attempt at least once in their lifetime.