Culture

There are a number of factors that influence how well we do in school, including the amount of time we study and our interest in a subject. Now, according to new findings in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, how quickly we expect to receive our grades may also influence how we perform.

Ovarian endometriomas, better known as ovarian 'chocolate' cysts for the brown liquid they contain, can be easily removed by surgery. However, recurrence is common, which can cause ongoing pain and complications. A study evaluated for Faculty of 1000 suggests a simple and effective remedy – the oral contraceptive pill (OCP).

Nations of the Greater Mekong Subregion need to 'rethink' their agricultural industries to meet future food needs, given the social shifts and climate changes that are forecast for the coming decades. With better farming practices, and by managing agriculture within the wider context of natural ecosystems, nations could boost production and increase the wealth and resilience of poor people in rural communities. Demand for food is forecast to double by 2050, as populations swell and people's dietary choices change.

Acoustic analysis of the 'giggle' sound made by spotted hyenas has revealed that the animals' laughter encodes information about age, dominance and identity. Researchers writing in the open access journal BMC Ecology recorded the calls of 26 hyenas in captivity and found that variations in the giggles' pitch and timbre may help hyenas to establish social hierarchies.

Decades of drought, interspersed with intense monsoon rains, may have helped bring about the fall of Cambodia's ancient Khmer civilization at Angkor nearly 600 years ago, according to an analysis of tree rings, archeological remains and other evidence. The study, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, may also shed light on what drives — and disrupts — the rainy season across much of Asia, which waters crops for nearly half the world's population.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---In the ruins of a city that was once Rome's neighbor, archaeologists last summer found a 1,000-pound lead coffin.

Who or what is inside is still a mystery, said Nicola Terrenato, the University of Michigan professor of classical studies who leads the project---the largest American dig in Italy in the past 50 years.

The sarcophagus will soon be transported to the American Academy in Rome, where engineers will use heating techniques and tiny cameras in an effort to gain insights about the contents without breaking the coffin itself.

Want to kill old people without all the cultural drama? Framing the debate is the answer. Discard the word 'euthanasia' because it mixes ideas and values that confuse the debate about dying, states an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj100338.pdf.

FAIRFAX, Va., March 29, 2010—In a time when only a handful of TV news stations employ a dedicated science reporter, TV weathercasters may seem like the logical people to fill that role, and in many cases they do.

In the largest and most representative survey of television weathercasters to date, George Mason University's Center for Climate Change Communication shows that two-thirds of weathercasters are interested in reporting on climate change, and many say they are already filling a role as an informal science educator.

The "exceptionally simple theory of everything," proposed by a surfing physicist in 2007, does not hold water, says Emory University mathematician Skip Garibaldi.

Garibaldi did the math to disprove the theory, which involves a mysterious structure known as E8. The resulting paper (http://arxiv.org/abs/0905.2658 ), co-authored by physicist Jacques Distler of the University of Texas, will appear in an upcoming issue of Communications in Mathematical Physics.

This statement isn't new, but for years anthropologists, archaeologists and historians of art understood these artistic manifestations as purely aesthetic and decorative motives. Eduardo Palacio-Pérez, researcher at the University of Cantabria (UC), now reveals the origins of a theory that remains nowadays/lasts into our days.

Geologists from the University of Leicester are among four scientists- including a Nobel prize-winner – who suggest that the Earth has entered a new age of geological time.

The Age of Aquarius? Not quite - It's the Anthropocene Epoch, say the scientists writing in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. (web issue March 29; print issue April 1)

And they add that the dawning of this new epoch may include the sixth largest mass extinction in the Earth's history.

A medical student and faculty directors from the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics analyzed depictions of bioethical issues and professionalism over a full season of two popular medical dramas—"Grey's Anatomy" and "House, M.D."—and found that the shows were "rife" with ethical dilemmas and actions that often ran afoul of professional codes of conduct.

Pneumonia is the leading cause of death amongst Chinese children, accounting for 17 per cent of deaths in under-5s, according to a new study.

But the number of children in China who die before reaching the age of five has dropped by 70 per cent since 1990 – from 6.5 per cent of live births to 1.9 per cent.

The team predicts that complications caused by premature birth will soon become the leading cause of childhood death in China as increased access to hospital treatment cuts the number of deaths from pneumonia.

Two people with compromised immune systems who became ill with 2009 H1N1 influenza developed drug-resistant strains of virus after less than two weeks on therapy, report doctors from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.

Millions of Americans may have chronic kidney disease (CKD) and not know it, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN).

"Our research indicates that much of the CKD burden in the United States is in persons with prediabetes and undiagnosed diabetes, who are not being screened for CKD," comments Laura C. Plantinga, ScM (University of California, San Francisco). The researchers believe that broader screening may be needed to detect patients with these two "relatively silent yet harmful diseases."