Culture

Barcelona, Spain: The largest study in Europe to look at the link between socioeconomic status and survival after breast cancer has found that women from poorer backgrounds have worse outcomes and that this is only partly explained by more advanced cancer at diagnosis.

Barcelona, Spain: Recurrence of breast cancer in the same area as the original tumour remains the strongest, independent prognostic factor for subsequent metastasis and death, even for patients who have been free of disease for a very long time, according to research presented today (Wednesday) at the seventh European Breast Cancer Conference (EBCC7).

WASHINGTON— The national cost of foodborne illness has been estimated at the astronomical sum of $152 billion annually, but the information on who is getting sick and what is causing those illnesses is part of a state-by-state surveillance system that shows mixed results around the country, raising important new questions about how to improve state outbreak reporting.

"Educationally relevant health disparities" are key drivers of the achievement gap, "but they are largely overlooked," said Charles Basch, the Richard March Hoe Professor of Health Education at Teachers College, Columbia University.

"Over the past several decades, a variety of strategies have been tried to help close the achievement gap – standards, accountability, NCLB, more rigorous teacher certification – and they're all important, but they won't have the desired effect unless students are ready and motivated to learn."

SAN FRANCISCO, March 23, 2010 — Queso fresco, a quintessential ingredient in Mexican cuisine, would retain higher quality in supermarket display cases if stored at a lower temperature. That's the conclusion of a report presented here today at the 239th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society.

This release is available in http://chinese..org/zh/emb_releases/2010-03/jaaj-hba031910.php">Chinese.

An analysis of nearly 25 years of data for about 10,000 civil servants in London finds an association between socioeconomic position and risk of death, with much of this relation accounted for by health behaviors such as smoking, alcohol consumption, diet and physical activity, according to a study in the March 24/31 issue of JAMA.

We are usually eager to assist people who have helped us in the past. These reciprocal relationships are an important part of adult interactions and foster cooperation in society. New findings, reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, suggest that this reciprocal behavior may have early beginnings and can be demonstrated in children as young as 21-months-old.

(Boston) – Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have found that when attempting to pass tanning bed legislation, successful advocates collaborate with local and national organizations and lobbyists and have direct contact with the sponsoring legislator to aid in the passage of the bill. These findings, which appear on-line in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology, also identify strong lobbying efforts by the tanning bed industry as the biggest barrier to passing tanning bed legislation.

Los Angeles, CA (March 22, 2010) Providing tax credit incentives to the movie industry to attract filming to non-traditional locations actually has a negative impact on state revenues, according to a study in the latest issue of the Journal of Planning Education and Research.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Conventional wisdom holds that supporters of suicide bombers are people with low educational attainment and income, so investments in education and economic development should reduce support for such attacks. But a study by two Indiana University faculty members raises questions about that approach.

A study published this week in PLoS Medicine finds that four risk factors — smoking, high blood pressure, high blood sugar and obesity — explain a substantial amount of the disparity in life expectancy amongst the "Eight Americas", which are groups of the US population that can be defined by race, and location and socioeconomic features of counties they live in. Together, these four risk factors are estimated to reduce life expectancy in the United States by 4.9 years in men and 4.1 years in women.

ITHACA, N.Y. - The sizes of the portions and plates in more than four dozen depictions of the Last Supper – painted over the past 1,000 years – have gradually grown bigger and bigger, according to a Cornell University study published in The International Journal of Obesity (April 2010), a peer-reviewed publication.

WASHINGTON (March 2010)—National Geographic's April 2010 issue will be devoted to a single topic — fresh water. "Water: Our Thirsty World," available on newsstands beginning Tuesday, March 30, is a far-reaching exploration of and essential primer on the state of the world's fresh water and the global implications as supplies of this finite resource are threatened.

Consider these stark realities:

LAWRENCE, Kan. — The ancient stone spheres of Costa Rica were made world-famous by the opening sequence of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," when a mockup of one of the mysterious relics nearly crushed Indiana Jones.

So perhaps John Hoopes is the closest thing at the University of Kansas to the movie action hero.

Football players, skiers, tennis players – they all fear a crucial ligament rupture. If the knee ligaments are damaged the patient usually has to undergo a surgery to restore the stability of the joint. In the surgical procedure the torn ligament is replaced by a piece of tendon from the leg, which is fixed to the bone by means of an interferential screw. The problem is that the screws are made of titanium. After a certain time the patient has to undergo a further surgery so that the material can be removed.