Culture

A new study pitting academic expertise against a computer in recreating a 425 million-year old jigsaw puzzle has discovered that there is no substitute for wisdom born out of experience.

The research tested the reliability of expert identification versus computer analysis in reconstructing fossils. The investigation, based on fossil teeth from extinct vertebrates, found that the most specialized experts provided the most reliable identifications.

Milan, Italy, 16 November 2009 - Most of the linguistic functions in humans are controlled by the left cerebral hemisphere. A study of captive chimpanzees at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center (Atlanta, Georgia), reported in the January 2010 issue of Elsevier's Cortex, suggests that this "hemispheric lateralization" for language may have its evolutionary roots in the gestural communication of our common ancestors.

One in four Australian adults has taken an action that puts their health at risk as a result of the global financial crisis (GFC), according to a new MBF Healthwatch poll.

The results show that lack of job security was particularly hard on families, with almost one in five parents turning up to work ill and close to one in 10 parents sending sick children to school.

CHAPEL HILL – The drug flibanserin, which was originally created as an antidepressant, is effective in treating women with low libido, pooled results from three separate clinical trials have found.

These trials were the first ever to test a therapy that works at the level of the brain to enhance libido in women reporting low sexual desire, said John M. Thorp Jr., M.D., McAllister distinguished professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and the principal investigator for North America in the studies.

Research published this week in PLoS Medicine demonstrates associations between local rainfall and temperature and cases of dengue fever, which affects an estimated fifty million people per year worldwide. But the study finds little evidence that the El Niño-Southern Oscillation – the climate cycle that occurs every three to four years as a result of the warming of the oceans in the eastern Pacific – has a significant impact on the incidence of dengue in Mexico, Puerto Rico or Thailand.

'What is very striking,' says Professor Croll, 'is that for this generation there is absolutely no gender stereotyping in hopes for the future. Furthermore, what children say at the age of 11 about school participation after the age of 16 is highly predictive of their actual behaviour.'

During the last two decades of the 20th Century, the World Bank, along with top U.S. business school faculty, was determined to re-create free market, American-style business education in emerging economies in Eastern Europe and Latin America (often referred to as the "Washington Consensus.")

Now, it seems, times have changed. First, the model used in these parts of the world hasn't been quite as successful as originally thought. And, World Bank funding for these initiatives has dried up.

Brussels, 13 November 2009 – Policy makers who factor the planet's multi-trillion dollar ecosystem services into their national and international investment strategies are likely to see far higher rates of return and stronger economic growth in the 21st century, a new report issued today says.

Some countries have already made the link to a limited extent and are glimpsing benefits in terms of jobs, livelihoods and economic returns that outstrip those wedded to older economic models of the previous century.

When Charles Darwin visited the Falkland Islands during the voyage of the Beagle in 1835, he saw a wolf-like species, wrote about it in his diaries and correctly commented that it was being hunted in such large numbers that it would soon become extinct.

Darwin was baffled by how this animal got on the islands, and it figured heavily in the formation of his ideas on evolution by natural selection.

Now, UCLA biologists and colleagues have analyzed DNA from museum specimens, including one collected by Darwin, and have solved the puzzle. Their results surprised them.

There is a tendency to think that only men treat women in a sexist way, but a new study by a University of Miami researcher and his daughter shows that both men and women participate in maintaining a gender hierarchy in our society. The study, titled "Social Dominance and Sexual Self-Schema as Moderators of Sexist Reactions to Female Subtypes," was recently published by the journal of Sex Roles.

Boston, MA -- Leading Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) nutrition and health researcher Walter Willett, M.D., Dr. P.H., has written a letter to the President-elect of the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) offering an alternative to the organization's decision, announced in October, to accept a six-figure grant from the Coca-Cola Company to develop web content on beverages and maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Over the next several weeks, the U. S. Senate has an historic opportunity to take a major step toward improving food safety for all Americans. That is why a coalition of public health professionals, consumer organizations and groups representing victims of foodborne illness is sending the message that it is time to "Make Our Food Safe for the Holidays!"

Scientists at the University of Adelaide have made a breakthrough that could change the world's thinking on what light is capable of.

The researchers in the University's new Institute for Photonics & Advanced Sensing (IPAS) have discovered that light within optical fibers can be squeezed into much tighter spaces than was previously believed possible.

Jerusalem, November 12, 2009 – How a specific gene within the pancreas affects secretion of insulin has been discovered by researchers from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in collaboration with Japanese and American universities. Their work opens the way for a new understanding of possible paths to battle diabetes and diabetes-related health problems, which are on the rise all over the world.