Culture

It has passed as fact among historians, journalists and politicians, and has been recounted everywhere from tourist guidebooks to the floor of the U.S. Congress: British forces used chemical weapons on Iraqis just after World War I.

But that claim has never been fully squared with the historical record, says R. M. Douglas, a historian at Colgate University. According to Douglas's research, forthcoming in the December issue of The Journal of Modern History, no such incident ever occurred.

HOUSTON - (Oct. 21, 2009) – Researchers at the Michael & Susan Dell Center for Advancement of Healthy Living at The University of Texas School of Public Health Austin Regional Campus found the obesity prevention efforts in the El Paso region were the most effective in Texas in decreasing the prevalence of childhood obesity.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — The Internet has spawned a virtual subculture of "johns" who share information electronically about prostitution, potentially making them harder to catch, according to a new study co-authored by a Michigan State University criminologist.

The research by MSU's Thomas Holt and Kristie Blevins of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte challenges the common perception that sex customers act alone and do not interact for fear of reprisal or scorn. The study appears in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography.

CORAL GABLES, FL (October 21, 2009) – Distinguished Professor on the Humanities, Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and Sciences, Professor of Philosophy, Professor of Law Susan Haack has recently published a research paper entitled, "Irreconcilable Differences? The Troubled Marriage of Science and Law."

Museums are increasingly seeking help from chemists in an effort to understand and preserve the artistic and cultural heritage of the treasures in their collections. That's the topic of the cover story in the current issue of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS' weekly newsmagazine.

Scientists in Japan are reporting the first scientific explanation for one of the most widely known rules of thumb for pairing wine with food: "Red wine with red meat, white wine with fish." The scientists are reporting that the unpleasant, fishy aftertaste noticeable when consuming red wine with fish results from naturally occurring iron in red wine. The study is in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a bi-weekly publication.

In the first study to look at sex-specific pain prevalence in Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom (OEF/OIF) Veterans, researchers from the VA Connecticut Healthcare System and the Yale University School of Medicine found women Veterans had a lower prevalence of pain than male counterparts returning from the conflicts. Approximately 60% of OEF/OIF Veterans were assessed with pain during the study period.

Embryos that are most likely to result in a pregnancy are crucial to the success of in vitro fertilization (IVF) but are difficult to identify. Researchers at Yale School of Medicine, led by Emre Seli, M.D., are developing a fast, non-invasive test to help assess embryo viability for IVF.

Seli, associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology & Reproductive Sciences at Yale, will present new embryo selection findings at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) meeting held in Atlanta, Georgia from October 17 to 21.

Alcohol use in South Asians in the UK is under-recognised, and alcohol related harm is disproportionately high, warn researchers in an editorial published on bmj.com today.

They argue that some subgroups of South Asians in the UK have a major problem with alcohol and seem to be more susceptible to its effects. Yet the government's health strategy for alcohol continues to perpetuate the myth that alcohol related harm is low in all UK South Asians.

Compared with a source of data often used regarding physician workforce supply and projected changes, data from the U.S. Census Bureau suggests that the future physician workforce may be younger but fewer in number than previously projected, according to a study in the October 21 issue of JAMA.

Teachers' unions have little impact on a school district's allocation of money, including teacher pay and spending per student, according to a study published this month in the Journal of Labor Economics.

Using data from school districts in Iowa, Indiana and Minnesota, Cornell economist Michael Lovenheim compared district spending trends before and after each district became unionized. He also compared trends between union and non-union districts. Specifically, his analysis looked at teacher pay, spending per student, number of teachers employed and student-teacher ratio.

Boulder, CO, USA - A timely debate on "United States Coal Peak Production" will enliven the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, Oregon, today. Highly regarded experts David B. Rutledge of the California Institute of Technology and Robert C. Milici from the U.S. Geological Survey will be keynote speakers presenting opposing views.

MADISON, WI, OCTOBER 20, 2009 -- Communication between the public and government is a necessary component of public trust. For many modern issues, constituents trust that their legislators understand the science behind these topics and pass legislation for the betterment of society. While science has its uncertainties, much of that public trust is subsequently transferred to the scientists who inform legislators.

Using data from Hurricane Katrina and four other destructive storms, researchers from Johns Hopkins and Texas A&M universities say they have found a way to accurately predict power outages in advance of a hurricane. Their approach provides estimates of how many outages will occur across a region as a hurricane is approaching.

More than a quarter of cancer survivors who still smoke have not been advised to quit smoking by their health care providers in the last year, according to a study published by researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center in the current issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The findings suggest that health care providers – from doctors to dentists to nurses – are missing an opportunity to make a dramatic difference in the quality of life of their patients.