Culture

In Aesop's fable "The crow and the pitcher," written thousands of years ago, a thirsty crow used stones to raise the level of water in a pitcher and quench its thirst. Now, a new report published online on August 6th in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, suggests that the fable might have been based on fact.

Rooks, intelligent birds belonging to the crow family, can indeed learn to use stones to raise the level of water, in this case to bring a tasty, floating worm within reach.

In Aesop's fable 'The crow and the pitcher' a thirsty crow uses stones to raise the level of water in a pitcher to quench its thirst. A new study published online today (06 August) in the journal Current Biology demonstrates that rooks, birds belonging to the corvid (or crow) family, are able to solve complex problems using tools and can easily master the same technique demonstrated in Aesop's fable.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---With school days just around the corner, a University of Michigan researcher has some advice for parents who want to increase their children's academic success.

"If you want your kids to do well in school, then the amount of education you get yourself is important," said Pamela Davis-Kean, a psychologist at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR). "This may mean that parents need to go back to school.

Boston, Mass. — Building upon a series of successful preclinical studies, researchers at MassBiologics of the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) today announced the beginning of a Phase 1 clinical trial, testing the safety and activity of a human monoclonal antibody they developed that can neutralize the Hepatitis C virus (HCV).

New Rochelle, NY, August 6, 2009— The more time college students spend on Facebook, the more likely they are to feel jealous toward their romantic partners, leading to more time on Facebook searching for additional information that will further fuel their jealousy, in a vicious circle that may become addictive, according to a study reported in CyberPsychology & Behavior.

In view of the shortage of petrochemical resources and climate change, development of CO2-neutral sustainable fuels is one of the most urgent challenges of our times. Energy plants like rape or oil palm are being discussed fervently, as they may also be used for food production. Hence, cultivation of microalgae may contribute decisively to tomorrow's energy supply. For energy production from microalgae, KIT scientists are developing closed photo-bioreactors and novel cell disruption methods.

New York, NY, August 6, 2009— Comprehensive health reform proposals now before Congress could help the more than 13 million uninsured young adults ages 19-29 gain coverage, and such reforms would also help ensure that those who now have coverage would not lose it, according to a new Commonwealth Fund report. Extending health insurance coverage to all Americans through expansions in Medicaid and a health insurance exchange with a choice of private and public plans would help guarantee stable, affordable coverage for young adults, according to the report, Rite of Passage?

PHILADELPHIA - The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends the human papillomavirus vaccination for all 11- and 12-year-old girls, but results of a recent survey showed that more than half of Texas physicians do not follow these recommendations.

The survey was published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.

Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, by Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center doctors Pamela Hartzband, MD, and Jerome Groopman, MD, caution that health care reform carries with it the potential to create a clash. The clash is between two recent trends in medicine – the humanism movement that focuses on individual values, goals and preferences – and the move toward evidence-based practice where data and guidelines standardize therapies and procedures.

PHILADELPHIA – A team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania and the Università Bocconi in Milan have released a study that challenges one of the most established and accepted standards in the social sciences: Human fertility levels tend to decline as countries advance towards high levels of social and economic development.

Hamilton, ON. August 5, 2009 – If you are a woman who dines with a man, chances are you choose food with fewer calories than if you dine with a woman. That is one of the findings in a study conducted by researchers at McMaster University.

The results appear in the online version of the international journal Appetite.

Meredith Young, PhD candidate in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour, found that what a person chooses to eat at lunch or dinner is influenced by who they eat with and the gender make-up of the group.

As the world's environment ministers, government officials, diplomats and campaigners prepare to attend the COP15 conference in Copenhagen in December 2009 to unite in the battle against climate change in one of the most complicated political deals the world has ever seen, the increasingly complex territory of climate negotiations is being revealed in an article published today, 5 August, 2009, in IOP Publishing's Environmental Research Letters.

WASHINGTON, DC — A widely publicized analysis of social network size, which reported dramatically increasing social isolation when it was published in 2006, has sparked an academic debate in the August issue of the American Sociological Review (ASR), the flagship journal of the American Sociological Association.

Elderly individuals who have a report of self-neglect or abuse submitted to a social service agency have an associated increased risk of death, according to a study in JAMA.

Elder self-neglect and abuse are serious, common, and unrecognized public health issues in the U.S., and a 2000 survey from social service agencies suggests that these cases are increasing, according to background information in the article. But the association of either elder self-neglect or abuse with an increased risk of death has been unclear.

New research suggests that universal intimate partner violence (IPV) screening in health care settings does not result in significant changes in subsequent reports of IPV or quality of life, according to a study in JAMA.