Culture

Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (29 July 2009) – Guns smuggled from the US arm criminals in Canada and Mexico, contributing to a higher murder rate in Canada and more intense drug crime conflict near the Mexican border, according to a study published today in a special issue of Criminology and Criminal Justice, published by SAGE.

Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (29 July, 2009) – The assumption that gangs are at the root of gun crime in the UK is overstated, according to a study published today in a special issue of Criminology and Criminal Justice, published by SAGE.

In their paper, 'That's Life Innit': A British perspective on Guns, Crime and Social Order, Professor Simon Hallsworth and Dr Daniel Silverstone suggest that while gangs certainly exist, they are not involved in most illegal shootings: the reality is far more complex.

The number of people killed by individuals suffering from mental illness in England and Wales increased between 1997 and 2005, figures released today show. The rise occurred in people who were not under mental health care and was not found in mental health patients.

The annual report by the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness also found:

A coalition of eight organizations have urged Congress to take steps to maintain adequate supplies of Molybdenum-99 (Mo-99), a radioactive substance that is the basis for a common medical isotope used in more than 80 percent of all nuclear medicine procedures.

A new study released by Rice University in Houston finds that California newspapers located closer to the border of Mexico routinely provide a more negative slant on immigration in general news reporting and on their opinion pages than the state's newspapers located further away from the border.

The study, "Slanted Newspaper Coverage of Immigration: The Importance of Economics and Geography," was conducted by Rice University political scientist Regina Branton and Johanna Dunaway of Louisiana State University and published in the Policy Studies Journal.

BEER-SHEVA, ISRAEL -- July 28, 2009 – A study conducted by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health indicates that approximately 16 percent of public health care workers will not report for work in a pandemic flu emergency, regardless of the severity.

The study,just published in the peer-reviewed online journal PLOS ONE, as conducted among 1,835 public health workers in Minnesota, Ohio and West Virginia from November 2006 to December 2007.

Although macrophages are known as essential players in wound healing, their contribution to recovery from spinal cord injury is a subject of debate. Using a mouse model of spinal injury, Michal Schwartz and colleagues from the Weizmann institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel tested the effect of macrophages on the recovery process after injury and demonstrate an important anti-inflammatory role for a subset of infiltrating monocyte-derived macrophages that is dependent upon their expression of the anti-inflammatory molecule interleukin-10.

Two articles published this week in the open-access journal PLoS Medicine highlight the need for, and the practicalities of, getting appropriate ethical review of research done in the context of humanitarian relief.

New US legislation granting the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) jurisdiction over tobacco products represents a serious compromise on the part of tobacco control advocates, argues a new essay in this week's open access journal PLoS Medicine.

A common food additive that gives M&Ms and Gatorade their blue tint may offer promise for preventing the additional – and serious – secondary damage that immediately follows a traumatic injury to the spinal cord.

Movement through tree tops in tropical forests can be particularly dangerous for large animals like orangutans where a fall of up to 30m could be fatal. Scientists found that dangerous tree vibrations can be countered by the orangutan's ability to move with an irregular rhythm.

A nation-wide estimate of the overall tiger population done by the Nepal Government's Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) shows the presence of 121 breeding tigers in the wild within the four protected areas of Nepal. The 2008 tiger population estimate was jointly implemented by the DNPWC, Department of Forests (DOF), WWF, National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC) with support from Save The Tiger Fund (STF), WWF-US, WWF-UK, WWF International and US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).

New York, N.Y., July 27, 2009—By a wide margin, health care leaders believe that individuals should have a choice of public and private health plans, and strongly support other central components of health reform such as innovative provider payment reform and a national insurance health exchange with strong standard-setting authority. In addition, two-thirds (68%) of opinion leaders feel it is urgent to enact comprehensive health care reform this year, according to the latest Commonwealth Fund/Modern Healthcare Health Care Opinion Leaders Survey.

EAST LANSING, Mich. – In an effort to improve worker health, researchers from Michigan State University and Portland State University have created an innovative training program that calls for supervisors to better support their employees' work and family demands.

The scientific-based program is featured in the upcoming August edition of the Journal of Management.

Why are so many students deep in debt before they finish college, only to take on more debt as they begin their careers? The answer may be found by looking at the social forces that shape the attitudes and behaviors of today's youth - forces influencing them in ways that will determine their financial success or failure as adults.