Culture

April 30, 2009 (Portland, Ore.) A brief intervention program – consisting of one counseling session and two follow-up phone calls – boosted by tenfold the number of women correctly performing breast self- exams. These are the findings of a Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research study in the American Journal of Health Promotion.

Electrofluidic Display Technology developed at the University of Cincinnati puts electronic book readers ahead by a wide margin.

For the first time "e-paper" will achieve the brilliance of printed media, as described in the May issue of Nature Photonics.

WASHINGTON -- The current policy and legal framework regulating use of cyberattack by the United States is ill-formed, undeveloped, and highly uncertain, says a new report from the National Research Council. The United States should establish clear national policy on the use of cyberattack, while also continuing to develop its technological capabilities in this area. The U.S. policy should be informed by open national debate on the technological, policy, legal, and ethical issues of cyberwarfare, said the committee that wrote the report.

Dallas, TX—April 29, 2009— A recent study in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management shows that as a result of a variety of interior enforcement initiatives implemented in 2002-2005, such as the ramping up of the Social Security no-match program, employers' demand for undocumented workers fell. This led toan erosion of the wages and employment opportunities of recent low-education male immigrants from Latin America with potentially negative implications for U.S. taxpayers.

ST. LOUIS – In a case study of a type of melanoma skin cancer typically found on chronically sun-exposed skin, Saint Louis University researchers found that imiquimod, a topical cream, produced good results for patients when used together with surgery to treat the cancer, potentially helping doctors cut less.

Any educational reform, no matter how effective it may seem today, will have to change in order to last, according to University of Chicago education researcher Jeanne Century.

The oxymoron stems from the reality of complex social processes. But this complexity is paralyzing educational reform efforts, said Century, director of science education at the University of Chicago's Center for Elementary Mathematics and Science Education.

A comprehensive assessment of the risk factors for preventable deaths in the United States has found that smoking and high blood pressure are responsible for the greatest number of preventable deaths – each accounting for around 1 in 5 deaths in US adults. The study, published in the open-access journal PLoS Medicine this week, finds that other dietary, lifestyle and metabolic risk factors also cause a substantial number of deaths in the United States.

Boston, MA – Smoking, high blood pressure and being overweight are the leading preventable risk factors for premature mortality in the United States, according to a new study led by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), with collaborators from the University of Toronto and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. The researchers found that smoking is responsible for 467,000 premature deaths each year, high blood pressure for 395,000, and being overweight for 216,000.

People with higher measures of cognitive ability are more likely to make good choices in several different types of economic decisions, according to a new study with researchers from the University of Minnesota's Twin Cities and Morris campuses.

New research published today (Monday April 27) from the University of Leicester and University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust warns of a six-month time lag before effective vaccines can be manufactured in the event of a pandemic flu outbreak.

By that time, the first wave of pandemic flu may be over before people are vaccinated, says Dr Iain Stephenson, Consultant in Infectious Diseases at the Leicester Royal Infirmary and a Clinical Senior Lecturer at the University of Leicester.

A new multicenter study involving UCLA and the RAND Corp. has found that perceived racial or ethnic discrimination is not an uncommon experience among fifth-grade students and that it may have a negative effect on their mental health.

Houston is a reflection of where most of America's cities will be in the next 20 years, according to Stephen Klineberg, Rice University sociologist and director of the annual Houston Area Survey.

Klineberg, who has led the study since its inception 28 years ago, said that along with the major immigration capitals of Los Angeles and New York City, and closely following upon Miami, San Francisco and Chicago, Houston is at the forefront of the new diversity that is refashioning the social and political landscape of urban America.

New data from the 2009 Houston Area Survey show that 45 percent of Houstonians today identify themselves as Democrats, while 39 percent report being Republicans, according to Stephen Klineberg, Rice University sociologist and director of the annual survey.

That's almost the opposite of the survey results 20 years ago, when 50 percent of Harris County residents considered themselves Republicans, and 39 percent identified as Democrats. Ten years ago, 43 percent said they were Republicans, and 39 percent said they were Democrats.

CHICAGO -- Making tumors inside the bladder fluoresce red under blue light allows physicians to more easily find and remove them, substantially reducing the rate at which these cancers come back, says a Mayo Clinic physician who is presenting results of a large, multicenter international clinical trial.

Due to the economy, more middle-class families are passing on private schools in favor of the local public school.

According to various educational studies, it's a move that urban school districts in particular should applaud. Studies show urban schools benefit educationally from an influx of middle class students and parents because of the resources (most notably time and money) that accompany them.