Culture

The bird that's experienced the steepest population declines in North America in recent decades is also one that few people have heard of: the Rusty Blackbird. Rusty Blackbird (Euphagus carolinus) populations have decreased by about 95% in the last fifty years, but the reasons are not well understood; it doesn't help that their preferred breeding habitat, stunted conifers deep in the wetlands of the boreal forest, makes finding and studying them difficult.

The Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease crisis in Europe was a turning point for the diet of the Galician wolf in Spain, which until the year 2000 had primarily fed on the carrion of domestic animals. A new study shows that, after European health regulations made it illegal to abandon dead livestock, wolves started to consume more wild boars, roe deer and wild ponies, but also began to attack more cattle ranches when faced with food shortages in certain areas.

More than one in four Americans has taken prescription painkillers in the past year, even as a majority say that abuse of these medications is a very serious public health concern, according to new Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health research.

Roughly seven in 10 Americans have been prescribed the medications in their lifetime and 17 percent say they have taken painkillers prescribed for someone else, the researchers found in what they believe is the first national public opinion study on this topic.

Children's self-esteem is linked to the behaviour of who is considered the most powerful parent within the household, new University of Sussex research suggests.

The study of English and Indian families living in Britain is the first to assess the impact on a child's wellbeing of the household power structures that exist within different cultures.

Psychologists interviewed 125 English and Indian families living in West London.

A new study by a UCLA-led team of scholars and law enforcement officials suggests the answer is yes. A mathematical model they devised to guide where the Los Angeles Police Department should deploy officers, led to substantially lower crime rates during a recent 21-month period.

TAIPEI, TAIWAN - Researchers from the Department of Bio-Industry Communication and Development at National Taiwan University have new insights into who buys fresh flowers as gifts, and why consumers purchase floral gifts. Their study in HortScience reveals some interesting factors that they say can inform retail floral marketing. Fresh flower purchases, say the researchers, are based on a set of "gift values", and depend on the relationship between the giver and receiver.

The factors that determine the level of patient satisfaction with pediatric care vary significantly depending on which departmental setting patients receive treatment within a healthcare system, according to a new study published in the American Journal of Medical Quality. Researchers from Nemours/Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children in Delaware said the findings could greatly aid improvements in patient experience in primary, specialty outpatient specialty, emergency, and inpatient care settings.

More than half of hospitalizations due to influenza pneumonia could be prevented by influenza vaccination, according to a study led by investigators at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"We estimated that about 57 percent of influenza-related pneumonia hospitalization could be prevented through influenza vaccination," said Carlos Grijalva, M.D., MPH, associate professor of Health Policy.

Residents of Copenhagen, Denmark, are more likely than Houstonians to believe immigration threatens their country's culture. That's one of several findings in a new survey from Rice University's Kinder Institute for Urban Research.

Scientists have discovered what they believe has the potential to prevent the onset of an aggressive and hard-to-treat form of rheumatoid arthritis - a condition that affects 700,000 adults in the UK.

Published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, a team of immunologists from Cardiff University tread new ground in describing how an immune system protein -- interleukin-27 -- regulates the inflammatory process in lymphoid-rich rheumatoid arthritis, which causes the characteristic symptoms of swollen and painful joints.

The popularity of ziplining has skyrocketed rapidly in recent years. The number of commercial ziplines in the U.S. rose from 10 in 2001 to more than 200 in 2012, in addition to more than 13,000 amateur ziplines which can be found in outdoor education programs, camps, and backyards. The increase in popularity has also increased the number of injuries related to ziplining. A new study by researchers in the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital found that an estimated 16,850 non-fatal zipline-related injuries were treated in U.S.

Although children with high health care needs represent a small percentage of the overall pediatric population, they account for a large percentage of pediatric health care costs, including up to 40% of pediatric hospital charges. In recent years, there has been more information available about the medical care received by these children, but generally studies have been limited to care provided in hospital settings.

There was a time when urine, yes urine, was prized by chemists. Pee played a part in some of the most significant discoveries in science, and it helped shape the modern world. This week, Reactions looks at the reasons why pee was once the "number one" material in chemistry.

source: The American Chemical Society

Patients undergoing rehabilitation for physical injuries and their physicians can better understand who is most at risk of abusing opioids by reviewing their family history, lifestyle and environment for critical cues about susceptibility to addiction, according to physical medicine and rehabilitation experts.

Physicians' unconscious attitudes toward special patient populations like disabled and LGBT patients may be partially responsible for poorer overall health observed in these communities, according to a Rowan University professor of family medicine.