Culture

A paper published in the journal Criminology & Public Policy addresses one of the most important crime policy questions in America: Can prison populations be reduced without endangering the public?

That question was examined by researchers who tested the impact on public safety of California's dramatic efforts to comply with court-mandated targets to reduce prison overcrowding

An international review team has prepared a Cochrane systematic review to assess the accuracy of a point-of-care urine test for diagnosing and screening tuberculosis (TB) in people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

The 'weekend effect' - that patients admitted to hospital over the weekend are at an increased risk of death - overshadows a much more complex pattern of weekly changes in quality of care, which are unlikely to be addressed by simply increasing the availability of hospital doctors on Saturdays and Sundays, according to two new studies published in The Lancet.

Signaling a potential new approach to treating diabetes, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Harvard University have produced insulin-secreting cells from stem cells derived from patients with type 1 diabetes.

People with this form of diabetes can't make their own insulin and require regular insulin injections to control their blood sugar. The new discovery suggests a personalized treatment approach to diabetes may be on the horizon -- one that relies on the patients' own stem cells to manufacture new cells that make insulin.

In a study published today in the journal PeerJ, scientists from the Charles Darwin Research Station (CDRS) and the National Geographic Society revealed that the northern Galapagos islands of Darwin and Wolf are home to the largest shark biomass reported to date (12.4 tons per hectare).

Common measures used by government agencies and public rankings to rate the safety of hospitals do not accurately capture the quality of care provided, new research from the Johns Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality suggests.

Chapman University has just published the results of a national study on the factors linked to satisfaction with appearance and weight. In a survey of more than 12,000 Americans adults, the questions focused on personality, beliefs about romantic relationships, self-esteem, television viewing, and personal characteristics.

May 10, 2016--The Lancet Commission's groundbreaking report released today, "Our Future: A Lancet Commission on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing," finds that years of neglect and underinvestment have had serious detrimental effects on the health and wellbeing of adolescents aged 10-24 years. Launched in London, the report shows that two-thirds of young people are growing up in countries where preventable and treatable health problems like HIV/AIDS, early pregnancy, unsafe sex, depression, injury, and violence are an ongoing threat to their health and wellbeing.

DENVER - May 11, 2016 -- A new national asthma survey commissioned by National Jewish Health shows that many adults are unaware of common symptoms of asthma in adults. Doctors say that the findings explain why many adults with asthma may not realize that they have the disease, and don't seek treatment that can help them.

The survey shows that, while people are aware of some of the most common asthma signs such as wheezing and shortness of breath, many don't recognize other warning symptoms like trouble sleeping, chest pain, and persistent cough.

The price of curing hepatitis C in the long term is much cheaper than the ongoing expense of older therapies or delayed treatments, including liver transplants, according to a group of studies published this month in a special edition of the American Journal of Managed Care.

PHILADELPHIA -- Using generic instead of brand name medications can save money for both patients and health systems. Some studies have even shown that prescribing generic medications leads to higher adherence and better outcomes, yet many physicians still prescribe brand name drugs when they could be prescribing equivalent generics.

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Previous studies have shown that as humans age, cognitive declines are inevitable. Now, a recent study by researchers at the University of Missouri and Texas Tech University has confirmed that this cognitive decline extends into financial literacy. The researchers also found that older individuals retain a strong sense of self-confidence, which could add to the problem, leading to significant mistakes when making financial decisions.

HANOVER, N.H. - An international group of mathematicians at Dartmouth College and other institutions have released a new online resource that provides detailed maps of previously uncharted mathematical terrain.

Images and an animated graphic are available at http://aimath.org/aimnews/lmfdb/images/

San Jose, Calif., May 10, 2016 -- A team of more than 80 mathematicians from 12 countries has begun charting the terrain of rich, new mathematical worlds, and sharing their discoveries on the Web. The mathematical universe is filled with both familiar and exotic items, many of which are being made available for the first time. The "L-functions and Modular Forms Database," abbreviated LMFDB, is an intricate catalog of mathematical objects and the connections between them.

(ABINGTON, PA) - About 38 million Americans suffer from migraines in the United States, according to the Migraine Research Foundation. The most commonly used and effective classes of medication, triptans and DHE (Dihydroergotamine), however, have a black box warning for two subtypes of migraine because of risk of stroke. Now researchers at Abington-Jefferson Health have shown that patients who were given the drugs off-label had no stroke or other cardiovascular side-effects from taking the drugs.