Culture

Children are more likely to watch high levels of television if their parents do, but parents do not need to be physically active to help their children to be active, a new study has found.

The paper, Parent and child physical activity and sedentary time: Do active parents foster active children? by Dr Russell Jago and colleagues in the Department of Exercise, Nutrition and Health Sciences at the University of Bristol is published online in BMC Public Health. The study has been funded by a grant from the British Heart Foundation.

Scientists from The Scripps Research Institute have created a novel technique that for the first time will allow the efficient production of a molecular structure that is common to a vast array of natural molecules. This advance provides a means to explore the potential of this molecular substructure in the search for new therapies.

The study was published on May 23, 2010 in an advance online edition of the journal Nature Chemistry.

Ensuring access to healthy, affordable foods is a top priority in tackling the obesity epidemic in the United States. Over the course of the last six months, the Institute of Medicine, United States Department of Agriculture, The White House and First Lady Michelle Obama have taken an interest in improving access to affordable and nutritious foods.

Chapel Hill (University of North Carolina), NC—Our busy lives sometimes feel like they are spinning out of control, and we lose track of the little things we can do to add meaning to our lives and make our loved ones feel appreciated. A new article in Personal Relationships points the way to the methods of gratitude we can use to give a boost to our romantic relationships, and help us achieve and maintain satisfaction with our partners.

The American College of Physicians (ACP), representing 129,000 internal medicine physician and medical student members, today said it strongly supports the proposed provision in the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act (H.R. 4213), to provide stable and positive Medicare payment updates to physicians. The measure begins moving to a new framework that could serve as the basis for permanently replacing the flawed and unworkable sustainable growth rate (SGR) formula.

ACP President J. Fred Ralston, Jr., MD, FACP reacted by saying:

TEMPE, Ariz. – The International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University and an international committee of taxonomists – scientists responsible for species exploration and classification – today announce the top 10 new species described in 2009.

URBANA – A recent research study has shown that food insecurity, a person's inability to obtain adequate amounts of food due to resource constraints, can lead to greater weight gain and increased complications during a woman's pregnancy.

All the gossip, insults and dirty looks add up fast on popular reality shows, far outpacing the level seen in equally popular dramas, comedies and soap operas according to a new Brigham Young University study.

The researchers looked at five reality shows and five non-reality shows and found 52 acts of aggression per hour on reality TV compared to 33 per hour for the non-reality programs.

"The Apprentice" topped the list at 85 acts of verbal or relational aggression per hour.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Scientists are a valuable and trusted source of information, researchers say in a recent report, but too often do an inadequate job of bringing that information to those who need it in a factual, non-technical, credible and neutral format.

Well, scientists did not go to school for public communication and the blame for factual, credible, neutral writing could be laid at the feet of science journalists who gave up all pretense of neutrality and are only now trying to get it back.

More than 20 percent of untreated water samples from 932 public wells across the nation contained at least one contaminant at levels of potential health concern, according to a new study by the U.S. Geological Survey.

About 105 million people — or more than one-third of the nation's population — receive their drinking water from one of the 140,000 public water systems across the United States that rely on groundwater pumped from public wells

New York, 21 May 2010 - Activities taking place around the world on the hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme with financial support from the European Commission; Germany, UK, Norway, Netherlands and Sweden [Saturday 22 May] reflect the growing recognition of the importance of biodiversity to all human well-being and for sustaining the ecosystems we all depend upon.

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study leader, Pavan Sukhdev says that the day should act as a catalyst for galvanising action to prevent further loss of biodiversity.

WASHINGTON, May 20, 2010 — Most patients in the southeastern United States are satisfied with the care they get from their primary care doctor — though many doctors lack training for dealing with patients of different ethnic backgrounds and often fail to ask important questions that indicate multicultural awareness, according to results of two surveys presented at the American Heart Association's 11th Scientific Forum on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research in Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke.