Culture

WALTHAM, Mass. – The wealth gap between white and African-American families increased more than four times between 1984-2007, and middle-income white households now own far more wealth than high-income African Americans, according to an analysis released on Monday by the Institute on Assets and Social Policy (IASP) at Brandeis University.

ATS 2010, NEW ORLEANS— Google Flu Trends is not as accurate at estimating rates of laboratory-confirmed influenza as CDC national surveillance programs, according to a new study from the University of Washington.

The findings will be reported at the ATS 2010 International Conference in New Orleans.

Lake Tanganyika, the second-oldest and second-deepest lake in the world, could be in for some rough waters.Geologists have determined that the East African rift lake has experienced unprecedented warming during the last century; its surface waters are the warmest on record.

That finding is important, the scientists state in this week's on-line issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, because the warm surface waters likely will affect fish stocks upon which millions of people in the region depend.

Hospitals are large, complex institutions housing innumerable units, sections and visitor destinations. And in the United States alone, diversity is increasing within most locales, making it difficult to comply with federal requirements for text signs in patients' languages.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Physical Society (APS), a leading organization of physicists, today called for swift action on the U.S. House reauthorization of the 2007 bipartisan America COMPETES legislation, after the bill was sent back to the Science & Technology Committee for legislative changes.

WASHINGTON, DC (May 14, 2010) – In response to recent announcements about consumer genetic tests being made available in retail drugstores, the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) todayreiterated its position that these tests should be provided to the public only through the services of appropriate health care professionals that order tests from laboratories that are certified by CLIA for high complexity testing.

Montreal, May 14, 2010 – In Canada, in stark contrast with the rest of the world, wealthy men increase their likelihood of being overweight with every extra dollar they make. The new study was led by Natalie Dumas, a graduate student at the University of Montreal Department of Sociology, and presented at the annual conference of the Association francophone pour le savoir (ACFAS).

"Women aren't spared by this correlation, but results are ambiguous," says Dumas. "However, women from rich households are less likely to be obese than women of middle or lower income."

(Boston) – Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have identified clinical characteristics associated with prescription drug use disorder (PDUD) in primary care patients with chronic pain. The study found that by identifying characteristics of prescription drug abuse, primary care clinicians can identify those at risk and provide appropriate treatment. This study currently appears on-line in Journal of Pain.

The ability of yeast cells to convert sugar to alcohol, the key process in the production of beer and wine, can be attributed to a remarkable evolutionary process. The genes that allow yeast to digest sugars in fruits and grains have been duplicated several times over the course of time – allowing for optimal conversion of different types of sugars (such as sucrose and maltose) into alcohol. The duplications arose because the genes for sugar processing are situated close to the unstable margin of the chromosome.

Despite an upward curve for 30 years, crime rates suddenly began to drop in the 1990s. More police, said the right. Abortions by mothers who would have been poor parents and raised criminals, said the left. Basically, no one had an answer but everyone was taking some credit.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Local ordinances in Appalachian states with weak statewide smoking regulations do not offer most residents adequate protection against second-hand smoke, according to a new study.

Researchers examined smoking-related ordinances at the community level in six Appalachian states. Based on their analysis, they said that efforts should be focused on enacting strong statewide clean indoor air laws rather than relying on local ordinances to make public places smoke-free in some of these states.

PHILADELPHIA –- Two University of Pennsylvania mathematicians have found solutions to a 140-year-old, 7-dimensional equation that were not known to exist for more than a century despite its widespread use in modeling the behavior of gases.

WASHINGTON (13 May 2010) -- Five engineering breakthroughs, from software for virtual surgery to an energy saving device that detects drafts, were cited today by IEEE-USA, the U.S. career and public policy unit of the IEEE, the world's largest professional association for the advancement of technology.

The five breakthroughs, as included in television news reports recently distributed to almost 200 local U.S. TV stations, are:

Falling down is hazardous to a senior citizen's health, yet fewer than half of all seniors see a doctor after a fall. And those who don't seek medical attention are far less likely to engage in any of the six widely recommended activities — such as a review of their medications or getting a cane or walker — that might prevent repeated falls, according to a new policy brief from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.