Culture

Researchers have found that polytherapy with multiple anti-epileptic drugs (AEDs) did not result in greater adverse effects than monotherapy for patients with refractory epilepsy. This observational study also found AED load was not a factor in causing adverse effects, but suggests that individual susceptibility, type of AEDs used, and physicians' skills determine which patients suffer adverse effects. Results of this study are available today in Epilepsia, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the International League Against Epilepsy.

New Haven, Conn.—Paleontologists have discovered a new species of dinosaur with a softball-sized lump of solid bone on top of its skull, according to a paper published in the April issue of the journal Cretaceous Research.

Remember when biofuels were all the rage, even to a point where Vice-President Al Gore would use his leverage to get government endorsements behind them?

Women's fashion magazines are chock full of ads, some featuring bizarre and grotesque images. According to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research, these ads are effective at grabbing consumers' attention.

The study lists the following examples from fashion magazines like Vogue: a Jimmy Choo ad depicting a woman fishing a purse out of a pool that contains a floating corpse of man, and a Dolce & Gabbana ad that features one beautiful woman in period costume skewering another in the neck.

Gruesome war-time images of death and destruction are necessary if you want to be angry about American involvement in the Mid-East and you may have to go outside US media to find them, according to a study by an Egyptian associate professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Arizona.

Deaf children who receive cochlear implants appear more likely to fail early grades in school, but they ultimately achieve educational and employment levels similar to their normal-hearing peers, according to a report in the April issue of Archives of Otolaryngology–Head & Neck Surgery, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

People who think more abstractly respond better to ads that portray mixed emotions, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Authors Jiewen Hong (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology) and Angela Y. Lee (Northwestern University) also discovered that factors such as age and culture affect people's ability to think abstractly.

When we like a product, do we think others will like it, too? And when we believe others like a product, do we like it as well? A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research says these two questions are fundamentally different.

The nominee to head the Pentagon's new CyberCommand testified in front of Congress late last week that employing Cold War strategies to cyberwarfare challenges may not work for the United States.. A newly published research paper by a University of Cincinnati professor and colleagues goes a step further and concludes more directly that deterrence can not serve as the primary national cybersecurity strategy.

Johns Hopkins epidemiologists say that prostate cancer patients who gain five or more pounds near the time of their prostate surgery are twice as likely to have a recurrence of their cancer compared with patients whose weight is stable.

"We surveyed men whose cancer was confined to the prostate, and surgery should have cured most of them, yet some cancers recurred. Obesity and weight gain may be factors that tip the scale to recurrence," says Corinne Joshu, Ph.D., M.P.H., postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Researchers at the Universidad Pompeu Fabra (UPF) have studied how older people interact and use email in their daily life. The study was carried out in social centres in Barcelona and will be used to design new email systems that are more intuitive and accessible.

Dr. Neal Shore (GB) presented for the first time in Europe the updated results of the study "Sipuleucel-T Active Cellular Immunotherapy for Metastatic, Castration-Resistant Prostate Cancer: results from the IMPACT trial," during the second plenary session of the 25th Anniversary EAU Congress in Barcelona.

"This study shows a potential new treatment paradigm in oncology and is the first active immunotherapy to demonstrate improvement in overall survival (OS) for metastatic CRPC (castrate-resistant prostate cancer)," said Shore

Air Force Office of Scientific Research-funded Colorado State University researchers are trying to solve computationally difficult problems related to logistics planning, vehicle routing, resource allocation, circuit design, wireless frequency assignment and scheduling.

Dr. Adele Howe and co-researcher, Dr. Darrell Whitley are passionate about finding the best possible solutions to some of the Air Force's most difficult problems by using a tremendous amount of data to verify analytical results on real problems.

Boston, MA – A tobacco company's new, dissolvable nicotine pellet, which is intended as a temporary form of nicotine for smokers in settings where smoking is banned but critics claim resembles popular candies, could lead to accidental nicotine poisoning in children, worries the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), the Northern Ohio Poison Control Center, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The researchers further claim the candy-like products could appeal to young people and lead to nicotine addiction.

A female director wins best director at the Oscars. A female-driven movie wins two Academy Awards, including best adapted screenplay. It may not be a huge sign, but it signals a huge shift in what the general public is watching and how Hollywood is viewing the much-maligned genre, the "chick flick."