Culture

Whether forests are dying back, or just drying out, projections for warming show the Pacific Northwest is becoming primed for more wildfires.

The area burned by fire each year is expected to double – or even triple – if temperatures increase by about 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2 C) in our region, according to University of Washington and USDA Forest Service research. Such temperature increases could occur in as little as 40 years, according to projections from the UW's Climate Impacts Group.

There is no evidence to support the fact that smoking in cars is 23 times more toxic than in other indoor environments, states an analysis article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj090993.pdf.

A team of researchers from the University of Arizona has revisited evidence pointing to a cataclysmic event thought by many scientists to have wiped out the North American megafauna – such as mammoths, saber tooth cats, giant ground sloths and Dire wolves – along with the Clovis hunter-gatherer culture some 13,000 years ago. The team obtained their findings and published them in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

College women were more likely to be vaccinated against human papillomavirus (HPV) if their mothers communicated with them about sex and if they thought their mothers would approve of their getting vaccinated, according to new Dartmouth research in the May issue of Pediatrics (published online April 12).

What sports fan hasn't grumbled while waiting in a long, snaking lines to get into the stadium for the big game? It's enough to discourage even a diehard fan. But if you think it's a hassle getting into a sold-out game, imagine trying to get out after a bomb explodes—or even to get out under a bomb threat, for that matter.

Let's start with the emergency lights failing. If you're thinking of feeling your way out by the light of your cell phone, join the crowd—they're right beside you, pushing fifty-across and a thousand-deep in a stampede. It's everyone for himself.

The number of women dying from pregnancy-related causes has dropped by more than 35 percent in the past 30 years – from more than a half-million deaths annually in 1980 to about 343,000 in 2008, according to a new study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington and collaborators at the University of Queensland.

Washington, April 12, 2010—Important new findings and new research directions are the hallmarks of the March issue of Educational Researcher, a peer-reviewed publication of the American Educational Research Association. This issue is marked by a breadth of topics, data that debunk conventional wisdom, and articles likely to reframe future research.

BATON ROUGE – LSU Sociology Professor Edward Shihadeh and Ph.D. candidate Raymond Barranco have published a study titled "Latino Employment and Black Violence: The Unintended Consequence of U.S. Immigration Policy," in the March 2010 issue of Social Forces, the field's preeminent journal.

Girls and young women who drink alcohol increase their risk of benign (noncancerous) breast disease, says a study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and Harvard University. Benign breast disease increases the risk for developing breast cancer.

DURHAM, N.C. – Energy-efficiency measures in the southern U.S. could save consumers $41 billion on their energy bills, open 380,000 new jobs, and save 8.6 billion gallons of water by 2020, according to a new study from the Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions at Duke University and the Georgia Institute of Technology. The study concludes that investing $200 billion in energy efficiency programs by 2030 could return $448 billion in savings.

An estimated 122 trillion cubic feet (tcf) (mean estimate) of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas are in the Levant Basin Province, located in the Eastern Mediterranean region.

Technically recoverable resources are those producible using currently available technology and industry practices.

This is the first U.S. Geological Survey assessment of this basin to identify potentially extractable resources.

It is unlikely that single screening for chlamydia will prevent women developing pelvic inflammatory disease in the following year, according to research published on bmj.com today.

The study concludes that most cases of pelvic inflammatory disease occurred in women who did not have chlamydia infection when they were screened, suggesting they may have become infected later.

People researching their ancestors can open a "Pandora's Box" of secrets that may cause conflict and widen rifts in the family, new research says.

While most people derive pleasure and satisfaction from researching their ancestry, for some it brings to light "secrets and skeletons", the study says.

Dr Anne-Marie Kramer, of the University of Warwick, told the British Sociological Association's annual conference in Glasgow today [9 April] that of 224 people who gave her details of family history research, around 30 mentioned conflict.

Researchers at North Carolina State University have found a chemical compound that, when used in conjunction with conventional antibiotics, is effective in destroying biofilms produced by antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria such as the Staphylococcus strain MRSA and Acinetobacter. The compound also re-sentsitizes those bacteria to antibiotics.

"Love and marriage," sang philosopher Frank Sinatra, "is an institute you can't disparage." Especially, a new Tel Aviv University study suggests, when a happy marriage may help to prevent fatal strokes in men.