Culture

The photo-sharing app Snapchat is not yet as popular as Facebook for social networking, but its greater privacy could motivate users to share more intimate types of content - you know what we mean - for different purposes. A new study comparing Snapchat and Facebook use and their effect on romantic relationships is published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.

18 percent of drivers on academic and medical campuses use their cell phones while driving and drivers under 25 years old were 4.12 times more likely to use a cell phone while driving compared to older drivers. Females were 1.63 times more likely to use a cell phone while driving than male motorists. Unaccompanied drivers were also far more likely to use their cell phones than those who had other people in the car, according to researchers from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a group of climate change experts representatively selected from regions around the world that periodically releases Assessment Reports in order to inform policymakers and the public about the latest evidence for climate change. The publication of each report is a key event in the debate about climate change, but their reception and coverage in the media has varied widely.

There are significant differences in personalities between regions in Britain - Scots are amongst the friendliest and most co-operative residents, Londoners the most open and Welsh people are the least emotionally stable, according to analysis of surveys of just under 400,000 people from England, Wales or Scotland (Northern Ireland was excluded as sample sizes were too small), around two-thirds of whom were female.

The sale of human breast milk on the internet poses serious risks to infant health and needs urgent regulation, according to a new editorial in BMJ.

Back in 1992, when I was still attending high school, I convinced a friend to sneak in with me to the R-rated film Basic Instinct. I must confess that this course of action was not prompted by the acting skills of Michael Douglas but was rather due to the well-publicized lesbian scenes that were dotted throughout the film.

Anti-vaccination beliefs can cause real, substantive harm, as shown by the recent outbreak of measles in the US. These developments are as shocking and distressing as their consequences are predictable. But if the consequences are so predictable, why do the beliefs persist?

Most people do not realize it but there are two anthropologies; one which hopes to some day converge on a science of people and one which just accepts being another form of sociology. Given that, it would be difficult for a cultural anthropologist to survive any kind of legal cross-examination in a court room. Court cases are decided on facts, anthropology doesn't even define culture.

As Greece prepares to go head to head with Germany again in a bid to settle rancorous talks over its debt burden and austerity policies, it can all sometimes seem like an elaborate game of chess. That feeling is heightened by the media’s perception of one of Greece’s key negotiators, finance minister Yanis Varoufakis, as an academic “game theorist” who really should have a crucial advantage over his adversaries in the cut and thrust of negotiations.

Chicago, March 24, 2015 - The Alzheimer's Association's 2015 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures report, released today, found that only 45 percent of people with Alzheimer's disease or their caregivers say they were told the diagnosis by their doctor. In contrast, more than 90 percent of people with the four most common cancers (breast, colorectal, lung and prostate cancer) say they were told the diagnosis.

Verbal abuse, aggressive behavior, criminal damage to objects; such incidents are to be expected within certain professions but hardly anyone includes doctors, although they too are exposed to such problems.

Florian Vorderwülbecke and colleagues in the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International (Dtsch Arztebl Int 2015; 112: 159-65) investigate, for the first time, how often acts of violence and aggression against primary care physicians are committed in Germany.

The place of religions and belief systems, especially Christianity, in the school curriculum is a sensitive issue provoking much discussion and debate in Australia.

Are humans born with the ability to solve problems or is it something we learn along the way? A research group at the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, is working to find answers to this question.

The research group has developed a computer game called Quantum Moves, which has been played 400,000 times by ordinary people. This has provided unique and deep insight into the human brain's ability to solve problems. The game involves moving atoms around on the screen and scoring points by finding the best way to do so.

Clear and realistic expectations are key to successfully hiring heads of departments, say Professor Pierre-Alain Clavien, University of Zurich, and Joseph Deiss, former President of the Swiss Confederation, in a commentary in Nature magazine.

'Just call the police' is the common belief of the public when it comes to action against domestic violence.

The thinking behind the advice is the belief that mandatory arrest is an effective way to stop the abuse. The law, active in 22 states, says that police officers make an arrest if they respond to a call - even if they can't determine if someone was violent or out of control. Obviously such a law can easily be misused, an arrest is based on accusation, but it may also be intimidating victims to where they won't call the police to report an instance of abuse.