Culture

Highlights

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (EMBARGOED UNTIL February 14, 2013) – New research from the University of Minnesota's School of Public Health has found lower cesarean birth rates among Medicaid beneficiaries with access to support from a birth doula than among Medicaid patients nationally. A doula is not a medical provider, but is a trained, experienced professional person who can provide information, physical assistance and support to a woman during childbirth.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – When people lose hope that they will ever get another good night's sleep, they become at high risk for suicide, researchers report.

Insomnia and nightmares, which are often confused and may go hand-in-hand, are known risk factors for suicide but just how they contribute was unknown, said Dr. W. Vaughn McCall, Chair of the Medical College of Georgia Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior at Georgia Regents University.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Physical Society (APS), the nation's largest organization of physicists, commends President Obama's exhortation in his State of the Union Speech that, "Now is the time to reach a level of research and development not seen since the height of the Space Race."

During the Space Race, the nation made huge investments in scientific research, which led to new discoveries, accelerated technological advancements and generated new innovations and businesses.

New Haven, Conn. – A new study has linked exposure to two common perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) with osteoarthritis. PFCs are used in more than 200 industrial processes and consumer products including certain stain- and water-resistant fabrics, grease-proof paper food containers, personal care products, and other items. Because of their persistence, PFCs have become ubiquitous contaminants of humans and wildlife.

Philadelphia, PA—Social groups in a population can lend important cues to law enforcement officials, consumer-based services and risk assessors. Social and geographical patterns that provide information about such communities or gangs have been a popular subject for mathematical modeling.

In a paper published last month in the SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics, authors use police department records about individuals' social and geographical information to determine gang memberships.

New Haven, Conn. – A new study has linked exposure to two common perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) with osteoarthritis. PFCs are used in more than 200 industrial processes and consumer products including certain stain- and water-resistant fabrics, grease-proof paper food containers, personal care products, and other items. Because of their persistence, PFCs have become ubiquitous contaminants of humans and wildlife.

LOS ANGELES (Feb. 14, 2013) – New research from the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute (LA BioMed) found a progestogen-only treatment halted bleeding in women suffering from extremely heavy periods, according to the study published online by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Our love of music and appreciation of musical harmony is learnt and not based on natural ability – a new study by University of Melbourne researchers has found.

Associate Professor Neil McLachlan from the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences said previous theories about how we appreciate music were based on the physical properties of sound, the ear itself and an innate ability to hear harmony.

"Our study shows that musical harmony can be learnt and it is a matter of training the brain to hear the sounds," Associate Professor McLachlan said.

[EMBARGOED FOR FEB. 14, 2013] Results from a new study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases suggest a link between untreated depression in older adults and decreased effectiveness of the herpes zoster, or shingles, vaccine. Older adults are known to be at risk for shingles, a painful condition caused by the reactivation of the varicella-zoster virus, and more than a million new cases occur each year in the U.S. The vaccine boosts cell-mediated immunity to the virus and can decrease the incidence and severity of the condition.

There is a large mismatch between patients' expectations regarding the duration of an acute cough and the actual duration based on the best available evidence, and this disparity has important implications for unnecessary antibiotic prescribing.

A systematic review of the medical literature showed the mean duration of a cough is 17.8 days. When surveyed, nearly 500 adults in Georgia reported a median duration of only five to seven days and a mean duration of seven to nine days, depending on the specific scenario.

Over the last 20 years, California's tobacco control program cost $2.4 billion - that is real money - but it reduced health care costs by $134 billion in pretend money, according to a new estimate from the director of the UCSF Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education.

Additionally, the paper, covering the beginning of the program in 1989 to 2008,- found that the state program helped lead to some 6.8 billion fewer packs of cigarettes being sold that would have been worth $28.5 billion in sales to evil cigarette companies.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Hospital beds tend to get used simply because they're available – not necessarily because they're needed, according to a first-of-its-kind study that supports continued regulation of new hospitals.

The onset of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is unpredictable. Because it depends on the unforeseeable occurrence of traumatic events, it is difficult to identify preventative or causative factors. Scientists typically turn to patients who have already developed PTSD to study the disorder, but that means they can't draw comparisons to their psychological state prior to experiencing trauma.

COLUMBIA, Mo. – Research shows that married people have better mental and physical health than their unmarried peers and are less likely to develop chronic conditions than their widowed or divorced counterparts. A University of Missouri expert says that people who have happy marriages are more likely to rate their health as better as they age; aging adults whose physical health is declining could especially benefit from improving their marriages.