EurekAlert! - Social and Behavioral Science

Driver safety Web site from Car Talk, U of Utah

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Utah) NPR's Car Talk guys, Tom and Ray Magliozzi, may be a couple of motor mouths, but they always put a lid on using cell phones behind the wheel. The perennial jokesters confirm their serious commitment to addressing the issue of devices that take a driver's focus off the road by teaming with the University of Utah to launch the Driver Distraction Center at their Web site.

Failed college dreams don't spell depression, study finds

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(Florida State University) High school seniors, take note: a wise person once said, "It is better to shoot for the stars and miss than aim at the gutter and hit it."That's right on, says Florida State University Sociology Professor John R. Reynolds, who just completed a study to determine whether unrealized educational expectations are associated with depression among adults. Reynolds also is the director of the Pepper Institute on Aging and Public Policy at Florida State.

Identity, politics and Obama -- does 'who we are' still matter?

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(SAGE Publications UK) A groundbreaking new handbook released by SAGE this month brings together the vast and interdisciplinary field of identity research, culminating from a huge four-year, £4 million ESRC-funded research program on Identities and Social Action.

Sleep deprivation influences drug use in teens' social networks

Fri, 19 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(University of California - San Diego) Recent studies have shown that behaviors such as happiness, obesity, smoking and altruism are "contagious" within adult social networks. In other words, your behavior not only influences your friends, but also their friends and so on. Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, and Harvard University have taken this a step farther and found that the spread of one behavior in social networks influences the spread of another behavior, adolescent drug use.

Women do make men throw caution to the wind, research confirms

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(SAGE Publications) The presence of an attractive woman elevates testosterone levels and physical risk taking in young men, according to a recent study in the inaugural issue of Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Cancer-themed issue of JAMA features UAB researchers on reducing disparities

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Alabama at Birmingham) Tobacco use and related cancers have decreased the mortality gap but not significantly, says Edward Partridge, M.D., president-elect of the American Cancer Society National Board of Directors. "The first step is to engage the community," he and his co-authors write in a commentary.

Success against malaria bolsters case for further investment, new report shows

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(World Vision) A paper linking funding increases in the global fight against malaria to a drop in deaths from the disease also shows resources still fall short of those needed for maximum impact against the world's fourth-biggest killer of children, according to a global health policy analyst at international aid agency World Vision. With World Malaria Day just weeks away, World Vision urges donor governments increase funding and the US meets the commitments signed into law under its Global AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria bill.

Pesticide chlorpyrifos is linked to childhood developmental delays

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health) Exposure to the pesticide chlorpyrifos -- which is banned for use in US households but is still widely used throughout the agricultural industry -- is associated with early childhood developmental delays, according to a study by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

ACP urges Congress to vote 'yes' on comprehensive health reform legislation

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(American College of Physicians) The American College of Physicians, representing 129,000 internal medicine physician and medical student members, said today that Congress should cast the final votes needed to get comprehensive health care reform enacted into law. Without reform, ACP said, tens of millions of Americans stand to lose access to affordable health care and out-of-control spending will trigger an unprecedented fiscal and budgetary crisis.

Researchers to test renewable-energy system at local treatment plant

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Nevada, Reno) A successful University of Nevada, Reno renewable energy research project is moving from the lab to the real world in a demonstration-scale system to turn wastewater sludge into electricity. The new patent-pending, low-cost, energy-efficient technology is scheduled to be set up in the Truckee Meadows Water Reclamation Facility next month following the recent signing of an interlocal agreement with the cities of Reno and Sparks.

Broad application of bipolar diagnosis in children may do more harm than good

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(The Hastings Center) Troubled children diagnosed with bipolar disorder may fare better with a different diagnosis, according to researchers at The Hastings Center.The researchers support an emerging approach, which gives many of those children a new diagnosis called severe mood dysregulation or temper dysregulation disorder with dysphoria.

March Of Dimes honored with Research!America advocacy award

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(March of Dimes Foundation) The March of Dimes received Research!America's 2010 Advocacy Award for its decades of advocacy for maternal and child health. It was honored for its work to create the CDC's National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities, initiate the PREEMIE and Newborn Screening Saves Lives acts. With its partners, it campaigned to reauthorize the Children's Health Insurance Program. It also supports the National Institutes of Health and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Mobile learning with iPhone now possible

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(Institute for Tropical Medicine Antwerp) Researchers at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium and at the Institute of Tropical Medicine Alexander von Humboldt in Lima, Peru, are the first to offer an open source code that allows the learning platform Moodle to be accessed with the iPhone. This code enables people worldwide to follow continuing medical education modules wherever and whenever they want. Starting today the demo site is open to all. The open source code will be made available after the demo phase.

New lessons from York's Medieval massacre

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(University of York) A major international conference next week will take a fresh perspective on one of the darkest episodes in English medieval history -- the mass suicide and murder of Jewish men, women and children in York in 1190.

Manufacturing antibodies

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(EUREKA) New antibodies and recombinant proteins with a key signaling role in immune response to disease have been produced through collaboration between molecular immunology institutes in the Czech Republic and Germany and a private company. The proteins have their own direct uses in immunization and are also the starting point for production of novel, highly specific antibodies with a wide range of biomedical applications. All of the new products are already being marketed commercially.

Bloomberg School of Public Health awarded $15 million for laboratory renovation and modernization

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health) The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health will receive nearly $15 million from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for renovation and modernization of laboratory space at its main facility. The grant was awarded by the National Center for Research Resources, part of the NIH. The renovation includes updating labs and new infrastructure in the 45-year old Hume Wing, which was built in 1964 and houses 25 percent of the School's research laboratories.

Looming unemployment harms older workers' health

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(The Gerontological Society of America) Downsizing and demotions at the workplace can be a health hazard for people over age 50, according to research reported in a recent issue of the Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological and Social Sciences.

Nano-based RFID tags could replace bar codes

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(Rice University) Rice researchers, in collaboration with a team led by Gyou-jin Cho at Sunchon National University in Korea, have come up with an inexpensive, printable transmitter that can be invisibly embedded in packaging. It would allow a customer to walk a cart full of groceries or other goods past a scanner on the way to the car.

Global database needed to guarantee identification of victims in mass disasters

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(University of Granada) An expert in forensic anthropology argues that the database should include computer records of citizens such as anthropological data, physiognomic characteristics, medical information, radiographic files, dental records and numbers of different identity documents. Tzipi Kahana believes that radiographic techniques, together with information from this database, are a reliable mechanism for identifying bodies after natural disasters or attacks.

Some bullies are just the shy type: New research shows a darker side to social anxiety disorder

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(George Mason University) When you think of people suffering from social anxiety, you probably characterize them as shy, inhibited and submissive. However, new research from psychologists Todd Kashdan and Patrick McKnight at George Mason University suggests that there is a subset of socially anxious people who act out in aggressive, risky ways -- and that their behavior patterns are often misunderstood.

Cultural divide in ability to recognize sensual sounds

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(Faculty of 1000: Biology and Medicine) An F1000 evaluation looks at a British study of how the six basic human emotions are universally recognized but other positive emotions are culturally specific.A team from University College London's psychology department studied a range of non-verbal emotional vocalizations, such as screams and laughs, in two very different cultural groups.

ESHRE Annual Meeting, June 27-30 in Rome

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology) ESHRE's Annual Meeting is the forum where more than 8,000 of the world’s leading experts in reproductive medicine gather to give the first public presentation of their latest research findings. Issues that present policy-makers and ethicists with some of the most challenging problems and difficult decisions currently facing society, will be discussed.

A bleak outlook for social science?

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(SAGE Publications UK) Social science is at the center of every major challenge the world faces, yet faces a tough future, according to a panel of senior academics and politicians speaking in London this week. They were taking part in a debate hosted by the British Academy and SAGE to explore how social science research can strengthen its involvement in policy-making, increase its impact, and combat potential public expenditure cuts.

Cat-calls are detrimental to everyone

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(Springer) For every woman who is a direct target of sexism, there are others who witness the event and are also affected. The actions of one sexist man affect how female bystanders feel and behave towards men in general. Stephenie Chaudoir and Diane Quinn, from the University of Connecticut in the US, publish their work on the effects of bystander sexism and group-level reactions to sexism in Springer's journal Sex Roles.

Study probes evolution of fairness and punishment

Thu, 18 Mar 2010 00:00:00 EDT

(University of California - Davis) A new study co-authored by University of California, Davis, anthropologist Richard McElreath and published in Science magazine suggests that the cooperative nature of each society is at least partly dependent upon historical forces -- such as religious beliefs and the growth of market transactions.