If the drug trade has helped define the modern Mexican state, writes the author of a new article in The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, so too have wars on drugs. In “From Bandit Hunting to a War Against ‘Social Poisoners’: Counterinsurgency as Drug War and Drug War as Counterinsurgency in 1960s-1970s Southern Mexico,” author Alexander Aviña argues that the strategies eventually employed against Mexican drug traders were first developed in the violent suppression of rural guerrilla movements. By dismissing radical dissidence and petty crime alike as acts of “banditry,” the Mexican state laid the foundations for a systematic counterinsurgency which, Aviña writes, would go on to constitute nothing less than “a social war against poor people.”

On Wall Street, analysts with short-term or long-term orientations may issue different financial forecasts for the same company, says Yong Yu, professor of accounting at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin.

In new research with Shuping Chen, professor of accounting at Texas McCombs, Yu finds those differences are partly cultural, depending on analysts’ cultures of origin. Analysts whose inferred ancestral cultures place greater emphasis on long-term orientation make more and better long-term earnings predictions. Their stock picks average 0.30% higher monthly returns than those of analysts from less long-term-oriented cultural backgrounds.

Scientists have analyzed how fear is used in anti-smoking campaigns by the U.S.-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), identifying five key strategies that make such messaging effective. Their findings show that when fear is combined with real-life stories, statistics, expert credibility, and clear calls to action, it can significantly influence people to quit smoking or avoid starting.

Social networks may help protect cognitive functioning in later life, particularly among older adults who are no longer working, according to a new IIASA-led study.

The media deal with suicide using metaphors of war, illness or journeys. The focus must move away from the individual, to instead frame suicide as an issue of collective responsibility