Culture

URBANA - On Tuesday, representatives of the Eastern Illinois Foodbank shared results of a national study sponsored by Feeding America, the nation's largest domestic hunger-relief organization. The study is completed every four years by nearly 200 food banks and analyzes the effectiveness of emergency food distribution throughout the United States. Craig Gundersen, an associate professor in the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics at the University of Illinois, is a member of the Technical Advisory Group for this report.

WASHINGTON – The American Psychological Association urged both the Pentagon and Congress today to move swiftly to end the restrictions on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, noting that there are decades of scientific research demonstrating no threat to military readiness or morale.

On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Fundación Tres Culturas del Mediterráneo in September 30th, 2009, José Antonio Griñán, president of the Junta de Andalucía, presented a facsimile edition of a 13th century Andalusian Qur'an at the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco.

Male homosexuality doesn't make complete sense from an evolutionary point of view. It appears that the trait is heritable, but because homosexual men are much less likely to produce offspring than heterosexual men, shouldn't the genes for this trait have been extinguished long ago? What value could this sexual orientation have, that it has persisted for eons even without any discernible reproductive advantage?

Washington, D.C. February 4, 2010 - A new report, Adult Immunization: Shots to Save Lives, released today by the Trust for America's Health (TFAH), the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) found that more than 30 percent of adults ages 65 and older had not been immunized against pneumonia in 36 states as of 2008. The U.S.

High school students born in the United States need not view their immigrant classmates as a threat to getting a good standardized test score and, ultimately, into a good college, according to a Kansas State University economist.

The state of Michigan, which used a five-step checklist developed at Johns Hopkins to virtually eliminate bloodstream infections in its hospitals' intensive care units , has been able to keep the number of these common, costly and potentially lethal infections near zero — even three years after first adopting the standardized procedures. A report on the work is being published in the February 20 issue of BMJ (British Medical Journal).

In an advance with overtones of Star Trek phasers and other sci-fi ray guns, scientists in Canada are reporting development of an internal on-off "switch" that paralyzes animals when exposed to a beam of ultraviolet light. The animals stay paralyzed even when the light is turned off. When exposed to ordinary light, the animals become unparalyzed and wake up. Their study appears in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). It reports the first demonstration of such a light-activated switch in animals.

Amid concern about the potential toxic effects of the fluorochemicals used in nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, and other consumer products, manufacturers are using new versions of these chemicals that may be safer. That's the topic of the cover story in the current issue of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine.

Seeing someone perform a virtuous deed (especially if they are helping another person), makes us feel good, often eliciting a warm, fuzzy feeling in our chest. This positive, uplifting emotion, known as "elevation," might make us feel great, but is it enough to get us to go out and perform good acts ourselves? According to new findings reported in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, the answer may be yes.

Scientists in Poland are describing how a medical imaging technique has taken on a second life in revealing forgery of an artist's signature and changes in inscriptions on paintings that are hundreds of years old. A report on the technique, called optical coherence tomography (OCT), is in ACS' Accounts of Chemical Research, a monthly journal.

Three-quarters of nurses providing private and public care experienced workplace violence, but only one in six incidents were formally reported, according to study published in the February issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing.

The majority (92%) said they had been verbally abused, 69% had been physically threatened and 52% had been physically assaulted. A total of 2,354 incidents were reported to the research team, with nurses facing an average of two to 46 incidents a year.

Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (February 03, 2010) – UK programmes designed to help the unemployed get back to work and support young parents are losing impact because they are not designed with the participants' gender in mind. Men as well as women can lose out as a result of 'gender blind' policies. This finding, based on two case studies in the North East of England, appears in Critical Social Policy this week, published by SAGE.

Preventing patients from leaving psychiatric wards without staff agreement could avoid up to 50 suicide deaths every year, say University of Manchester researchers.

A new report by the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness suggests that the ward environment may play a part in the level of patients leaving the ward, and that attempts should be made to optimise it. It also urges mental health services to improve awareness among staff of the antecedents of suicide among high-risk groups.

Montreal, February 3, 2010 -- Jake Murdoch spends much of his time examining how deftly graduates can match their degrees to eventual jobs. In the process, this professor at the Université de Montréal Faculty of Education has uncovered startling cultural and job market differences around the world.