Culture

Murderers who kill intimate partners and family members have a significantly different psychological and forensic profile from murderers who kill people they don't know, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study that examined the demographics, psychiatric history and neuropsychology of these individuals.

The new knowledge about murderers who commit what is called spontaneous domestic homicide -- emotionally driven crimes that are not premeditated -- could enable early intervention to prevent the homicide, the authors said.

Many parents and guardians who use e-cigarettes are not aware of the dangers they pose to children, according to a new study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Many scientists and health experts are unaware there are any dangers for parents to be worried about, at least compared to actual smoking, which far too many children do. Very few children, in the statistical noise range, try e-cigarettes without having used cigarettes first. But in the case of small children, they may get access to them, just like marijuana or handguns.

When members of the U.S. military leave the service, they tend to settle in neighborhoods with greater overall diversity than their civilian counterparts of the same race, according to a new study that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

The explosion in worldwide coffee consumption in the past two decades has generally not benefitted farmers of coffee beans in poorer nations along the equator.

A University of Kansas (KU) researcher studying trade and globalization has found that the shift to "technified" coffee production in the 1970s and 1980s has created harsher economic and ecological consequences for heavy coffee-producing nations, such as Honduras, Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil, Vietnam and Ethiopia.

As part of a periodic review, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is calling for public submissions on its draft guidelines on the use of assisted reproductive technology in clinical practice and research. This, in lay terms, is the practice of in vitro fertiliszation (IVF).

Many college students are making their way back to campus this month, and back to the habits -- good or bad -- that dorm-life promotes. A new study finds that young adults under 25, including high school grads and college students, are more likely to rate hookah and e-cigarettes as safer than cigarettes, when compared to 25 to 34-year-olds, according to a paper in Health Education & Behavior.

While past research on the question has found otherwise, a new study by Defense and Veterans Affairs researchers suggests that women in the military are at no greater risk than men for developing posttraumatic stress disorder, given similar experiences--including combat.

One in five older people who drink alcohol are consuming it at unsafe levels - over 21 units of alcohol for men and 14 units for women each week - according to a study by King's College London. The research in inner-city London, published in BMJ Open, found these unsafe older drinkers are more likely to be of higher socioeconomic status.

-Low-income populations deserve basic energy rights to protect them from "energy insecurity" and the environmental and related health risks from living in "energy sacrifice zones" where energy is produced. The disproportionate burden these vulnerable communities bear across the continuum of energy supply and demand is discussed in Environmental Justice.

Heterosexual couples that split childcare duties have higher quality relationships and sex lives than those who don't, according to new research that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

Women are more likely than men to initiate divorces, but women and men are just as likely to end non-marital relationships, according to a new study that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

Why do unmarried women tend to be more liberal and Democratic than their married counterparts? A key reason is because unmarried women -- those who have never been married and those who are divorced -- are more concerned about the status of women as a collective group, suggests a new study that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA).

If men take up more of the child-care duties, splitting them equally with their female partners, heterosexual couples have more satisfaction with their relationships and their sex lives, according to new research by Georgia State University sociologists.

The research was presented Aug. 23 at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association.

Daniel L. Carlson, along with graduate students Sarah Hanson and Andrea Fitzroy used data from more than 900 heterosexual couples' responses in the 2006 Marital Relationship Study (MARS).

African women in polygamous marriages or with alcoholic husbands have a significantly higher risk of being physically abused by their husbands than women in monogamous marriages or women whose husbands don't abuse alcohol, new research shows.

People who report having spiritual awareness have it vary throughout the day, rather than being constant, according to a study by University of Connecticut researchers.