Culture

A new study shows that alcohol consumption of individuals appears to increase with the number of friends in their drinking group.

In a study of 2,609 patients from a pediatric intensive care unit in a children's hospital in Spain, investigators found that more boys than girls were admitted (57.5% vs. 42.5%) but death rates were higher in girls (4.9% vs. 3.3%).

Girls died from a broader range of causes while boys died most often from respiratory and polytraumatic injuries, which could reflect an increased likelihood to engage in risky activities or behave more carelessly, the authors conclude.

Forensic science expert John Collins has published a commentary at Science 2.0 in which he cites the 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson as "kick-starting" legal and political activism against forensic science in the United States.

In Keeping the Gate - A Science & Justice Blog, Collins, president and founder of the Forensic Foundations Group, said that the activism has distorted perceptions about science in the courtroom.

A new study says a record drought that ravaged Syria in 2006-2010 was likely stoked by ongoing manmade climate change, and that the drought may have helped propel the 2011 Syrian uprising. Researchers say the drought, the worst ever recorded in the region, destroyed agriculture in the breadbasket region of northern Syria, driving dispossessed farmers to cities, where poverty, government mismanagement and other factors created unrest that exploded in spring 2011. The conflict has since evolved into a complex multinational war that has killed at least 200,000 people and displaced millions.

More than 40 percent of women in India are underweight when they begin pregnancy, according to a new study. On average, these women gain only 15 pounds throughout pregnancy - just half of the recommended amount.

Does the child of a person with a heritable form of cancer have the right to access their parent's genetic information after death? What if no consent was ever established? In the March 2 issue of Trends in Molecular Medicine, biomedical ethicists review current arguments about how to disclose genetic information of the deceased and offer suggestions that may help clinicians and officials develop their own policies.

A new study finds that the use of adjuvant systemic therapy for localized gastrointestinal stromal tumors (GISTs ) has significantly increased over time and that patients treated with the therapy have better survival than those treated with surgery alone. The study, which appears early online in the American Journal of Clinical Oncology, also finds that older patients and minorities are less likely to receive adjuvant therapy for GISTs.

Nature is on the move. As the impacts of climate change reveal themselves, species and ecosystems are moving in response. This poses a fundamental challenge to conservation organizations--how do you conserve something that won't stay still?

A new paper authored by a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, professor suggests that in order to cope, conservation organizations need to adapt like the organisms they seek to protect.

Synthetic cannabinoids ("synthetic marijuana"), with names like Spice, K2, Scooby Doo and hundreds of others, are often sold as a "legal" alternative to marijuana. Often perceived as a safe legal alternative to illicit drug use, synthetic marijuana use was associated with 11,561 reports of poisonings in the United States between January 2009 and April 2012.

Popular among teens, in 2011, synthetic marijuana was used by more than one out of ten (11.4%) high school seniors in the US, making it the most commonly used drug after real marijuana.

A 10-year-old boy was admitted to hospital in Bologna, Italy after suffering a 2 minute tonic-clonic seizure. Dr Davide Tassinari and colleagues from the University of Bologna, Italy reported that a cluster of another three generalized seizures occurred in the next few hours. The boy also complained of a bad headache and had high blood pressure. Investigations were conducted using cranial computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), to investigate the possibility of posterior reversible encephalopathy syndrome (PRES).

Researchers say they have clear and detailed evidence of the inequitable delivery of mental health care services for disadvantaged Australians. Introduced in 1975, Australia's national health insurance scheme Medicare (originally Medibank) was envisioned to deliver the most equitable and efficient means of providing health insurance coverage for all Australians.

Pediatricians are facing increasing pressure from some parents who want to spread out the recommended vaccine schedule for their children by postponing vaccines, pointing to a need for improved programs that support timely vaccinations, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado School of Medicine at the Anschutz Medical Campus.

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More kids nationwide are taking medications designed to treat such mental illnesses as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and pediatricians and psychiatrists at the University of Vermont want to know why.

A new study reports a significant decline in the rate of cesarean section (C-section) births in Portugal. The findings indicate a 10% reduction in overall C-section rates between 2009 and 2014, with a 14% reduction in state-hospitals during the same time period. Researchers believe this may be due to more information and training of health care staff, along with inclusion of C-section rates as part of the criteria for hospital funding.

If you're one of the nearly half a million Americans living with multiple sclerosis (MS) - a slowly disabling disease of the central nervous system - you are likely dependent on disease-modifying drugs to prevent symptoms such as vision problems, balance issues and weakness. Often, these treatments have been developed through pharmaceutical industry-sponsored clinical trials (ISCT) in collaboration with academic or private practice physicians who care for MS patients.