Culture

Nest-switching is common during the initial period of colony establishment, when individual wasps try to join other colonies and existing members have to decide whether to accept or reject new comers. The wasps recognize nestmates from non-nestmates using chemical signals that are specific to each colony.

A new decision tool will help emergency physicians everywhere identify patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who are at risk of serious complications or death. The Ottawa COPD Risk Scale was published today in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)

Physicians and patients should talk about unnecessary medical tests, treatments and procedures so that they can make smart and effective care choices and avoid potential for harm, writes Dr. Wendy Levinson in a commentary in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)

Nursing homes are widely used by Medicare beneficiaries who require rehabilitation after hospital stays. But according to a recent study led by a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing, a high percentage of Medicare patients who are discharged from nursing homes will return to the hospital or the emergency room within 30 days.

BUFFALO, N.Y. – Corporations with board directors who have investment banking experience are more likely to acquire other businesses – and make better acquisitions when they do – according to a new study from the University at Buffalo School of Management.

Sophia Antipolis, 18 February 2014: One-quarter of high risk patients do not receive anticoagulants after ablation of atrial fibrillation (AF), according to the latest survey of European practice.

The annual bill for Medicare and Medicaid fraud hit 11 digits in 2012. That's tens of billions.

The numbers might be daunting, but University of Cincinnati research shows that recent strategies to combat this unique form of white-collar crime are increasingly effective.

Missouri's 2007 repeal of its permit-to-purchase (PTP) handgun law, which required all handgun purchasers to obtain a license verifying that they have passed a background check, contributed to a sixteen percent increase in Missouri's murder rate, according to a new study from researchers with the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research.

The study, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Journal of Urban Health, finds that the law's repeal was associated with an additional 55 to 63 murders per year in Missouri between 2008 and 2012.

Overweight and obese people who feel their physicians are judgmental of their size are more likely to try to shed pounds but are less likely to succeed, according to results of a study by Johns Hopkins researchers.

The findings, reported online last week in the journal Preventive Medicine, suggest that primary care doctors should lose the negative attitudes their patients can sense if the goal is to get patients with obesity to lose 10 percent or more of their body weight — an amount typically large enough to reduce blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes risk.

ITHACA, N.Y. – When a team goes on a multi-game winning streak, it has nothing to do with momentum, according to a new study in the journal Economics Letters. By examining varsity college hockey teams winning and losing record, Cornell University researchers discovered that that momentum advantages don't exist.

DETROIT – Discrimination against transgender people –as many as one million Americans identify themselves as transgender – should immediately be addressed by the medical establishment, backed by policy change at the national level to provide equal access to quality health care.

That is the primary recommendation of a study by Daphna Stroumsa, M.D., MPH, an obstetrics and gynecology resident at Henry Ford Hospital, whose research was recently published online ahead of print in the American Journal of Public Health.

In the age of mashups, fan fiction and content sharing, online media creation has spurred new complexities in copyright, effectively turning the legal concept of "fair use" on its ear, according to a new study from Georgia Tech.

Research into fan fiction and other types of remix communities reveals many legal misconceptions persistent among different groups when applying copyrighted work to their own creations. The research also highlights online social norms – independent of actual law – that guide the use of copyrighted works in fan communities.

In view of the changes that have taken place in Europe,JuleGoikoetxea, a lecturer at the UPV/EHU's Faculty of Social Sciences and Communication, has been conducting research into "the conditions needed for a people to become a democracy or sustain its democratisation process over time."The study has been published in the specialised journal Nationalities Papers.

In a recent survey of small businesses, a University of Cincinnati criminal justice researcher has found that only 16 percent of those that have experienced theft by employees actually reported that theft to the police.

That's even though 64 percent of the small businesses surveyed reported experiencing employee theft.

New research in Respirology shows that suffers of Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can reduce their risk of being hospitalized with severe attacks, by maintaining an exercise regime of walking between three to six kilometers a day.

COPD, a term which includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema, results in breathing difficulties due to long-term lung damage. Severe symptoms (eCOPD), caused by a sudden loss of lung function, can be life threatening.