Culture

Wild porcupine might be a tasty treat in countries around the world, but populations of the spiky rodent are coming under threat in Vietnam due to illegal hunting.

One in seven patients experience more pain, physical and emotional problems a year after surgery than before their operation and a quarter have less vitality. Those are the key findings of a research study of more than 400 patients published online by the British Journal of Surgery.

Researchers from The Netherlands spoke to 216 women and 185 men with an average age of 54, who had undergone planned surgery, ranging from plastic surgery to orthopaedic surgery.

The results of a new scientific study from Oxford Brookes University show that the consumption of caloric beverages has different affects on short-term total energy intake in men and women.

The study, conducted by Viren Ranawana and Professor Jeya Henry of the Functional Food Centre at Oxford Brookes University, is the first of its kind to compare the compensation effect of liquid calories on short-term energy consumption, by gender.

A new Rice University study based on interviews with 360 American leaders who are evangelical Christians (including CEOs, presidents and chairs of large businesses and their equivalents in government and politics, nonprofits, arts, entertainment, the media and professional athletics) finds enormous variety in how leaders engage their personal faith in workplace decision-making.

WASHINGTON – College students are less likely to let their female friends engage in risky sexual behavior after a night of drinking alcohol. Recent findings in the journal Communication Education examine how and why college students protect their friends who have been heavily drinking.

Although a cognitive-behavioral intervention to encourage men who have sex with men to reduce their substance use and sexual risk behavior (as both are linked) was partially successful, a similar reduction was achieved in comparison groups who did not receive the intervention suggesting that better methods for changing behaviors are needed. These are the findings of a paper by Gordon Mansergh from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Georgia, USA, and colleagues and published in this week's PLoS Medicine.

DURHAM, N.H. -- Child abuse declined nationally in 2008 compared to 2007, according to a new report by the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. Sexual abuse declined 6 percent, physical abuse 3 percent and neglect 2 percent, while child maltreatment fatalities stayed stable from 2007 to 2008. These trends are noteworthy, according to the report's authors, because 2008 marked the first full year of the current recession, and economic downturns have been linked by progressive political advocates with increased family stress and child maltreatment.

With children going back to school, parents are concerned that their youngsters are staying fit and eating right, especially those who dine in a school cafeteria.

New research funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture finds that children who eat school lunches that are part of the federal government's National School Lunch Program are more likely to become overweight.

A new study shows that male rats prenatally exposed to low doses of atrazine, a widely used herbicide, are more likely to develop prostate inflammation and to go through puberty later than non-exposed animals. The research adds to a growing body of literature on atrazine, an herbicide predominantly used to control weeds and grasses in crops such as corn and sugar cane. Atrazine and its byproducts are known to be relatively persistent in the environment, potentially finding their way into water supplies.

In a Policy Forum published this week in PLoS Medicine, Simon Capewell and Hilary Graham review different population strategies for preventing cardiovascular disease and conclude that screening and treating high-risk individuals may be ineffective and widen social inequalities. The authors conclude "there is evidence that CVD prevention strategies for screening and treating high-risk individuals may represent a relatively ineffective approach that typically widens social inequalities.

BOSTON, Aug. 23, 2010 — Scientists today reported new scientific evidence on the effectiveness of that old folk remedy –– cranberry juice –– for urinary tract infections, at the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), being held here this week.

Research led by the Warwick Medical School at the University of Warwick has found that unhealthy glucose levels in patients with diabetes can cause significantly more problems for the body than just the well-known symptoms of the disease such as kidney damage and circulation problems. The raised glucose can also form what can be described as a sugar coating that can effectively smother and block the mechanisms our bodies use to detect and fight bacterial and fungal infections.

DENVER (August 23, 2010) – While success is surely sweeter than failure, it seems failure is a far better teacher, and organizations that fail spectacularly often flourish more in the long run, according to a new study by Vinit Desai, assistant professor of management at the University of Colorado Denver Business School.

Desai's research, published in the Academy of Management Journal, focused on companies and organizations that launch satellites, rockets and shuttles into space – an arena where failures are high profile and hard to conceal.

PULLMAN, Wash.– Playing "media detective" allows children to understand the intentions of marketers and the goals of advertising while empowering them to resist messages that encourage alcohol or tobacco use.

Although the term was not coined until 1953, new research shows that corporate social responsibility (CSR) can trace its roots to the early years of the 20th century and to the editor of one of America's initial business magazines, The World's Work.

"From its beginnings in November 1900, The World's Work was devoted to social responsibility in the public interest," says David L. Remund, a Legacy Scholar in the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at Penn State University. Remund is completing his doctoral studies at the University of North Carolina.