Culture

Practice will help you play piano better – but it's not going to turn you into Liberace. A new study looks at the role that working memory capacity plays in piano players' ability to sight read a new piece of music, an important and complex skill for musicians.

Reston, Va.—SNM is optimistic that the anticipated recommencement of the Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL)-run National Research Universal (NRU) reactor in Chalk River, Canada, will provide short-term relief to the isotope shortage that has been plaguing patients and the nuclear medicine community for more than one year. However, SNM cautions that the restart of this reactor will not solve the ongoing production and supply issues causing the crisis.

Washington, DC, 8 July 2010 —Social competence and behavior problems that are evident at kindergarten and first grade are known to be strong predictors of a child's academic and social functioning. However, findings reported in the July issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry suggest that psychosocial risk factors can be identified even earlier and can be observed during the transition from preschool to formal schooling.

The better a politician's looks, the higher the frequency of television news coverage, shows a new study carried out at the University of Haifa's Department of Communication, published in the International Journal of Press/Politics. "Earlier studies have shown that people generally tend to prefer the company of people who are physically attractive and even value them as more worthy people. Our study reveals that journalists probably behave just like the rest," the researchers noted.

PHILADELPHIA – Soccer referees may have an unconscious bias towards calling fouls based on a play's direction of motion, according to a new study from the of University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Researchers found that soccer experts made more foul calls when action moved right-to-left, or leftward, compared to left-to-right or rightward action, suggesting that two referees watching the same play from different vantage points may be inclined to make a different call. The study appears in the July 7 online edition of PLoS ONE.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - The deadly, coordinated terror strikes in London five years ago - the 7/7 transit attacks - reflect emerging global trends, reports the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), based at the University of Maryland.

These trends include the rise in the number of new terror groups and a continued drop in the number of coordinated attacks, which are usually far more lethal. The report is based on START's unclassified Global Terrorism Database, the most comprehensive of its kind in the world.

Legalizing the production and distribution of marijuana in California could cut the price of the drug by as much as 80 percent and increase consumption, according to a new study by the nonprofit RAND Corporation that examines many issues raised by proposals to legalize marijuana in the state.

If you want to get your foot in the door of the sports industry, your race may mean more than your experience. That's the major result of a new study from North Carolina State University that examined hiring decisions for entry-level sports management positions.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Businesses make an impression when they sing "Happy Birthday" to customers or cook up entrees right at diners' tables, but the impression's not always a good one, new research led by a University of Illinois marketing expert has found.

Cele Otnes says businesses create rituals that center on consumers to set themselves apart, but the push for a competitive edge can also backfire, leaving customers feeling put upon, trapped or embarrassed.

Researchers at the University of Granada have designed a new training program on specific self-efficacy for reducing stress in psychotic patients. When stress was reduced, patients reported an improvement in symptoms, which meant enhancement of their well-being and quality of life. Researchers proved that these patients can improve their quality of life through proper psychological intervention.

The method used for a suicide attempt is highly significant for the risk of subsequent successful suicide, reveals a long-term study from Karolinska Institutet. The results may be of help in acute risk assessment following a suicide attempt.

People with mental health problems are committing fewer homicides while the number of suicides by mental health patients has also fallen, latest figures for England and Wales reveal; a previous rise in homicides by mentally ill people may have been the result of drug misuse, says the report.

The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health, an international alliance of groups working on maternal and child health argues that $US30 billion of additional funding is needed to save the lives of over 10 million women and children by 2015, but this estimate is misleadingly low because it leaves out crucial service delivery costs.

Even though it is widely used as a therapy for low back pain, a randomized controlled trial finds that patients with chronic low back pain (LBP) and degenerative lumbar osteoarthritis (OA) who took glucosamine for six months showed little difference on measures of pain-related disability, low back and leg pain and health-related quality of life, compared to patients who received placebo, according to a study in the July 7 issue of JAMA.