Culture
By the end of fourth quarter 2018, total household debt in the United States reached a new high of $13.54 trillion. A new Economic Inquiry study found that nonprofit credit counseling--which reaches millions of consumers a year and provides financial education, individualized financial counseling, and debt restructuring services--can be an effective strategy for addressing consumer debt issues.
The Tibet ASgamma experiment, a China-Japan joint research project, has discovered the highest energy cosmic gamma rays ever observed from an astrophysical source - in this case, the "Crab Nebula." The experiment detected gamma rays ranging from > 100 Teraelectron volts (TeV) (see Fig.1) to an estimated 450 TeV. Previously, the highest gamma-ray energy ever observed was 75 TeV by the HEGRA Cherenkov telescope.
New evidence suggests that high-energy particles from space known as galactic cosmic rays affect the Earth's climate by increasing cloud cover, causing an "umbrella effect".
Do differences in performance have an impact on the appetite for risk-taking in decision-makers? Economists at the University of Göttingen have addressed this question. The result of their study is that people's willingness to take risks increases as soon as they get a lower return than other people with whom they compare themselves. At the same time, decision-makers take lower risks if they get a higher return than their peers. The study was published in the journal Games and Economic Behavior.
Prenatal exposure to low levels of methylmercury does not affect child cognition, but certain gene variants may increase susceptibility. These are the main conclusions of a study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by "la Caixa", in collaboration with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the University of Bristol.
A study from the University of Exeter has found that mycoprotein, the protein-rich food source that is unique to Quorn products, stimulates post-exercise muscle building to a greater extent than milk protein.
The study evaluated the digestion of protein, which allows amino acids (the building blocks of protein) to increase in the bloodstream and then become available for muscle protein building in 20 healthy, trained young men at rest and following a bout of strenuous resistance exercise.
In Belgium, there are 70,000 new adult cases of cancer every year, compared to 350 in children. Owing to lack of interest from pharmaceutical groups, treatments for paediatric cancers are developing much less rapidly than those for adults. The chemotherapy recommended for most childhood cancers is just as toxic as it was 20 years ago. In addition, it has significant consequences for the child: infertility, deafness, and premature ageing. After chemotherapy sessions, the child suffers a loss of stem cells, which are crucial to the healing and regeneration of tissues.
This condition causes small bulges or pouches to appear in the lining of the intestine. Particularly affecting the elderly (as many as 65 per cent of over 85s may be affected), diverticulosis can in some cases can lead to a medical emergency if the pouches become infected or burst.
The new early-stage research finding comes from a team of scientists led by Imperial College London, who investigated the effectiveness and side effects of three common blood pressure medications: ACE-inhibitors, beta-blockers and calcium channel blockers.
'Grandmother, why do you have such big ears?' is one of the most well-known questions in literature, posed of course by Red Riding Hood as she hesitantly observes the wolf dressed in her Grandmother's clothes. Had Red Riding Hood been a physicist, she might well have asked: 'Grandmother, why are your two ears exactly the same length?' Scientists have been aware of this 'length problem' for a long time, but it was largely overlooked for most of the twentieth century. Robert B. Laughlin, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1998, wrote an interesting paper on the topic.
BETHESDA, MD (July 3, 2019) -- As hospitals look for ways to stem the opioid crisis, a survey of health-system pharmacy directors released today found that most large health systems have active stewardship programs to prevent the misuse of opioids -- with pharmacists playing a key role in detecting drug diversion and identifying strategies to encourage appropriate opioid prescribing. The findings are part of the National Survey of Pharmacy Practice in Hospital Settings, published in the AJHP, the journal of ASHP (American Society of Health-System Pharmacists).
There has been a proliferation of JUUL-related content on the photo and video sharing social media service, Instagram, that is likely to appeal to young people, reveals research published online in the journal Tobacco Control.
The posts feature product promotion, nicotine and addiction content, and references to youth culture, the analysis shows.
Just one in six accredited US colleges and universities have gone completely smoke and/or tobacco free, reveals the first study of its kind, published in the journal Tobacco Control.
As smoke-free environments have increased in the US and across the globe, so have smoke-free policies at colleges and universities. But, to date, it's not clear how many, and what proportion of, institutions have gone completely smoke or tobacco-free.
Climbing the social ladder is a ruff business for dogs, new research shows.
Top dogs in a pack are known to assert their dominance, but scientists studied a group of free-roaming mongrels and found high levels of aggression in the middle of the dominance hierarchy.
Most theories predict more aggression higher up the ladder. However, the researchers say the difficulty of working out the pecking order in the crowded middle leads to aggression.
The role of an excited black hole in the death of an exotic 'jellyfish' galaxy will be presented today (3 July) by Callum Bellhouse of the University of Birmingham at the RAS National Astronomy Meeting in Lancaster. The supermassive black hole at the centre of jellyfish galaxy JO201 is stripping away gas and throwing it out into space, accelerating suppression of star formation and effectively 'killing' the galaxy.
The longer a pregnancy continues past 37 weeks gestation, the higher the risk of a stillbirth, according to a new meta-analysis published this week in PLOS Medicine by Shakila Thangaratinam of Queen Mary University of London, UK, and colleagues.