Culture

Both the study's idea and its outcomes were straightforward: Organize a short houseplant-potting workshop for incarcerated women and see if it improved their moods.

The answer was yes -- a finding reported in December 2018 in the International Journal of Prisoner Health. But what is more nuanced, the study's lead author says, are the lessons we can extrapolate from what otherwise may seem like a simple, one-off event.

(Boston)-- While not an FDA-approved treatment, e-cigarettes are used as, or more often by smokers to help them quit smoking, versus FDA-approved treatments for smoking cessation. An editorial in response to a newly published paper on the effectiveness of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation in the New England Journal of Medicine says that caution should be used in recommending e-cigarettes for smoking cessation.

E-cigarettes are almost twice as effective as nicotine replacement treatments, such as patches and gum, at helping smokers to quit, according to a clinical trial led by Queen Mary University of London.

The multi-centre trial, which involved almost 900 smokers who also received additional behavioural support, found that 18.0 per cent of e-cigarette users were smoke-free after a year, compared to 9.9 per cent of participants who were using other nicotine replacement therapies.

ATLANTA-Females find same-sex social interactions to be more rewarding than males, and females are more sensitive to the rewarding actions of oxytocin (OT) than males, according to a research study led by Georgia State University on the brain mechanisms that determine the rewarding properties of social interactions.

Vaccinating laboratory mice with Streptococcus mitis bacteria prevents their virulent sibling, Streptococcus pneumoniae from infecting the mice. The research suggests that vaccination of humans with live S. mitis might offer protection from some of the many serotypes of S. pneumoniae that vaccines currently do not exist for. This pathogen is one of the most common causes of severe pneumonia, and can also cause meningitis, bloodstream and sinus infections, endocarditis, and middle ear infections in young children.

A UBC professor has determined that people diagnosed with terminal cancer--who have hope, positivity and family support--are able to live well during the advanced stage of the disease.

Carole Robinson, professor emeritus with UBC Okanagan School of Nursing, recently published a paper explaining the process of living well with an awareness of dying.

A network of very fine blood vessels that connects bone marrow directly with the blood supply of the periosteum that was previously overlooked has now been discovered by Dr. Anika Grüneboom, a young researcher who is now working at Universitätsklinikum Erlangen. She made this groundbreaking discovery while working on her doctoral thesis at Universität Duisburg-Essen (UDE) with Prof. Dr. Matthias Gunzer.

An international study led by the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and the National Centre for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) has found that Lactobacillus bacteria present in the intestinal microbiota interact with immune system cells to strengthen the intestinal barrier.

Conducted on mice and published in Immunity, the study opens a new avenue for the treatment of diseases such as ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease, in which the intestinal barrier becomes so weakened that bacteria can migrate to other organs, causing inflammatory processes.

Hong Kong's illegal wildlife trade is contributing to a global extinction crisis. Every year millions of live animals, plants and their derivatives are illegally trafficked into and through Hong Kong, by transnational companies and organised crime syndicates.

Scientists have used a Nobel-prize winning Chemistry technique on a mixture of metals to potentially reduce the cost of fuel cells used in electric cars and reduce harmful emissions from conventional vehicles.

The researchers have translated a biological technique, which won the 2017 Nobel Chemistry Prize, to reveal atomic scale chemistry in metal nanoparticles. These materials are one of the most effective catalysts for energy converting systems such as fuel cells. It is the first time this technique has been for this kind of research.

University of Oklahoma researchers, led by Courtney Hofman and Rita Austin, in collaboration with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, are addressing the challenges of curating ancient biomolecules and working toward the development and dissemination of best practices. In a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Hofman and her collaborators suggest museums play a critical role among stakeholders in ancient biomolecules research and should be responsive to these concerns.

Black holes consume everything that falls within their reach, yet astronomers have spotted jets of particles fleeing from black holes at nearly the speed of light. New computer simulations have revealed what gives these particles such speed: cosmic robbery.

Only a small fraction of people who had non-fatal opioid overdoses in West Virginia received treatment in the aftermath, a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests. The finding, the authors say, represents a missed opportunity to prevent future fatal overdoses in a state that leads the nation in these deaths.

Researchers at the University of Sydney have found that the relationship between the tissue-sucking Varroa mite and virulence of a virus of honey bees, has most likely been misunderstood.

The study challenges the long-held belief that the parasitic Varroa mite - a mite that sucks the tissue of honey bees - transmits the Deformed Wing Virus of honeybees and in doing so changes the virus to make it more virulent and deadly.

Gender stereotypes can hurt children — quite literally. When asked to assess how much pain a child is experiencing based on the observation of identical reactions to a finger-stick, American adults believe boys to be in more pain than girls, according to a new study in the Journal of Pediatric Psychology.