Culture

WASHINGTON, DC, July 21, 2011 — Union membership in America has declined significantly since the early 1970s, and that plunge explains approximately a fifth of the increase in hourly wage inequality among women and about a third among men, according to a new study in the August issue of the American Sociological Review.

A clinical trial led by Newcastle University shows that the drug, idebenone (Catena®), improved the vision and perception of colour in patients with Leber's Hereditary Optic Neuropathy (LHON). The inherited condition means patients, who can see normally, lose the sight in one eye then within 3 to 6 months lose the sight in their other eye.

The NHS is poorly prepared to care for obese patients, lacking dedicated equipment and adequately trained staff, among other things, reveals an analysis of patient safety incidents, published online in Postgraduate Medical Journal.

The authors analysed patient safety incident data reported to the National Reporting and Learning System, which is run by the National Patient Safety Agency.

They looked for all incident reports relating to, or caused by, obesity over a period of three years from 2005 to 2008, to identify any common themes.

Programs designed to help transition care for hospitalized older patients to outside healthcare clinicians and settings are associated with reduced rates of hospital readmissions, according to two reports in the July 25 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Warfare, triggered by political conflict between the fifth century B.C. and the first century A.D., likely shaped the development of the first settlement that would classify as a civilization in the Titicaca basin of southern Peru, a new UCLA study suggests.

Jacinta Conrad, an assistant professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at the University of Houston, likens her research into how bacteria move to "tracking bright spots on a dark background."

Using a digital camera affixed to a microscope, Conrad and her collaborators videotape hours of moving bacteria. They then analyze these tens of thousands of images to determine exactly how they cross surfaces before forming biofilms, colonies of potentially dangerous bacteria that can be found in industrial, natural and hospital environments.

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – July 25, 2011 – Is it possible to predict whether someone is likely to survive or die suddenly from a heart attack?

A new study by researchers at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center has answered just that.

People with sexual performance anxiety are more likely to cheat on their partners. That's just one of the curious findings of a new study by a University of Guelph professor on the factors that predict infidelity.

Men who are risk-takers or easily sexually aroused are also more likely to wander; for women, relationship issues are stronger predictors of unfaithfulness.

The study, published recently in the journal Archives of Sexual Behaviour, is the first to look at how demographics, interpersonal factors and sexual personality affect infidelity.

Positive emotions like joy and compassion are good for your mental and physical health, and help foster creativity and friendship. But people with bipolar disorder seem to have too much of a good thing. In a new article to be published in the August issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, psychologist June Gruber of Yale University considers how positive emotion may become negative in bipolar disorder.

PHILADELPHIA (July 22, 2011)— A new study by researchers at Drexel University's School of Public Health suggests that abuse of prescription painkillers may be an important gateway to the use of injected drugs such as heroin, among people with a history of using both types of drugs. The study, published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, explores factors surrounding young injection drug users' initiation into the misuse of opioid drugs. Common factors identified in this group included a family history of drug misuse and receiving prescriptions for opioid drugs in the past.

OAKLAND, Calif. – Kaiser Permanente Northern California patients who obtained new statin prescriptions via a mail-order pharmacy achieved better cholesterol control in the first 3-15 months following the initiation of therapy compared to those patients who only obtained their statin prescription from their local Kaiser Permanente Northern California pharmacy.

If you read about the technology Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban sold in the 1990s, you won't be impressed much less think it was worth billions. For every AOL that received billions, there are lots of start-ups that crashed and burned. In reality, most of our society's wealth is invested in businesses or other ventures that may or may not pan out. Thus, chance plays a role in where the wealth of a society will end up.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.---The results of a study on candidates' use of Twitter in the 2010 midterm elections suggest that Republicans and Tea Party members used the social medium more effectively than their Democratic rivals.

The University of Michigan study, among the first to examine the Tea Party's social media strategies, also showed that analyzing Twitter activity can lead to good predictions of election winners.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Subsidizing the wages of caregivers at group homes would likely reduce worker turnover rates and help contain costs at long-term care facilities, according to new University of Illinois research.

Elizabeth T. Powers, a professor of economics and faculty member of the Institute of Government and Public Affairs at Illinois, says that a government-sponsored wage-subsidy program could reduce the churn of low-wage caregivers through group homes by one-third.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Social safety net programs that reduce psychosocial stressors for low-income families also ultimately lead to a reduction in childhood obesity, according to research by a University of Illinois economist who studies the efficacy of food assistance programs on public health.