Culture

ANN ARBOR, Mich.--- College students who arrange with friends to "get their backs" are less likely to engage in risky Spring Break behavior, according to a study published this month in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence.

If you thought that we know everything about how the flea jumps, think again. In 1967, Henry Bennet-Clark discovered that fleas store the energy needed to catapult themselves into the air in an elastic pad made of resilin. However, in the intervening years debate raged about exactly how fleas harness this explosive energy. Bennet-Clark and Miriam Rothschild came up with competing hypotheses, but neither had access to the high speed recording equipment that could resolve the problem. Turn the clock forward to Malcolm Burrows' Cambridge lab in 2010.

(Boston) - Researchers from Boston University School's of Medicine (BUSM), Management (SMG) and Law (LAW), along with collaborators from the National Institutes of Health, believe that public-sector research has had a more immediate effect on improving public health than was previously realized. The findings, which appear as a Special Article in the February 10th issue of The New England Journal of Medicine, have economic and policy implications.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – One factor, little-known by borrowers, can play a large role in whether banks are willing to renegotiate mortgages with homeowners who are struggling to meet payments.

Unfortunately, it is a factor that homeowners have no control over.

Researchers found that mortgages owned by lenders were 26 to 36 percent more likely to be renegotiated than very similar mortgages that the original lenders sold to other companies, which turned them into securities.

With cholera on the rampage in Haiti and almost 40 other countries, scientists are reporting the development of a key advance that could provide a fast, simple test to detect the toxin that causes the disease. The report appears in ACS' journal Bioconjugate Chemistry. Cholera affects more than 200,000 people annually, mainly in developing countries, and causes about 5,000 deaths. Many involve infants, children, and the elderly.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Many school officials react in exactly the wrong ways when one of their students completes suicide, according to the authors of a new book.

While they may be well-intentioned, administrators who don't send the right messages may make copycat suicides more likely, and are not providing the help needed by others hurting from the tragedy.

The first time that many patients realise that diabetes can affect their kidneys is when they are referred to renal services, according to a multi-cultural study in the March issue of the Journal of Renal Care.

UK researchers who spoke to 48 patients with diabetes attending specialist renal services in Leicester, Luton and Ealing, discovered that awareness of the kidney risks posed by the disease was very low.

Researchers at the Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego say that medication education is a key factor in helping patients with diabetes better stick to their drug treatments plans. The study, currently on line in the February issue of the journal Annals of Pharmacotherapy, points to the need for pharmacists and other health care providers to assess reasons why some patients don't adhere to their medication plans, and to provide counseling opportunities to help them.

A study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) researchers reports that electronic cigarettes are a promising tool to help smokers quit, producing six-month abstinence rates nearly double those for traditional nicotine replacement products.

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Government regulators could more realistically assess the value of improving food safety if they considered the fact that consumers typically want to avoid getting sick – even if it means they have to pay a little extra for safer food, researchers say.

It's a common problem in the business world—throwing good money after bad. People cling to bad investments, hoping that more time, effort, and money will rescue their turkey of a project. A new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, finds that changing people's mindsets can make them more likely to abandon a failing investment.

Eating a healthier diet, getting more exercise and doing more sports – lots of people recommit themselves to these goals over and over. But one's baser instincts are often stronger and invincible. On the couch in the evening, you take stock of the day only to admit that you have failed to rally once again. And yet, physical fitness is now considered a remedy for many illnesses. Particularly for older people, daily exercise is important – not only during rehabilitation following major surgery but also for one's general sense of physical well-being.

What's your favorite prime-time crime show? Do you enjoy the fictional world of "CSI" or "Law & Order," or do you find real-life tales like "The First 48" or "Dateline" more engrossing? Your answers to those questions may say a lot about your fears and attitudes about crime, a new study finds.

WASHINGTON, DC, February 1, 2011 — Native residents of a neighborhood are more likely to move out when immigrants move in, according to new research by three American sociologists.

"Neighborhood Immigration and Native Out-Migration" appears in the February issue of the American Sociological Review. Study authors are Kyle Crowder of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Matthew Hall of the University of Illinois-Chicago and Stewart E. Tolnay of the University of Washington.

San Diego, CA, February 8, 2011 – When the FDA proposed new rules restricting outdoor tobacco advertising near schools and playgrounds in 2009, the tobacco industry argued that such rules would lead to a near complete ban on tobacco advertising in urban areas. An article in the March 2011 issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine shows that the effect of these rules would be less severe than the industry contends.