Culture

Most likely, you would be disgusted if confronted with a picture of a man eating a mouthful of writhing worms. Or a particularly bloody wound. Or a horribly emaciated but still living body. But just how much disgust you feel may lend important insight into your personal political proclivities.

A new study in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery (JBJS) found that patients with herniated lumbar disc symptoms were significantly worse if the patients had symptoms for more than six months prior to treatment, compared to those who had symptoms for six months or less. Symptoms included pain, function, general health, work status and patient satisfaction.

Arlington, Va. -- An innovative delivery method for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) medications has been developed through use of a transdermal patch, the first of its kind to treat HIV. This research is being presented at the 2011 American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C., Oct. 23 – 27.

Boston, MA -- Patient satisfaction is increasingly recognized as an important component of quality of care. To achieve a high level of patient satisfaction, providers need to identify and address patients' expectations. However, a new international survey conducted by researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and Harvard Medical School reveals that while clinicians think it is important to ask patients about their expectations, they often fail to do so and consequently may not respond adequately.

Arlington, Va. -- An innovative delivery method for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) medications has been developed through use of a transdermal patch, the first of its kind to treat HIV. This research is being presented at the 2011 American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Annual Meeting and Exposition in Washington, D.C., Oct. 23 – 27.

Vancouver – A Heart and Stroke Foundation study has found that women under age 55 fare worse than their male counterparts following a heart attack – and their health status declines more than that of their male counterparts after one month.

Teens who drink more than five cans of non-diet, fizzy soft drinks every week are significantly more likely to behave aggressively, suggests research published online in Injury Prevention. This includes carrying a weapon and perpetrating violence against peers and siblings.

US lawyers have successfully argued in the past that a defendant accused of murder had diminished capacity as a result of switching to a junk food diet, a legal precedent that subsequently became known as the "Twinkie Defense" – a twinkie being a packaged snack cake with a creamy filling.

In the U.K., it is apparently a stigma to die from causes related to smoking but alcoholism is okay, and so UK doctors are willing to cite alcohol as a cause of death on death certificates, but not smoking, for fear of stigmatizing the deceased, says research in the Journal of Clinical Pathology.

• Patient characteristics affect whether dialysis clinics achieve treatment success and receive Medicare reimbursement
• How well kidney disease patients follow their prescribed treatments has the greatest impact
• Dialysis clinics in low-income urban areas provide care to more patients who don't follow their prescribed treatments; these clinics get unfairly penalized

Watching local TV news can lead to déjà vu. During the past decade, a growing number of local television stations have entered into agreements together – to share video footage, reporters, anchors and even full newscasts. A new report by the University of Delaware's Center for Community Research and Service looks at the impact of these possibly monopolistic agreements on local media markets and on the principles the federal government uses to regulate the broadcast industry: diversity, competition and localism.

SEATTLE--Yoga classes were linked to better back-related function and diminished symptoms from chronic low back pain in the largest U.S. randomized controlled trial of yoga to date, published by the Archives of Internal Medicine . But so were intensive stretching classes.

Humans may have undergone a gradual rather than an abrupt transition from fishing, hunting and gathering to farming, according to a new study of ancient pottery. Researchers at the University of York and the University of Bradford analysed cooking residues preserved in 133 ceramic vessels from the Western Baltic regions of Northern Europe to establish whether these residues were from terrestrial, marine or freshwater organisms.

Whether it's parents, teachers, coaches, or family friends, there's no question that adults serve as powerful role models for youth as they transition from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. Mentoring programs across the United States have tried to harness the power of positive role models in the hopes that relationships with an adult mentor will help to support kids' socioemotional and cognitive development. But are mentoring programs effective? And do all programs have equally positive effects?

Psychological scientist Guillermo Campitelli is a good chess player, but not a great one. "I'm not as good as I wanted," he says. He had an international rating but not any of the titles that chess players get, like Grandmaster and International Master. "A lot of people that practiced much less than me achieved much higher levels." Some of the players he coached became some of the best players in Argentina. "I always wondered: What's going on? Why did this happen?"