EurekAlert! - Social and Behavioral Science
Sun May 9 22:29:50 EDT 2010
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McGill-UBC project creates mouse grimace scale to help identify pain in humans and animals - (University of British Columbia) A new study by researchers from McGill University and the University of British Columbia shows that mice, like humans, express pain through facial expressions.

Breaking down barriers in brain imaging - (Society of Nuclear Medicine) SNM’s Molecular Imaging Center of Excellence wrapped up its Molecular Neuroimaging Symposium today in Bethesda, Md., at the Natcher Auditorium of the National Institutes of Health.

Hardship and human rights violations continue among Burma cyclone survivors - (Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health) The survivors of Cyclone Nargis, which struck Burma (also known as Myanmar) in May 2008, continue to face challenges in rebuilding their lives, in lack of access to relief and reconstruction efforts, and in violations of basic rights more than one year after the storm, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Emergency Assistance Team, Burma.

UT Southwestern researchers uncover Fragile X syndrome gene's role in shaping brain - (UT Southwestern Medical Center) Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered how the genetic mutation that causes Fragile X syndrome, the most common form of inherited mental retardation, interferes with the "pruning" of nerve connections in the brain. Their findings appear in the April 29 issue of Neuron.

Association for Psychological Science 22nd Annual Convention - (Association for Psychological Science) Mark your calendar now for the Association for Psychological Science's 22nd Annual Convention, the largest international conference exclusively devoted to scientific exchange across all areas of psychology.

Studies should involve more cross-cultural collaboration - (University of Missouri-Columbia) Previous studies have found that the vast majority of published psychological research in the United States is based on American samples and excludes 95 percent of the world's population. Yet, these results are often generalized and taken as universal. A researcher hopes his experience will encourage more researchers to develop cross-cultural relationships.

Study: Local newspapers keep politicians accountable - (University of Chicago Press Journals) In areas where members of Congress get lots of ink in local newspapers, voters are more informed and representatives do more to serve local interests, according to a study to be published next week in the Journal of Political Economy. The findings also suggest that the current trend toward fewer local newspapers could make for less responsive politicians in the future.

Survey finds general internists leave practice sooner than subspecialists - (American College of Physicians) A survey conducted by the American College of Physicians and the American Board of Internal Medicine found that 9 percent of all internists originally certified between 1990 and 1995, including a significantly larger proportion of general internists (17 percent) than internal medicine subspecialists (4 percent), are no longer working in general internal medicine or one of its subspecialties about a decade after their original certification by ABIM.

Sponsoring by the pharmaceutical industry can bias the results of drug studies - (Deutsches Aerzteblatt International) Drug studies financed by pharmaceutical companies frequently show positive results in favor of the sponsor. In the current issue of Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, a research group headed by the Chairman of the Drug Commission of the German Medical Association, Professor Wolf-Dieter Ludwig, describes the influence of sponsoring on the results, protocol and quality of drugs studies.

NTU and Chinese Heritage Center host Singapore's first global conference on overseas Chinese - (Nanyang Technological University) Singapore's Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the Chinese Heritage Center are jointly hosting the 7th International Conference of the International Society for the Study of Chinese Overseas (ISSCO) May 7-9, 2010. This conference, held in Singapore for the first time, aims to examine issues of migration, indigenisation, and other challenges faced by overseas Chinese in the political, economic, cultural, educational and religious spheres from regional and global perspectives. More than 200 papers from over 20 countries are being presented at the conference.

Foreign migrants move within Spain for employment reasons - (FECYT - Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology) A team from the University of Cantabria (UC) has studied the contribution that internal migration by foreign people living in Spain made to the process of overall provincial convergence between 1996 and 2005. The main reasons for foreign migrants moving between regions were found to be primarily employment-related rather than to do with residential choice.

Older people in assisted-living facilities sleep poorly - (Wiley-Blackwell) In a study of residents of assisted-living facilities in Los Angeles showed that 65 percent had clinically significant sleeping problems and that poor sleep was associated with declining quality of life and increased depression over a six month follow-up period. This study is published today in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

Interesting stories at the IMPAKT Breast Cancer Conference - (European Society for Medical Oncology) The following abstracts will be presented at the IMPAKT Breast Cancer Conference in Brussels.

Lessons from the principal's office - (SAGE Publications) The majority of students (about 80 percent) are never sent out of class to the principal's office or it happens only once in a year and why children are referred changes as they age, according to an article in the April 2010 issue of the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions (published by SAGE).

Endometrial stem cells could repair brain cells damaged by Parkinson's disease - (Yale University) Stem cells derived from the endometrium (uterine lining) and transplanted into the brains of laboratory mice with Parkinson's disease appear to restore functioning of brain cells damaged by the disease, according to a new study by Yale School of Medicine researchers.

Biologist Carla Finkielstein receives Minority Scholar Award - (Virginia Tech) Assistant Professor Carla Finkielstein has been presented with a Minority Scholar Award in Cancer Research. The award, given by the American Association for Cancer Research, is intended to enhance the education and training of minority researchers and increase the recognition of minorities involved in cancer research. Finkielstein's research focuses on how changes in circadian rhythms may contribute to the development of breast cancer in women.

NIH awards $2.7-million grant to Kent State to study cognitive impairment in heart failure patients - (Kent State University) The National Institutes of Health has awarded a $2.7-million grant to Kent State University for a collaborative research project with Case Western Reserve University School of Nursing, Summa Health System in Akron and University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland to study cognitive impairment in heart failure patients. The four-year grant from NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute runs through January 31, 2014.

In-store slack: Consumers often plan for unplanned purchases - (University of Pittsburgh) Straying from the grocery list can yield some surprises in your shopping cart, but not necessarily in your wallet, according to University of Pittsburgh researchers and a coresearcher from Baylor University who have coauthored a new study. The researchers found that shoppers often expect to buy a certain number of unplanned items, and most have a fairly accurate estimate as to how much they will spend on them.

Neanderthal genome yields insights into human evolution and evidence of interbreeding - (University of California - Santa Cruz) After extracting ancient DNA from the 40,000-year-old bones of Neanderthals, scientists have obtained a draft sequence of the Neanderthal genome, yielding important new insights into the evolution of modern humans. Among their findings is evidence that shortly after early modern humans migrated out of Africa, some of them interbred with Neanderthals, leaving bits of Neanderthal DNA sequences scattered through the genomes of present-day non-Africans.

Complete Neanderthal genome sequenced - (NIH/National Human Genome Research Institute) Researchers have produced the first whole genome sequence of the 3 billion letters in the Neanderthal genome, and the initial analysis suggests that up to 2 percent of the DNA in the genome of present-day humans outside of Africa originated in Neanderthals or in Neanderthals' ancestors.

Social context may be a better indicator of obesity disparities than race - (Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health) When analyzing obesity disparities among women, socioeconomic status and social context may be more important than race, according to a study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions.

MU awarded $8.5 million to explore tiny vessels' role in cardiovascular diseases - (University of Missouri-Columbia) One of the largest medical research grants ever awarded to the University of Missouri was announced today by MU scientists and administrators. The National Institutes of Health grant will help answer important questions about such prevalent health problems as high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke. The conditions are closely associated with cardiovascular disease, which is the leading cause of death in Missouri and the nation.

Story tips from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory May 2010 - (DOE/Oak Ridge National Laboratory) In combat situations, communication is critical, and a system being developed would put US forces in command. Catching violators while keeping safe truckers on schedule is the focus of a program and system recently installed at weigh stations in South Carolina and Mississippi. Each year ORNL hosts about 3,000 guest researchers. Experiments using band-excitation scanning probe microscopy are providing clues to the origins of unique properties of spin and cluster glasses, phase-separated oxides, polycrystalline ferroelectrics and ferromagnets.

Teen girls talk more to parents about their dating habits than do boys - (Ohio State University) When it comes to talking to parents about most dating issues, teen girls tend to disclose more than boys, and both sexes generally prefer to talk to their mothers. However, a new study found that girls and boys are equally close-mouthed about issues involving sex and what they do with their dates while unsupervised. And in this case, teens were no more eager to talk to their mothers than they were their fathers.

Elsevier and Conference of Italian University Rectors provide universities with access to Scopus - (Elsevier) Elsevier and the Conference of Italian University Rectors have reached a multiyear agreement that will provide researchers in 60 Italian Universities with access to Scopus, the company's flagship product and the world's largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Built in collaboration with scientists and librarians from around the world and launched commercially in 2004, Scopus has since been endorsed and adopted by researchers in the world's top universities as well as international research assessment agencies.