Culture

New Rochelle, NY, March 17, 2009—While the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme led to the collapse of the Picower Foundation, a major benefactor for life science research, many bioindustry observers view the fallout from the scandal as a minor consequence in the larger economic picture, reports Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News (GEN). They look at the Madoff factor as representing only one challenge to a global financial environment that has been rocked by declining stock prices, additional scandals, and malaise, according to the March 15 issue of GEN. (http://www.genengnews.com/articles/…

Headlines tell us the nation is getting fatter, and that obesity has become an epidemic. But there is more to the story, according to one University of Houston sociologist. While she acknowledges that there has been a shift in body weight over the years, assistant sociology professor Samantha Kwan looks at obesity from a different perspective. The term obesity was constructed by the medical community, Kwan says. And the use of the Body Mass Index, which measures obesity, as the main factor to define obesity, has resulted in the media greatly overstating the rise of the condition. "This…

Adults of many animal species play a crucial role in the social development of youngsters. A new study published March 18 in the online, peer-reviewed, open-access journal PLoS ONE, reveals that the ratio of adults to young plays a much more important role in social development than the mere presence of adults. Marie Bourjade, Alice de Boyer des Roches and Martine Hausberger of the University of Rennes 1, France, studied the effects of the adult-young ratios in naturally-formed groups of Przewalski horses on aggression rates and social cohesion of young horses. Previous studies led by the…

Toronto, Canada – March 16, 2009 – A new study published in Epilepsia finds that the prevalence of depression is almost twice as high in people with epilepsy compared to the general population. Among those with epilepsy, racial minorities have seven times the odds of depression in comparison to the majority Caucasian population. The findings also show that 40 percent of depressed respondents with epilepsy were not accessing mental healthcare services. Data from the 2000 ⁄ 2001 Canadian Community Health Survey was used to determine prevalence of epilepsy and depression. 13 percent of those…

Nearly four per cent of ACT kindergarten children have a peanut allergy and while the region's schools are well prepared to cope with this, some parents are taking inappropriate action when dealing with their child's allergy, according to a new study. The research was a co-operative study by the Academic Unit of General Practice and Community Health at The Australian National University's Medical School and ACT Health. It surveyed 3851 children in the region to discover the prevalence of peanut and nut allergies, what management systems were in place in schools and how parents viewed and…

USA300—the major epidemic strain of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) causing severe infections in the United States during the past decade—inherits its destructiveness directly from a forefather strain of the bacterium called USA500 rather than randomly acquiring harmful genes from other MRSA strains. This finding comes from a new study led by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. The study authors suggest that a radical shift may be needed in how scientists should design MRSA therapeutics…

A study of the mental state of the modern American woman by a Princeton University psychologist has found a powerful link between concerns over financial security and satisfaction with one's life. In looking toward the future, women who concentrated much of their thinking on financial matters were much less likely to be happy with their lives, according to Talya Miron-Shatz, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. And, contrary to expectations, many of those with such worries had plenty of money by conventional standards,…

Lynn Sanders, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia, says there are plenty of reasons feminists can be happy about the Republican Party's nomination of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to become vice president. While it's tough to dispel notions that political parties have sexist components, she says, and Sarah Palin's Republican voter registration and anti-abortion stance may at first seem antithetical to feminism, one position in the culture wars does not invalidate her value to the cause of women everywhere. Palin's presence on the Republican ticket gives feminists at least six…

Males will walk a long way for sex. http://www.sciencecodex.com/lightweight_and_longlegged_males_go_the_dist... Girls aren't in more hard sciences because they lack 'confidence', says a female psychologist, a soft science overwhelmingly dominated by women. http://www.science20.com/news_releases/why_girls_leave_science_and_math_... Dumb people, those who click on Zwinky ads, for example, don't do much to protect their digital privacy. They also lead to tech support commentaries like , "When I click the big X in Microsoft Word, it closes completely. This should be fixed.' http://www.…

In prior articles, we found the scientific validation of Stephen Colbert's 'truthiness', and now it turns out that anecdotal evidence of a 'Colbert bump' following an appearance (anecdotal evidence provided, naturally, by Colbert himself) on the show has legs as well - but only if you're in one political party. Democratic politicians receive a 40% increase in contributions in the 30 days after appearing on "The Colbert Report" while Republicans essentially gained nothing. Stephen Colbert is right - the "Colbert bump" boosts campaigns. This analysis of one of America's most well-known pop…