Science Education & Policy

Quick: You’re walking by a store window and you see a sign that says, “20% off the original price plus an additional 25% off the already reduced sale price.” So, how much is the discount" Consumers often mistakenly think the total discount is 45% off the original price when, in fact, the true discount is 40%. A thought-provoking new study from the October issue of the Journal of Consumer Research explores why consumers frequently think a double discount is a better deal than a single discount of the same total magnitude. “Retailers frequently use the strategy of double discounts for their…

Cholesterol level testing at about 15 months of age could prevent heart disease later in life, say doctors in a study published by British Medical Journal today. Their rationale? Hereditary high cholesterol, known as familial hypercholesterolaemia, affects about two in every 1000 people and causes very high levels of low density lipoprotein (LDL) or ‘bad cholesterol’ in the blood. It carries a high risk of death from coronary heart disease. Treatment to lower cholesterol reduces the risk substantially, but is it worth the expense to test all children for something that will impact .2% of…

In the last century, more than 100 million people have perished in violent conflict, very often because of local clashes between ethnically or culturally distinct groups. In a novel study this week in Science, researchers report on a mathematical model that can predict where ethnic conflict will erupt. The study, conducted by scientists at the New England Complex Systems Institute (NECSI) and Brandeis University, can be applied to many areas and its predictions were tested on distinct ethnic groups in India and the former Yugoslavia. The researchers applied a model of global pattern…

A new study by researchers at Johns Hopkins and Princeton Universities says US healthcare workers are paid too much yet there aren't enough of them. Fewer days in hospitals are offset by more outpatient services and not enough attention is paid to chronic health issues. Compared to the average Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) country in 2004, the United States has fewer health resources—physicians, nurses and hospital beds—and lower utilization of these resources. Health spending for chronic health issues, such as obesity, alcohol consumption and smoking, also…

Giving children a diet rich in fish and “fruity vegetables” can reduce asthma and allergies, according to a seven-year study of 460 Spanish children. The findings also reinforce the researchers’ earlier findings that a fish-rich diet in pregnancy can help to protect children from asthma and allergies. “We believe that this is the first study that has assessed the impact of a child’s diet on asthma and allergies and also taken into account the food their mother ate during pregnancy” says lead author Dr Leda Chatzi from the Department of Social Medicine at the University of Crete, Greece. “…

More than a billion people worldwide lack access to clean drinking water. Diseases caused by unsafe drinking water are among the world's most serious public health threats. The Global Health and Education Foundation provided funding to the Marian Koshland Science Museum of the National Academy of Sciences to develop "Safe Drinking Water Is Essential" ( http://www.drinking-water.org), a resource devoted to providing international decision makers with peer-reviewed scientific information about enhancing the safety of drinking water supplies. More than 125 academies worldwide are disseminating…

The standard approach in biology is to focus on identifying individual genes and proteins and pinpointing their role in the cell or the human body. But molecules almost never act alone. According to Lilia Alberghina from the University of Milano-Bicocca, Italy: “There is a growing awareness in medical science that biological entities are ‘systems’ – collections of interacting parts.” A new report by the European Science Foundation (ESF) on systems biology is an attempt to identify how research in this area could be accelerated and developed further in Europe. The report concludes with a set…

In this sixth installment of our on-going series of interviews with some of the leading thinkers and scientists on the subject of energy, we interview Howard Bloom. Facing and solving the multiple issues concerning energy is the single most pressing problem that we face as a species. There is a lot of media coverage about energy, alternative energy and global warming, but what has been missing is the knowledge and point of view of scientists, at least in the mainstream media. If you have missed the first five interviews, please click my name at the top and it will take you to my profile…

It’s well known that the child’s brain has a remarkable capacity for change, but controversy rages about the extent to which such plasticity exists in the adult human brain -- particularly, in the part responsible for vision. Now, scientists from The Johns Hopkins University and MIT offer evidence -- derived from both brain imaging and behavioral studies -- that the adult visual cortex (the area of the brain that receives images from the eyes) does, indeed, have the ability to reorganize. Moreover, that reorganization affects visual perception. The authors believe this work not only may…

So vital is the p53 tumor suppressor gene in controlling cancer that its dysfunction is linked to more than half of human cancers. At the same time, the gene’s capacity for shutting down cell growth, even causing cells to commit suicide if necessary, is so absolute that it must be tightly regulated to maintain the optimal balance between protecting against cancer and permitting normal growth. Now, a study by scientists at The Wistar Institute reveals new levels of subtlety in the body’s management of this all-important tumor suppressor gene and the protein it produces. The experiments show…