While the current radiation concerns in Japan are not on a par with atomic bombs, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki can provide some insight into what effects, if any, radiation might have on residents of Japan today.
A review article in the latest issue of Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness (free to read - http://www.dmphp.org) looks at risk estimates and summarizes what has been learned from following the survivors for 63 years.
Depression erodes intimate relationships not just by making one person withdrawn, needy, or hostile, but also because it impairs a depressed person's ability to perceive the others' thoughts and feelings. It impairs what psychologists call "empathic accuracy" and that can exacerbate alienation, depression in a vicious cycle.
A clay tablet discovered Greece changes what is known about the origins of literacy in the western world, obviously a good thing, and, unfortunately, also about the origins of bureaucracy. Measuring 2 inches by 3 inches, the tablet fragment is the earliest known written record in Europe, dating back to between 1450 and 1350 B.C., 100-150 years before the tablets from the Petsas House at Mycenae.
Across the world, fewer people are buying the "I have a glandular disorder" excuse for obesity.
As the average waistline increases but the numbers of obese people skew that result, society is getting less tolerant of heavier folk - even in cultures where being big is considered better, according to a cross-cultural study of attitudes toward obesity to be published in the April issue of Current Anthropology.
The study didn't test what is driving the shift in attitude, but the researchers say that "newer forms of educational media, including global public health campaigns" may be playing a role.
Future firefighters may use electricity instead of water to control flames, according to results of a discovery that could underpin a new genre of fire-fighting devices, including 'sprinkler' systems that suppress fires not with water, but with zaps of electric current.
You may have heard of a new car with lots of problems referred to as a 'lemon' but not all fruits are bad when it comes to automobiles. Scientists in Brazil have developed a more effective way to use fibers from these and other plants in a new generation of automotive plastics that are stronger, lighter, and more eco-friendly than plastics now in use, according to their presentation at the National Meeting&Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
Here's Where Your Backyard Was 300 Million Years Ago
Convergent Evolution Cheat Sheet Now 120 Million Years Old
Synchrotron Could Shed Light On Exotic Dark Photons
The Pain Scale Is Broken But This May Fix It
