In 1989 Ellen Stohl, who had become a wheelchair user after a car accident, appeared in an eight-page spread in Playboy magazine. She had pushed to do so, she explained later, because it was important for her to express her right to sexuality. “Sexuality is the hardest thing for a disabled person to hold on to,” she said in a TV interview. “I am a woman more than a wheelchair.”

Regarding Playboy owner Hugh Hefner, she added: “He believed that I could have the same sexual voice as women without disabilities.”

Investigators found that nearly half of the 50 chicken meat samples purchased from supermarkets, street markets, and butchers in Austria contained viruses that are capable of transferring antibiotic resistance genes from one bacterium to another - or from one species to another. 

"Our work suggests that such transfer could spread antibiotic resistance in environments such as food production units and hospitals and clinics," said corresponding author Friederike Hilbert, DVM.  

The United States remains mired in an economic downturn, with over 90 million unemployed and many of the employed making less than they made before 2009. The knock-on effects of the economic downturn have been explored in economy and psychology. Now researchers are examining the effects of unemployment on an even darker subject - cancer mortality.

One would think that dealing with unemployment was challenge enough. But according to the latest research published in ecancermedicalscience, rises in unemployment are associated with significant increases in prostate cancer mortality.

Other-orientated perfectionists are different than the kind who set a difficult standard for themselves; the other-oriented kind sometimes that can veer into narcissism, antisocial behavior and an aggressive sense of humor against others. They care little about social norms and do not readily fit into the bigger social picture.

Myopia or short-sightedness is becoming more common across Europe, according to a new meta-analysis of findings from 15 studies by the European Eye Epidemiology Consortium which found that around a quarter of the European population is short-sighted but it is nearly twice as common in younger people, with almost half (47 per cent) of the group aged between 25 and 29 years affected.

Everyone likes to look at young babies. But who wants to listen? Well...it turns out that other babies do. In fact, a McGill University/UQAM research team has discovered that 6-month-old infants appear to be much more interested in listening to other babies than they are in listening to adults. It is an important finding because the researchers believe that an attraction to infant speech sounds may help to kick start and support the crucial processes involved in learning how to talk.

Infant sounds grab infant attention

Education reform policies that penalize struggling schools for poor standardized test scores may hinder -- not improve -- students' college readiness, if a school's instructional focus becomes improving its test scores, suggests a new study that explored efforts to promote a college-going culture at one Texas high school.

Published recently in The High School Journal, the case study reveals the unintended consequences of school reform policies, and how these mandates may warp schools' instructional focus and thwart students' academic success.

"Cloudy for the morning, turning to clear with scorching heat in the afternoon."

While this might describe a typical late-summer day in many places on Earth, it may also apply to planets outside our solar system, according to a new study by an international team of astrophysicists from the University of Toronto, York University and Queen's University Belfast.

Using sensitive observations from the Kepler space telescope, the researchers have uncovered evidence of daily weather cycles on six extra-solar planets seen to exhibit different phases. Such phase variations occur as different portions of these planets reflect light from their stars, similar to the way our own moon cycles though different phases.

Around a quarter of people experience depression at some point in their lives, two-thirds of whom are women.

Each year more than 11 million working days are lost in the UK to stress, depression or anxiety and there are more than 6,000 suicides. The impact of depression on individuals, families, society and the economy is enormous.

Existing popular alternative energy schemes have an ironic flaw - they make fossil fuels more profitable because they are not predictably consistent, which means expensive contracts for "instant on" traditional providers to prevent blackouts.

The big obstacle in implementing wind energy on a massive scale is the unpredictability of its driving force. Wind comes and goes, frequently shifting speed and direction, and mountainous terrain makes it even more fickle. And yet, customers depending on wind power as their primary source of electricity demand a consistent flow -- not one that dies with the wind. Thus, the success of wind energy depends, in part, on the ability to predict changes in wind flow and adjust the grid accordingly.