Our linguistic and legal obsession with “insult” and “offense” is nothing new. In 1832, Sydney resident William McLoughlin was given 50 lashes for using the word “damned” against his master.

But what does McLoughlin’s case tell us about today?

Welsh Rabbit and lashes from pretty fellows

The word insult can be traced to the Latin insultāre “to leap upon” or “assail”. It possibly entered English via a Middle French word insulter, meaning “to insult, crow, vaunt, or triumph over; to wrong, reproach, affront”.

Visualization was enabled by designing a new artificial magnetic material. The finding means remarkable possibilities to materials research.

Researchers at Aalto University and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have demonstrated that polaron formation also occurs in a system of magnetic charges, and not just in a system of electric charges. Being able to control the transport properties of such charges could enable new devices based on magnetic rather than electric charges, for example computer memories.

The sense of touch may play a more crucial role in autism spectrum disorder (ASD) than previously assumed. The main findings of the doctoral research of Eliane Deschrijver, which are now published, show that individuals with ASD may have difficulties to determine which tactile sensations belong to the action of someone else.

ASD: social problems and sensory sensitivities

Many individuals with ASD are over- or undersensitive to sensory information. Some feel overwhelmed by busy environments such as supermarkets, others are less sensitive to pain, or dislike being touched.

• Alzheimer's may also affect language, behavior or spatial judgment

These patients often are not given an opportunity to be in Alzheimer's clinical trials

Amyloid PET scan offers way to identify underlying disease and have more inclusive clinical trials

CHICAGO --- Relying on clinical symptoms of memory loss to diagnose Alzheimer's disease may miss other forms of dementia caused by Alzheimer's that don't initially affect memory, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.

In a survey of online articles about preventing Alzheimer's disease, research finds that many online resources for preventing Alzheimer's disease are problematic and could be steering people in the wrong direction.

There was poor advice and one in five promoted products for sale--a clear conflict of interest, though hucksters like Joe Mercola, D.O., never acknowledge that.

Fabrics that can generate electricity from physical movement have been in the works for a few years. Now researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology have taken the next step, developing a fabric that can simultaneously harvest energy from both sunshine and motion.

Combining two types of electricity generation into one textile paves the way for developing garments that could provide their own source of energy to power devices such as smart phones or global positioning systems.

"This hybrid power textile presents a novel solution to charging devices in the field from something as simple as the wind blowing on a sunny day," said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents professor in the Georgia Tech School of Materials Science and Engineering.

Entitlement--a personality trait driven by exaggerated feelings of deservingness and superiority--may lead to chronic disappointment, unmet expectations and a habitual, self-reinforcing cycle of behavior with dire psychological and social costs, according to new research by Case Western Reserve University.

In a new theoretical model, researchers have mapped how entitled personality traits may lead to a perpetual loop of distress, in a literature review published in the Psychological Bulletin.

"At extreme levels, entitlement is a toxic narcissistic trait, repeatedly exposing people to the risk of feeling frustrated, unhappy and disappointed with life," said Joshua Grubbs, the primary author of the paper and a recent PhD graduate in psychology from Case Western Reserve.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- Advertising prescription drugs to consumers is forbidden in most of the world, but since U.S. guidelines were relaxed in 1997, such ads have become nearly ubiquitous in American media. In a newly published review, Brown University researchers examined what has been learned since then about the effect of all that advertising on psychiatric conditions. They found that the data are very limited, but what does exist suggests that ads succeed in driving prescribing with potentially mixed effects on patient care.

From skeletal remains found among ancient owl pellets, a team of scientists has recovered the first ancient DNA of the extinct West Indian mammal Nesophontes, meaning "island murder." They traced its evolutionary history back to the dawn of mammals 70 million years ago.

The authors, including Selina Brace, Jessica Thomas, Ian Barnes et al., published their findings in the advanced online edition of Molecular Biology and Evolution.

DALLAS, Sept. 13, 2016 -- Smoking is associated with thicker heart walls and reduction in the heart's pumping ability, two factors associated with increased risk of heart failure, according to new research in the American Heart Association's journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Imaging.