Last month a Pew Research Institute survey reported a decline in the number of Americans who want churches and other houses of worship involved in political matters.

The survey also found that most of the drop in the past four years comes among conservatives.

Although Sarah Palin's entry into the 2008 presidential race has energized the religious right within the Republican Party, don't expect religion to be a major issue in this year's election, says University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) political communications expert Larry Powell, Ph.D.

The move away from overt religious appeals may be due to an effort to avoid what Powell calls the "Pharisee Effect",

With a nationwide shortage of science teachers and plummeting student test scores,school districts have the option of hiring people with science degrees but little training in education. Without proper support, research shows that 66 percent of new teachers will quit the profession within three years and new research from George Mason University's New Science Teachers' Support Network (NSTSN) has identified the most vital forms of support for new science teachers—providing them with in-classroom support and quality courses in how to teach science.

Working with middle and high school science teachers, the NSTSN research revealed that students enrolled in the classes of teachers who received the support of in-class mentors who were retired science teachers and a science teaching course performed significantly better on standardized tests and had better science grades than students enrolled in the classes of a comparable set of new science teachers who did not receive the in-class support from retirees or a science methods course. Also, by enlisting the help of retired science teachers, new science teachers were able to perfect their teaching and enhance student learning.

LONDON, September 9 /PRNewswire/ -- British employers are the strictest in Europe when it comes to allowing employees to surf social networking sites, according to a report by 3 mobile. Experts have coined a new term to describe a generation of Europeans who surf social networking sites at work: 'Social Notworking' which has reached endemic proportions - but not so much in the UK.

LONDON, September 9 /PRNewswire/ --

- Survey Compares Workplace Equality in the U.S. and Seven European Countries: Female Workers in Germany are the Most Likely of Workers Surveyed to Report Wage Discrimination, Female Workers in the Netherlands are the Least Likely

PLANO, Texas, September 9 /PRNewswire/ --

- Comprehensive Electronic Medical Record and Enhanced Administrative Efficiency are Hallmarks of New System

Perot Systems Corporation (NYSE: PER) (http://www.perotsystems.com) announced today that it has completed the successful roll-out of a Hospital Information System (HIS) in multiple hospitals and Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) in Abu Dhabi.

Anti-virus companies play a losing game. Casting their nets wide, they catch common, malicious viruses and worms (known to the industry as “malware”), but it may take days before their software updates can prepare your computer for the next attack. By then it could be too late. And some insidious programs prove immune to anti-virus software, residing inside your computer for months or even years, collecting personal information and business secrets.

If you had a choice between receiving $1,000 right now or $4,000 ten years from now, which would you pick? Psychologists use the term “delay discounting” to describe our inability to resist the temptation of a smaller immediate reward in lieu of receiving a larger reward at a later date. Discounting future rewards too much is a form of impulsivity, and an important way in which we can neglect to exert self-control.

Previous research suggests that higher intelligence is related to better self-control, but the reasons for this link are unknown. Psychologists Noah A. Shamosh and Jeremy R. Gray, from Yale University, and their colleagues, were interested in testing the idea that certain brain regions supporting short-term memory play a critical role in this relationship.

In America, 50% of people are baffled by the notion that the same government responsible for FEMA should be more involved in something as important as health care. Not so in Australia. Professor Jim Butler, Director of the Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health (ACERH) based at Australian National University, says not only would national Medicare be good for people, it would make staunch capitalists happy by increasing competition and thereby lowering waiting times.

Private hospitals and capitalism are the reason there are wait times? No, but allowing private hospitals access to medicare money would allow them to compete with public hospitals and reduce wait times while lowering costs. Or so he says. Instances where government funding reduced the cost of anything? Still sitting at 0 throughout human history.

In Butler's analysis, a Hospital Benefits Schedule funded by the Commonwealth and not the states would be created to enable patients to use their publicly funded health service benefit in private hospitals.

A person's gender in a leadership role is associated with the mental and physical health of subordinates, according to new research out of the University of Toronto.

The study conducted by Scott Schieman, a professor of sociology at the University of Toronto and Taralyn McMullen, a PhD candidate, involved data from a 2005 sample of 1,800 working adults in the United States. The participants were assessed on levels of psychological distress, physical symptoms, occupation, job sector, and numerous work conditions including authority, pressures, the quality of interpersonal relations, and satisfaction. The study examined workers who were managed by two supervisors (one male, one female), one same-sex supervisor or one supervisor of a different sex.

The study found that:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say up to one in four teens in the United States will contract a sexually transmitted disease (STD), and experts believe a major contributing factor is the failure of many teens to use condoms consistently and routinely. A new study provides some insight into some of the factors that influence condom use among teenagers.

Researchers from the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center and three other institutions surveyed more than 1,400 adolescents and young adults between the ages of 15 and 21 who had unprotected sex in the previous 90 days. They found that teens who did not use condoms were significantly more likely to believe that condoms reduce sexual pleasure and were also more concerned that their partner would not approve of condom use. The findings appear in the September/October issue of Public Health Reports.