Despite the over-promotion of nicotine replacement therapies by drug companies and anti-tobacco activists, the most successful method used by ex-smokers is unassisted cessation, according to a new policy forum in PLoS Medicine. In the article, researchers from the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, Australia take a critical look at most tobacco control campaigns, which emphasize that serious attempts at quitting smoking must be pharmacologically or professionally mediated.
A collaborative study involving scientists from 12 UK research institutions, universities and conservation organizations suggests that the trend towards earlier UK springs and summers has been accelerating. The study, published recently in Global Change Biology, is the most comprehensive and rigorous assessment so far of long-term changes in the seasonal timing (phenology) of biological events across marine, freshwater and terrestrial environments in the UK, the authors say.
Vesicular stomatitis virus, or VSV, has shown the potential to serve as an anti-cancer agent, exercising high selectivity in killing cancer cells while sparing healthy cells, and as a potent vaccine against HIV. But in order for the necessary genetic modifications to occur, scientists must have an accurate picture of the virus's structure.
While three-dimensional structural information of VSV's characteristic bullet shape and its assembly process has been sought for decades, efforts have been hampered by technological and methodological limitations.
According to a study of 1025 13-17 year-olds, gaming, texting, or staring at the TV for hours on end are unlikely to cause headaches in adolescents, but listening to one or two hours of music every day may do the trick. The study appears this week in BMC Neurology.
The researchers interviewed 489 teenagers who claimed to suffer from headaches and 536 who said they did not. When the two groups were compared, no associations were found for television viewing, electronic gaming, mobile phone usage or computer usage.
If you have overweight children, don't take responsibility for what they eat--just blame their expanding waistlines on McDonald's and Hershey's for advertising their products on TV. Not only is it easier to scapegoat restaurants and food manufacturers than to take personal responsibility for your children, but there's also scientific research that justifies the scapegoating, so it's probably alright
University of Miami geologists have analyzed images based on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) observations taken before and after Haiti's devastating January 12 earthquake. The images reveal surprising new details that may help the island better mitigate future earthquakes.
According to the new data, the earthquake rupture did not reach the surface--unusual for an earthquake this size. More importantly, the images confirm that only the western half of the fault segment that last ruptured in 1751 actually ruptured in the current earthquake.
"We're still waiting for the other shoe to drop," said Tim Dixon, professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine&Atmospheric Science.
In some places around the world, reptiles are becoming a delicacy, but researchers writing in the International Journal of Food Microbiology say there are dangerous side effects that come with eating the animals. Experts warn that eating crocodiles, turtles, lizards or snakes may result in exposure to dangerous parasites, bacteria, viruses, and to a lesser extent, contamination from heavy metals and residues of veterinary drugs. According to the study, people can also catch certain diseases (trichinosis, pentastomiasis, gnathostomiasis and sparganosis) by eating reptile meat.
My recent love of watching TV online while attempting to get some of my more mindless tasks done led me to discover a "48 Hours: Mystery" episode called "
American Girl: Italian Murder" on Amanda Knox, the American study abroad student who was tried and convicted for the murder of Meredith Kercher.
When we experience disasters like the earthquake in Haiti January 2010, we naturally ask the questions: Could we have known (early warning)? Could we have been prepared (mitigation plans)?
Haiti on the Hispaniola island in the Caribbean. Credit: USGS
LONDON, February 8 /PRNewswire/ -- It's a fact that men have sex on the brain more than women. Yet, encouraging men and women to think about sex in a different way is important for the public's health and wellbeing according to the Sexual Advice Association*. Launching its Thinking About Sex Day (TASD), an awareness campaign, on Valentine's Day, the Sexual Advice Association takes its commitment to raise awareness of physical and psychological issues around sexual activity to new heights.
