You’ve been married before. Your mate hasn’t. According to a University of Michigan study, this kind of mixed marriage is becoming more common even though potential partners in the modern mating game continue to gravitate to others with similar marital histories. “Marital history is something that’s every bit as important in choosing a mate as age, education, religion, and race,” said Hiromi Ono, a sociologist at the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR), the world’s largest academic survey and re

Adults eat around twice the amount of fruit and vegetables and less fat and sugar than they did as children, a new study suggests.

Contrary to popular opinion, nutritionists at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne found that most people’s diets get healthier from childhood to young adulthood. However, the research team, who were funded by the Wellcome Trust and who have published their results in the academic journal, Appetite*, also discovered that many people perceive barriers

Why do some older people experience a rapid decline in their physical and functional health while some of their peers remain healthy and active? While your genes and overall physical health play a role, new research shows how psychosocial factors can also play an important role. Two studies report on this in the September issue of Psychology and Aging, a journal published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

In the first study, researchers at the University of Texas Medi

Test may allow patients to avoid costly and time-consuming CT scans

A new study shows that the CA125 blood test, which measures the level of protein produced by ovarian cancer cells in the blood, may be superior to standard imaging techniques like CT scans in predicting survival in patients with recurrent ovarian cancer. The study, to be published online September 13 in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, is the first to compare the two procedures with respect to survival.

“T

Challenging decades of scientific belief that the decoding of sound originates from a preferred side of the brain, UCLA and University of Arizona scientists have demonstrated that right-left differences for the auditory processing of sound start at the ear.

Reported in the Sept. 10 edition of Science, the new research could hold profound implications for rehabilitation of persons with hearing loss in one or both ears, and help doctors enhance speech and language development in hearin

The ways in which European countries respond to the ‘new social risks’ which result from changes in patterns of work and family life vary considerably. Britain’s response has placed the country firmly at the forefront of current directions in EU welfare policy, according to research to be presented by Professor Peter Taylor-Gooby of University of Kent at the University of Oxford on 9 September. This is despite traditionally low expenditure on welfare and a strong commitment to the market.

In recent years, scientists have made important strides in developing drugs that help patients manage the symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease – a chronic, progressive movement disorder affecting as many as one million Americans. But despite their effectiveness, the drugs don’t stop Parkinson’s disease from progressing, causing patients’ symptoms to eventually grow worse in spite of medication.

Now, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center have found that two spec

USC study in NEJM signals likely future health problems

By age 18, the lungs of many children who grow up in smoggy areas are underdeveloped and will likely never recover, according to a study in this week’s issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The research is part of the Children’s Health Study, the longest investigation ever into air pollution and kids’ health. Between 1993 and 2001, study scientists from the Keck School of Medicine of the Universi

Exposing babies and young children to music has a positive impact on their learning, researchers from Northumbria University will tell a conference this week.

In addition to enhancing their musical development, it appears to have a significant positive impact on their social development as well as literacy and numeracy.

The conference in Newcastle on Friday (10 September) will reveal the interim findings on a three-year study funded by Youth Music involving 750 children f

Within just 10 minutes of meeting, people decide what kind of relationship they want with a new acquaintance, a recent study suggests.

The research, conducted with college freshmen who met on the first day of class, found that these snap judgments influenced what kind of relationships actually did develop.

While the power of first impressions has been well known, this research shows that the course of a relationship may be influenced much more quickly than was once believe

A new study on liver transplants necessitated by the hepatitis C virus (the most common indication for this type of transplant) found that long-term outcomes are similar to patients receiving transplants due to other diseases. It was the first study to examine long-term transplantation results in hepatitis C patients and to identify risk factors that might lead to transplant failure or death.

The results of this study appear in the September 2004 issue of Liver Transplantation, the

A report released today at the international Greenhouse Gas Control Technologies Conference in Vancouver concludes that geological conditions in the Weyburn oil field in western Canada are favourable for long-term storage of carbon dioxide (CO2). The four-year, multidisciplinary study was conducted by the Petroleum Technology Research Centre (PTRC) in Regina under the auspices of the International Energy Agency Greenhouse Gas (IEA GHG) Research and Development Programme.

The PTRC w

In the first study of its kind, researchers at the Temple University School of Medicine will analyze whether the frequent monitoring and adjustment critical to the management of diabetes during pregnancy can be better accomplished virtually. The ultimate goal is to reduce large birth weights, which can pave the way to later problems such as obesity and diabetes.
Gestational diabetes, which typically occurs toward the end of pregnancy, affects 3 to 5 percent of all women in the United Stat

A drug that is already being tested as an anticancer agent, especially in lymphoma, may also reduce the kidney disease that is a result of systemic lupus, according to a researcher at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

The drug, SAHA (suberoylanilide hydroxamic acid ), inhibited the onset of lupus-related kidney disease in mice with lupus, said Nilamadhab Mishra, M.D., an assistant professor of internal medicine – rheumatology, writing in the Sept. 15 issue of The Journa

Hospital costs for severe cases down $100M per year since shot introduced

The chicken pox vaccine has saved America hundreds of millions of dollars since its introduction in 1995 by preventing the kinds of severe cases that used to send children, teens and adults to the hospital, a new study finds. In fact, it’s even more effective — and cost-effective — than originally predicted at preventing hospitalizations and hospital costs.

And the widespread immunity to the dis

When it comes to making noise, both parrots and humans rely on extremely specialized vibrating organs in their throats. Now scientists at Indiana University and Leiden University in The Netherlands have shown for the first time that parrots, like humans, also can use their tongues to craft and shape sound.

“This is the first direct evidence that parrots are able to use their large tongues to change the acoustic properties of their vocalizations,” said IU Bloomington neurologist Roder