Preliminary results of a European Commission-funded study, the SIREN project, presented today at a workshop in Brussels, show that growing insecurity and inequality in Europeans’ work life is contributing to the electoral success of right-wing populist and extremist parties. The study covers eight European countries (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy and Switzerland) and is based on more than 300 interviews and a telephone survey of 5,800 employed persons.

According

Music’s ability to make us feel chirpy, sad, excited or just plain bored can be accurately predicted by only a few of its basic elements, an Australian scientist has discovered.

“Among other things, loudness, tempo and pitch have a measurable impact on people’s emotional response to music,” says University of NSW music psychologist, Dr Emery Schubert.

His is the first study of its kind to mathematically quantify the emotional impact of music. Sixty-seven subjects listene

The idea that dying people hang on to life in order to celebrate one more birthday or holiday lacks any scientific basis, say scientists who reviewed two decades’ worth of research.

“The studies published to date have not convincingly established that death can be postponed through force of will or hastened by the loss of the desire to live,” say Judith A. Skala, R.N., Ph.D., and Kenneth E. Freedland, Ph.D., of Washington University School of Medicine.

Available research is c

Celebrities who spend thousands of pounds perfecting their smile are making image-conscious young adults worry about the health of their teeth, research carried out in Britain and Australia suggests.

Even though statistics show younger generations enjoy better oral health than ever, a study by an international team of researchers led by the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, and the University of Adelaide in Australia, has revealed they are more likely to complain about problems with th

New research from the University of Warwick reveals the celebrities and heroes of 17th century England were politicians, not footballers. The study into ballads of the 1600s reveals that the Duke of Monmouth, James Scot, the illegitimate son of Charles II, was hailed as a true hero in ballads, the equivalent of today’s pop music, and despite his flaws, as the people’s Royal he could do no wrong – very much like England’s most recent darling, David Beckham.

In the 17th century the

UMHS researcher finds gap between what parents, children report

Parents think their children use bicycle helmets and seatbelts more often than children say they use them, according to a new study by a University of Michigan Health System pediatric surgeon.

In a survey of 731 fourth and fifth grade pupils and 329 of their parents, researchers found that while 70 percent of parents say their child always wears a bicycle helmet while riding, only 51 percent of children report we

Women can markedly lower the risk of neural tube defects in their offspring by ingesting tablets before or just after conception

Only about 25 per cent of women in many countries voluntarily take folic acid tablets before conception, says a U of T researcher.

Dr. Joel Ray, along with fellow researchers Gita Singh of McMaster University in Hamilton and Robert Burrows of Monash University in Australia, reviewed nearly 50 studies conducted in about 20 countries between 1992 an

Variability in weight ranges and drug content of split tablet may put patients at risk of receiving too much/too little medication

Back and neck pain sufferers who divide the most frequently prescribed muscle relaxant may be getting anywhere from half to one-and-a-half times the amount of medicine they believe they are taking, suggests a new study examining the practice of tablet splitting. This may place them at an increased risk of encountering side effects such as drowsiness and f

While sound can disrupt sleep, scents cannot. People cannot rely on their sense of smell to awaken them to the danger of fire, according to a new Brown University study.

Study participants easily detected odors when awake and in the early transition into sleep (Stage One sleep) but, once asleep, did not. The findings indicate a significant alteration of perceptual processing as a function of sleep.

“Human olfaction appears insufficiently sensitive and reliable to act as a sentinel s

People who followed a low-carbohydrate, high-protein diet lost more weight than people on a low-fat, low-cholesterol, low-calorie diet during a six-month comparison study at Duke University Medical Center. However, the researchers caution that people with medical conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure should not start the diet without close medical supervision.

“This diet can be quite powerful,” said lead researcher Will Yancy, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine at Duke U

A study by researchers at U of T suggests that music teachers are routinely exposed to noise levels that could result in hearing loss

Led by research associate Alberto Behar and electrical and computer engineering professors Hans Kunov and Willy Wong, the team found that while general noise exposure over the course of an average day is marginally acceptable, noise levels during teaching periods could damage the inner ear. “The hair cells of the inner ear simply crumble under the load

A smooth-talking washing machine may not be savvy enough to keep a user from mixing whites and darks, but it can open doors that the digital revolution has closed to the blind.

New generation appliances are sleek, high-tech – and incomprehensible if the user can’t see the dazzling array of LED displays.

But it’s a problem that can be talked through, literally. A team of engineering students at Michigan State University have figured out a way to cheaply modify household a

A seven-week program to improve communication skills and “vigilant” parenting among rural black families made younger family members think more negatively of alcohol use and early sexual activity, according to a new report in the journal Child Development.

The study followed changes in parenting skills and children’s attitudes toward drinking and sex over a seven-month period among 322 rural Georgia families with an 11-year-old child.

About half of the families enrolled in the stud

Let go, kids will do better in school

What can parents do to help children who are doing poorly in school? To investigate this question, we conducted two studies examining interactions between mothers and their elementary school-aged children over simulated schoolwork and after real-life failures.

In the first study, we evaluated 110 mothers’ use of control and their support of autonomy as they assisted their children with a simulated homework task. When the mothers ass

Many children who grow up in poverty have higher levels of behavioral problems and lower IQ scores than children who grow up in middle class families. However, some children from poor family backgrounds are resilient — that is, they behave better and score higher on intelligence tests than might be expected given the level of social and economic deprivation they have experienced.

Researchers have identified several protective factors that promote children’s resilience, including a chi

For decades, parents have been told they can deter adolescent misbehavior by monitoring and setting firm limits on their children’s activities and friendships. In 2000, this assertion was challenged by papers published in the journals Child Development and Developmental Psychology. The authors of these papers cautioned parents not to assume that controlling, supervising, and monitoring their children would reduce the likelihood that adolescents would become involved in problem behavior such as d