Could help improve treatment of anxiety

Behavior therapists may have a better way to help anxious patients, thanks to insights from a UCLA study of different ways to get mice past their fears. Rodents have long been used to study learning by association. Neuroscientists compared different ways of exposing mice to a stimulus that they had learned to fear, and found that “massing” the feared stimulus -– delivering it in concentrated bursts, not pacing it with longer pauses in between –

New research by a group of economists and psychology researchers at the University of Warwick reveals that our rank position within an organisation has a bigger effect on our happiness within that job than the happiness generated by our actual level of pay. In short being top dog makes us happier than simply getting top dollar.

The researchers, University of Warwick Economists Professor Andrew Oswald and Dr Jonathan.Gardner (Joanthan now with Watson Wyatt) and University of Warwick psycholo

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics launches a consultation about research involving animals. Can we justify research on animals? How much do animals actually suffer? Does a mouse have a different moral status than a monkey? Who should fund research into alternatives?

Many people are concerned about the use of animals in research. There is also widespread recognition of the need for more medical research. Since much of this currently involves animals, these two views are not easily reconciled

A pattern produced by a chemical change that turns off genes in tumor cells may help predict the seriousness of a particular cancer, and perhaps its outcome.

The study by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center – Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute examined how a chemical change known as methylation spreads from one region of a breast-cancer gene to a neighboring region in tumor cells taken from patients.

The findings

Will new technologies protect privacy or hamper it in the post-September 11 world? Trends in information society technology will have a significant impact on the balance between citizens’ security and privacy, according to a report released today by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC). The study on “Security and Privacy for the Citizen in the Post-September 11 Digital Age: A Prospective Overview”, commissioned by the European Parliament, analyses the security and privacy implication

Babies who sleep in adult beds can be up to 40 times more likely to suffocate, new Saint Louis University research shows

Babies who are put to sleep in an adult bed face a risk of suffocation that is as much as 40 times greater than babies who sleep in standard cribs, a Saint Louis University researcher says in this month’s issue of Pediatrics.

“The odds of death go up dramatically among babies who use adult beds,” says James Kemp, M.D., one of the researchers and an as

Research reveals thriving oceanographic system

When the U.S. Dept. of Interior contracted with Florida Tech Oceanographer John Trefry to study the impact of recent offshore oil drilling in the Alaskan Arctic, the Florida Academy of Sciences gold medallist had some concerns about what he might discover. Instead of finding significant impacts, however, Trefry and his team of Florida Tech scientists were amazed by the discovery of a remarkable, thriving oceanographic system.

Du

A good night’s sleep may be one weapon in the fight against cancer, according to researchers at Stanford University Medical Center. Their work is among the first to piece together the link between mental well-being and cancer recovery.

Previous studies have found people with cancer who go through group therapy or have a strong social network fare better than those with weaker social support. The question has been how psychosocial factors exert their influence on cancer cells. David Spi

Creative people more open to stimuli from environment

Psychologists from U of T and Harvard University have identified one of the biological bases of creativity

The study in the September issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology says the brains of creative people appear to be more open to incoming stimuli from the surrounding environment. Other people’s brains might shut out this same information through a process called “latent inhibition” – defined as

Nearly half the British population – 46% -claim to have changed their minds about the war with Iraq, new research by academics at Cardiff University has shown.

While 83% said they “supported allied forces” during the war, only 44% now say they support the decision to go to war with Iraq.

Researchers in the School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies, conducted a detailed nationwide survey of more than 1,000 adults, to explore the shifting nature of public opinion towards the

Girls who go through puberty earlier than their peers are more likely to be involved in delinquency, but not for the reasons often suspected, according to a new study.

Researchers had long speculated that early-developing girls were nudged into delinquency because they had more older friends, and more male friends.

But, instead, new research suggests that the key factors appear to be the fact that these girls are dating and that they have more friends – regardless of age – w

Twelve-month-old infants can use previous observations as a basis to understand new interactions, although five-month-olds cannot, according to a Yale study.

“This finding shows not only that one-year-old infants are paying attention to the actions of others, but that they can focus on a behavior in one scene and use that information to interpret behavior in a different scene,” said Valerie Kuhlmeier, a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Psychology and lead author of the study

Exercise enthusiasts have more reasons to put on their running shoes in the morning, but an Oregon Health & Science University scientist says they shouldn’t step up their work-outs just yet.

A study published today in the journal Neuroscience, journal of the International Brain Research Organization, confirmed that exercise increases the chemical BDNF – brain-derived neurotrophic factor – in the hippocampus, a curved, elongated ridge in the brain that controls learning and memory. BDNF

Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas have tested and validated novel proteins, created by California-based Xencor, that block activity of a major molecule involved in the onset of inflammation, an innovation that may translate into new therapeutic options for people with rheumatoid arthritis.

Researchers at both institutions report in today’s issue of Science that blocking the activation of a regulator of inflammation called tumor necrosis factor (TNF) decreased swel

Allowing sex selection for social reasons would be highly unlikely to skew the gender balance – at least in Germany and the UK – according to new research published today (Thursday 25 September) in Europe’s leading reproductive medicine journal Human Reproduction[1].

Surveys of more than 1,000 men and women in each country did reveal differences between the two countries, with the British expressing stronger gender preferences and the Germans being more relaxed about the sex of their

Managers about to add new computer-based systems should be aware: a technology that fosters access and coordination will be embraced by workers while one that controls behavior to increase productivity will be rejected, say two Penn State researchers who studied how workers adopted IT tools such as software, cell phones and other Internet applications.

“We have this production view of the world in which new software will improve workers’ efficiencies and effectiveness, but new technolo