Social Sciences

The popular BBC series ‘Who do you think you are?’ describes the quest of celebrities to trace their family histories back to the 19th century and beyond. Now a fascinating new study allows us all to explore the geography of our family histories, using a unique website that tracks how many people have our surnames, their origins and where they live today.

The Surname Profiler website (at www.spatial-literacy.org) is part of an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) sponsored stu

Brothers and sisters are more powerful role models than friends or parents when it comes to teenage drinking and smoking, research has shown.

Researchers from The University of Queensland and University of Washington have proved that tobacco and alcohol use by older siblings increases the odds of similar behaviour from younger siblings by three to five times.

University of Washington Sociologist Dr Abby Fagan studied the contributions and influence of parents, sibl

Research published in the recent issue of Ethology has discovered that men are able to potentially use smell as a mechanism to establish when their current or prospective sexual partners are at their most fertile.

Females of a number of primate species display their fertile period by behavioural and/or morphological changes. The prevalent opinion was that there are no noticeable changes in humans across the cycle. Havlícek et al, however, have found that women’s axillary odour is ass

The Tizard Centre at the University of Kent has been awarded a 350,000 euro grant by the European Commission to find out how many disabled people are still cared for in institutions across Europe and what would be the costs of replacing institutions with services in the community.

The project is led by Professor Jim Mansell and Dr Julie Beadle-Brown from the Tizard Centre, and Professor Martin Knapp from the London School of Economics. It involves researchers in Spain, Germany, Belgium a

While use of home remedies is common among people 65 and older, blacks and Native Americans tend to make much greater use of them than whites, according to a study from Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

And the explanation seems to be cultural differences rather than access to health care, economic hardship or health status, said Joseph G. Grzywacz, Ph.D., and colleagues, writing in the January-February issue of the American Journal of Health Behavior.

Psychologists at the University of Liverpool have found that people still find it difficult to understand how mirrors work.

Dr Marco Bertamini, from the University’s School of Psychology, conducted a number of experiments by covering a mirror on a wall and inviting participants to walk along a line parallel to the mirror.

He asked them to guess the point at which they would be able to see their reflection. Results showed that people believe they can see themselves even b