COLUMBUS, Ohio — One of the few studies to look at the effects of religious participation on the mental health of minorities suggests that for some of them, religion may actually be contributing to adolescent depression. Previous research has shown that teens who are active in religious services are depressed less often because it provides these adolescents with social support and a sense of belonging. But new research has found that this does not hold true for all adolescents, particularly for minorities and some females. The study found that white and African-American adolescents generally had fewer symptoms of depressive at high levels of religious participation. But for some Latino and Asian-American adolescents, attending church more often was actually affecting their mood in a negative way. Asian-American adolescents who reported high levels of participation in their church had the highest number of depressive symptoms among teens of their race. Likewise, Latino adolescents who were highly active in their church were more depressed than their peers who went to church less often. Females of all races and ethnic groups were also more likely to have symptoms of depression than males overall. The results showed that in […]
Women who have a natural birth form stronger bonds with their babies than those who deliver by Caesarean section, researchers say. Stimulation of the cervix and vagina during natural birth releases hormones that generate powerful feelings critical to a woman’s performance as a mother immediately after delivery. But a Caesarean delivery in which the baby is removed from the womb via a surgical incision in the abdominal wall alters the ‘neurohormonal experience’ of birth, increasing the risk that mother and baby will fail to bond. The finding, by American researchers, will raise new concerns about the high numbers of Caesarean births in the UK and other Western countries. The rising age of mothers, a ‘safety first’ medical culture and fears of litigation have seen rates more than double in the UK in the past 20 years. Caesareans now account for one in five of all births. Doctors from the Child Study Centre at Yale University, who used brain scans to study the brain activity of 20 first-time mothers, found those who had delivered vaginally were more responsive to their baby’s cry two to four weeks after delivery. Those who delivered by Caesarean were less responsive. […]
Print scientific journals are becoming less relevant in the Internet Age. Arxiv, a Web site where physicists post their research papers before they are published in print, has grown to contain more than 430,000 articles as of July 2007. Secrecy and competition to achieve breakthroughs have been part of scientific culture for centuries, but the latest Internet advances are forcing a tortured openness throughout the halls of science and raising questions about how research will be done in the future. The openness at the technological and cultural heart of the Internet is fast becoming an irreplaceable tool for many scientists, especially biologists, chemists and physicists – allowing them to forgo the long wait to publish in a print journal and instead to blog about early findings and even post their data and lab notes online. The result: Science is moving way faster and more people are part of the dialogue. But no one agrees yet on whether this extreme sharing among scientists and even the public is ultimately good for science or undermining it. ‘It scares people,’ says biochemist Cameron Neylon, an open science advocate who works at Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in England and posts […]
Consumer advertising for prescription drugs had a negligible impact on sales of products studied by Harvard Medical School researchers — in a finding that may confound both advertisers and their opponents. The study may undercut the arguments of opponents of such ads, which have been allowed almost nowhere outside the U.S. Critics say they lead to drug overuse and misuse by impressionable patients pressing their doctors to prescribe what is seen on TV. But the study also raises the question of whether the pharmaceutical industry’s $4.8 billion annual spending on such ads is a waste of shareholders’ money. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which loosened its regulations to widely permit such ads in the 1990s, is under pressure to tighten its rules and has announced it will study the issue. Meanwhile, the European Union, which bans consumer ads, is considering a proposal to loosen its rules. In Canada, where ads are also banned, a court battle could lead the government to allow them. Other studies have found that direct-to-consumer advertising of drugs does raise sales. But the new study will draw some attention because it is among the first to compare the behavior of people […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
