PREGNANT SMOKERS WITH ASTHMA HAVE INCREASED HEALTH RISKS Pregnant women with asthma who smoke have an increased risk for asthma symptoms and fetal growth abnormalities. Researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina observed 2,210 pregnant women with asthma to determine the effect of active and passive household smoking on asthma severity and obstetric/neonatal outcomes...
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March 5, 2010
News From The March Issue Of Chest
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Darkness encourages unethical behaviour even when it makes no difference to anonymity
Imagine a man sits alone, hunched over his desk, fingers tapping out a project progress report to his boss. Does he decide to lie? If I told you that the sun had nearly set, filling the man's room with darkness, would that make any difference to your answer? It should do. A new study suggests that darkness encourages cheating, even when it makes no difference to anonymity. Chen-Bo Zhong and colle
16 Vote(s)
16 Vote(s)
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Pleasant for some and unpleasant for others: Cognitive factors that influence affective responses to exercise
This article leads on from the post Exercise does not feel the same when you are overweight. It explores how exercise feels different for different people. The authors examine the idea that individuals choose to participate in behaviours which are pleasant and avoid those that are unpleasant. This is an important area of physical activity research. The study also examines the role of the
10 Vote(s)
10 Vote(s)
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Depression's Cognitive Downside
Author and blogger Jonah Lehrer has a lengthy (and controversial) essay in the Feb. 28 New York Times Magazine on Depression's Upside. The main idea, that depression has cognitive and evolutionary advantages, was largely based on a review paper by Andrews and Thomson (2009). In it, they put forth the analytical rumination hypothesis: depression is an evolved response to complex problems, and focu
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8 Vote(s)
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Am Happy, will talk more and deep; am Sad, will make small talk
Image by Getty Images via DaylifeHappiness and sadness have different effects on verbal behavior. Happiness may either lead to shallow happy-go-lucky, small talk moments or more profound and deep interactions that are meaningful and fulfilling. Sadness similarly may facilitate deep philosophical ruminations and conversations or lead to shallow and trivial small talk. Which of these More >Rati
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15 Vote(s)
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Realism And Care Required When Discussing Violence In Mental Health
Commenting on the BBC's "Why did you kill my dad?" programme, aired on Monday 1st March, Steve Shrubb, director of the Mental Health Network which represents the majority of NHS mental health organisations, said: "The death of Phillip Hendy as set out in this programme was a terrible tragedy for all involved...
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9 Vote(s)
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Well-being is related to having less small talk and more substantive conversations
Is a happy life filled with trivial chatter or reflective and profound conversations? In a new study, the happiest participants had twice as many substantive conversations and one third as much small talk as the unhappiest participants. In addition, the happiest participants spent 25 percent less time alone and 70 percent more time talking than the unhappiest participants, suggesting that the hap
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7 Vote(s)
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Cocaine, surgery and an experiment too far
William Stewart Halsted is known as the 'father of American surgery' and was widely-known to have been addicted to both cocaine and morphine for large stretches of his life. I always assumed this was due to recreational sampling of the medicine cabinet but it turns out it was the rather unfortunate result of some initially serious scientific experimentation.I just found this article on Halsted fr
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10 Vote(s)
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In Our Time on the Infant Brain
This morning's edition of BBC Radio 4's brilliant In Our Time was dedicated to the infant brain and has a wide ranging discussion about how ideas about the early development of the child developed into the modern age of neuroscience.The streamed version will be available on the website permanently, but if you want to download the podcast you only have a week to do so from this page.Melvyn Bragg a
12 Vote(s)
12 Vote(s)
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