August 29, 2007, 9:43 PM CT

Injuries of Football Season

Football Fever is upon the nation once again. The soaring of the pigskin signals the start of the "busy" season for cheerleaders, marching bands, and inevitably, sports medicine physicians.

"After only a few days of practice at UB we've had three players with ACL injuries, a medial collateral ligament tear, a dislocated shoulder and a dislocated elbow," said Marc Fineberg, M.D., chief of sports medicine in the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

University Sports Medicine doctors serve as team physicians for the Buffalo Bills, the Buffalo Sabres and Western New York's major collegiate football teams -- the UB Bulls, the Buffalo State Bengals and the Erie Community College Kats. They also treat many of the area's high school teams.

Prevention is the primary goal of everyone involved in the sport, but when large, highly charged males engage in bodily contact, injuries are inevitable. Knee and ankle sprains are the most common injuries treated during football season, followed by concussion and shoulder sprains, said Fineberg.

The knee injury most common in football is a sprained medial collateral ligament, or MCL, one of four ligaments that support the knee joint. MCL injuries, which usually occur during a tackle or block -- sometimes because of an illegal hit -- heal on their own without surgery, said Fineberg......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

August 28, 2007, 9:46 PM CT

Men choose romance over success

Men may be more willing than women to sacrifice achievement goals for a romantic relationship, as per a new study by Catherine Mosher of Duke Medical Center and Sharon Danoff-Burg from the University of Albany. Their findings challenge our preconceptions that women are more likely to prioritize people and relationships while men are more focused on themselves and their achievements. Their paper would be reported in the next issue of the Springer journal, Gender Issues.

The authors looked at whether personality traits influence students' life goals, and focused on the relative importance of romantic relationships and achievement goals in particular. A total of 237 undergraduate students (80 men and 157 women aged 16 to 25 years), from the psychology department at a state university in the northeast of the US, completed questionnaires measuring personality traits and life goals.

In particular, Mosher and Danoff-Burg looked at 'agency', or the focus on oneself and the formation of separations, including self-assertion, self-protection, and self-direction, as well as 'communion', or the focus on other people and relationships, which involves group participation, cooperation and formation of attachments. In general, women tend to score higher on measures of communion whereas men tend to score higher than women on measures of agency......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

August 27, 2007, 9:47 PM CT

Early Years Education Measures Yet To Make An Impact

A six year comparison of almost 35,000 children has shown that there has been no change in developmental levels of pupils entering primary school in this period, despite the introduction of several new early years initiatives over the past decade, new research from Durham Universitys Curriculum, Evaluation and Management (CEM) Centre reveals.

The research, presented today at the biennial European Association for Learning and Instruction (EARLI) conference, shows that eventhough there have been massive changes in early years education in the last few years, childrens development and skills at the start of school are no different now than they were before the introduction of the early childhood curriculum, the Sure Start programme, free nursery education for all three year olds and the more recent introduction of the Childrens Act 2002 and the Every Child Matters initiative.

The research used the CEM Centres Performance Indicators in Primary Schools (PIPS) assessment to measure the cognitive development of almost 35,000 children on entry into primary school between 2001 and 2006 and the authors believe it reveals potential policy implications for how future early years initiatives are introduced and monitored.

Dr Christine Merrell, PIPS Projects Manager at Durham Universitys CEM Centre explains: Our aim with this study is to provide a single perspective on the changing profiles of children starting school in England during a time of rapid change. While the PIPS assessments, used in the study do not measure how a number of children were involved in national initiatives, one would have expected that the major government programmes would have resulted in some measurable changes in our sample of almost 35,000 children. It is possible, however, that it is just still too early to measure the effects of these programmes especially those of the Childrens Act and Every Child Matters, which were only introduced in the past few years......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

August 27, 2007, 8:32 PM CT

Most Americans Say They Are Happy At Work

The survey observed that job satisfaction increases with age, with workers over 65 among the most satisfied. The study shows that 86 percent of the people interviewed between 1972 and 2006 said they were satisfied at their jobs, with 48 percent saying they were very satisfied. Only four percent reported being very dissatisfied.

In addition to older workers, those with more education, those earning more money, and workers in the South Central states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Alabama, Mississipi, Louisiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee were the most satisfied. Blacks, Hispanics and people doing unskilled labor were the least happy, as per the report Job Satisfaction in America: Trends and Socio-Demographic Correlates by Tom W. Smith, Director of the General Social Survey at the National Opinion Center at the University of Chicago.

The most important the factors contributing to more job satisfaction in descending order of importance are holding a job with high prestige, being older, being non-black and earning more from a job, Smith said.

Job satisfaction is particularly high among those 65 and over because most people working at that age are not those forced to still work due to financial reasons, but those who choose to do so because they like their jobs, he said. Of the people still working after age 65, 71 percent said they were very satisfied at their job. Workers under 29 had the lowest amount of happiness on the job 42 percent said they were very satisfied......... Posted by: Mac      Read more         Source

August 27, 2007, 8:17 PM CT

Married Men Do Less Housework Than Live-in Boyfriends

The age-old stereotype that women do more housework than men has gotten more credibility with a George Mason University study co-written by sociologist Shannon Davis.

The study of more than 17,000 people in 28 countries found that married men report doing less housework than men who are live-in boyfriends.

This study was recently published in the Journal of Family Issues by Davis and co-authors Theodore Greenstein and Jennifer Gerteisen Marks of North Carolina State University.

According to Davis, the key finding of the study is that it suggests the institution of marriage changes the division of labor. Couples with an egalitarian view on genderseeing men and women as equalare more likely to divide the household chores equally. However, in married relationships, even if an egalitarian viewpoint is present, men still report doing less housework than their wives.

Marriage as an institution seems to have a traditionalizing effect on coupleseven couples who see men and women as equal, says Davis.

While the researchers did not follow cohabitating couples over time to see if their division of housework changed after marriage, their study provides a snapshot in time of couples all over the world.

Our research suggests that couples across many countries are influenced by similar factors when deciding how to divide the housework, she says. Its the way the society has defined what being married means, the institution itself, that affects behavior......... Posted by: Tom      Read more

Sun, 26 Aug 2007 23:27:59 GMT

Dear Dating Diary

Have you ever thought about keeping a journal about your online dating experiences? It could be more beneficial than you might think. Many people use a daily journal just to get their thoughts out of their head and on to the page where they are less threatening and more manageable. This means that you can write about your fears and work through them without affecting your relationships.

More importantly, you can use the insights gained from your dating journal to improve upon your online relationships. By keeping track of the kind of people that you are meeting, the dates that you are going on and the feelings that you are having about all of it, you clarify your own desires to yourself. As you get a better grasp on what you want from an online relationship, you can alter your profiles and dating searches to reflect your newfound information.

Journaling comes naturally to most online daters who are already used to doing a lot of writing. Keep in mind that the journal should be for your eyes only, not for the dating community. It's a way of keeping tabs on yourself for your own benefit. Besides, it'll be a lot of fun to look back on later when you're ready to laugh about some of your dating experiences!

Learn more about keeping a relationship journal. Posted by: Kathryn Vercillo      Read more     Source

August 23, 2007, 10:26 PM CT

SUVs Bigger Polluters

The pollution produced by light trucks, SUVs and minivans is only half a percent higher than that produced by conventional cars, based on a recent study.

But scientists say that this tiny difference becomes enormous when considering the number of light trucks moving along the nation's highways.

"That small difference becomes tremendously magnified when you consider the billions of miles traveled by automobiles every day in this country," said Timothy Buckley, the study's senior author and an associate professor of environmental health sciences at Ohio State University.

"There are easily tens of millions of light trucks on the roads every day".

While the findings are associated with vehicle driving, the conclusions derive from a study of air quality inside an inner-city parking garage, one of the a number of "micro-environments" found within cities.

It's the first study to take a comprehensive look at the concentration of certain automobile-correlation toxic air pollutants inside a parking garage, said Sung Kim, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral fellow with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The scientists observed that the emission of key pollutants from light trucks - a category that includes SUVs and minivans - was 0.5 to 0.6 percent greater than the pollutant levels released by cars......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

August 21, 2007, 5:58 PM CT

Where do most Canadians with alcohol and drug problems live?

If you think the big cities of Toronto and Montreal have the highest rate of alcohol and drug use problems, think again. A new study entitled Geographical Variation in the Prevalence of Problematic Substance Use in Canada authored by three scientists from the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) discovered that Ontario and Quebec had markedly lower concentrations of people with alcohol and drug problems.

With a Canada-wide prevalence of substance use problems estimated at 11%, the study observed that estimates were especially low in the urban corridor between Toronto and Montreal. This low level of alcohol and drug use problems contrasts with higher rates in both the eastern and western provinces of Canada. Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia were all significantly higher than the national average.

Prevalence is higher in mid-sized cities than in larger ones or in rural areas. Eventhough age, sex, employment, and physical health are all strongly linked to substance use problems, these factors did not explain the regional differences.

The CAMH scientists discuss many explanations for their findings. Major cities include large numbers of immigrants, among whom drug and alcohol problems are less common. People who decide to come to Canada, and are accepted, tend to be healthy and high-functioning, and some immigrant cultures also reject alcohol and drug use, said Scott Veldhuizen, Research Analyst at CAMH. The studys co-authors are CAMH Dr. John Cairney, Research Scientist and Project Scientist Karen Urbanoski......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

August 20, 2007, 7:56 AM CT

You Don't Have To Hate Other Groups To Love

Shiite vs. Sunni. Red state vs. Blue state. Immigrant vs. native.

While it may appear that conflict is an inevitable part of interaction between groups, research actually suggests that fighting, hating and contempt between groups is not a necessary part of human nature, as per an Ohio State University professor of psychology.

"There's still this belief that a group's cohesion depends on conflict with other groups, but the evidence doesn't support that," said Marilynn Brewer of Ohio State.

"Despite evidence to the contrary, you still see this theory in the research literature and in a number of textbooks."

Brewer has spent much of her career studying "ingroups" - the groups we belong to - and their relations with "outgroups" - those groups to which others belong.

She discussed the nature of these intergroup relations in her invited address Saturday Aug. 18 in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association. The address was in honor of Brewer winning the 2007 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the APA.

In her address, Brewer said recent evidence suggests that people's attachment to their ingroups has nothing to do with conflict - or indeed any other kind of relation - to other groups......... Posted by: Tom      Read more         Source

August 15, 2007, 8:57 PM CT

What makes a great movie?

A film that wins critical acclaim is likely to be an R-rated drama, adapted from a prize-winning play or book and based on a true story, with the original author or director involved in writing the screenplay. It is unlikely to be a sequel or remake, a comedy or musical, a summer release, a big-budget project, have a PG-13 rating, open on numerous screens or do a big box office on the first weekend. It probably has an excellent score, but it may not have an award-winning song.

But box-office hits may have entirely different profiles.

Dean Simonton, a professor of psychology at UC Davis, has subjected thousands of feature-length, English-language, narrative films to a battery of statistical tests - including Pearson product-moment coefficients and hierarchical regression analyses - to get at the formula for cinematic creative triumph and box-office success.

He will summarize his research at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association on Friday, Aug. 17.

Simonton, an expert on human creativity, is the author of "Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity." He is at work on a new book, "Great Flicks: Scientific Studies of Cinematic Creativity and Aesthetics".

"Exceptional creativity is frequently viewed as a highly individualistic phenomenon," Simonton said. "But there is at least one type of artistic expression that is extremely prominent, often highly profitable and inherently collective in nature: the feature film. Motion pictures provide a valuable research site for investigating group artistic creativity under real-world conditions"......... Posted by: Gina      Read more         Source