Current vaccination policies may not be sufficient to achieve and maintain measles elimination and prevent future resurgence in Australia, Ireland, Italy, the UK and the US, according to a study published in the open access journal BMC Medicine. To successfully achieve and maintain measles elimination in these countries in the medium to long term, further […]
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Globally, one in five deaths are associated with poor diet
People in almost every region of the world could benefit from rebalancing their diets to eat optimal amounts of various foods and nutrients, according to the Global Burden of Disease study tracking trends in consumption of 15 dietary factors from 1990 to 2017 in 195 countries, published in The Lancet. The study estimates that one […]
Attending the ‘best’ high school may yield benefits and risks for students
Parents often go to great lengths to ensure that their children attend top schools, surrounded by high-achieving peers who often come from advantaged backgrounds. But data collected from individuals over a span of 50 years suggests that these aspects of selective schools aren’t uniformly beneficial to students’ educational and professional outcomes in the following decades. […]
Artificial intelligence helps reveal how people process abstract thought: Study of deep neural networks suggests knowledge comes via sensory experience
As artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated, much of the public attention has focused on how successfully these technologies can compete against humans at chess and other strategy games. A philosopher from the University of Houston has taken a different approach, deconstructing the complex neural networks used in machine learning to shed light on how humans […]
Asking questions, testing improves student learning of new material
Jason Chan makes a point to periodically interrupt his lecture and ask students a question about the material they’ve covered. The associate professor of psychology at Iowa State University does this to regain students’ attention, but more importantly, to enhance their ability to learn new information. Researchers know the retrieval process is beneficial for new […]
Beyond skin deep: Understanding disparities in dermatology services
The odds of a black or Hispanic patient visiting an outpatient dermatologist are about half that of a white patient with the same skin condition, according to a new study in JAMA Dermatology. Patients most likely to receive outpatient dermatologic services in the study were white, educated women. The findings are among several that describe […]
Reclassification recommendations for drug in ‘magic mushrooms’: If phase III clinical trials are successful, researchers suggest categorizing the drug as schedule IV
In an evaluation of the safety and abuse research on the drug in hallucinogenic mushrooms, Johns Hopkins researchers suggest that if it clears phase III clinical trials, psilocybin should be re-categorized from a schedule I drug — one with no known medical potential — to a schedule IV drug such as prescription sleep aids, but […]
Happy older people live longer: New study among senior Singaporeans suggests happiness may be key to longevity
Happy older people live longer, according to researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore. In a study published today in Age and Ageing, the scientific journal of the British Geriatrics Society, the authors found that an increase in happiness is directly proportional with a reduction in mortality. The study utilised data for 4,478 participants of […]