The fallout from two controversial changes to citizenship laws continues to rock India. At least 35 people have died in sectarian violence in New Delhi which began on February 23. Muslims homes and businesses have been attacked and mosques vandalised by mobs. All schools in the capital were shut as clashes intensified between those for...
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Solar Storms Could Scramble Whales’ Navigational Sense
When our sun belches out a hot stream of charged particles in Earth’s general direction, it doesn’t just mess up communications satellites. It might also be scrambling the navigational sense of California gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus), causing them to strand on land, according to a Duke University graduate student. Many animals can sense the Earth’s...
Alcohol Ads Lead to Youth Drinking, Should Be More Regulated, Experts Say
The marketing of alcoholic beverages is one cause of underage drinking, public health experts conclude. Because of this, countries should abandon what are often piecemeal and voluntary codes to restrict alcohol marketing and construct government-enforced laws designed to limit alcohol-marketing exposure and message appeal to youth. These conclusions stem form a series of eight review...
New Study Offers Clues to Origin of Laws
Speculation about where laws come from ranges from crediting judges and legal scholars to God. However new research co-authored by a University of Central Florida researcher and appearing in the journal Nature Human Behaviour offers evidence that criminal laws come from an intuitive and shared, universal sense of justice that humans possess. “We sometimes think of the...
Anonymous No More: Combining Genetics with Genealogy to Identify the Dead in Unmarked Graves
In Quebec, gravestones did not come into common use until the second half of the 19th century, so historical cemeteries contain many unmarked graves. Inspired by colleagues at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University, a team of researchers in genetics, archaeology and demography from three Quebec universities (Université de Montréal, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi and Université...
Childhood Physical Abuse Linked to Heavy Cigarette Use Among Teens Who Smoke
Researchers have known that kids who are at high risk of being mistreated at home – who live in poverty or have parents who use drugs or have mental health problems – are more likely to start smoking. Because abused and neglected children are often unsupervised, these teens have easy access to cigarettes and other...
New in the Hastings Center Report: A Call to Confront Mistrust in the U.S. Health Care System
“For those who have faced exploitation and discrimination at the hands of physicians, the medical profession, and medical institutions, trust is a tall order and, in many cases, would be naïve,” writes Laura Specker Sullivan in “Trust, Risk, and Race in American Medicine.” Specker Sullivan calls on medical providers to take action, writing that caring and competence...
Stress May Drive People to Give as Well as Receive Emotional Support
Stress has a justifiably bad reputation for making people feel crummy. But new research suggests that despite its negative side effects, it may also lead to a surprising social benefit. In a study, a team of scientists including Penn State researchers found that experiencing stress made people both more likely to give and receive emotional...
A Study of Economic Compensation for Victims of Sexual Violence in Europe
In an article coming from the project, recently published in the Teoría y Derecho magazine, the efficiency of the Spanish system of economic compensation for victims of sexual violence is analysed through the two procedures aimed at this purpose: on one hand, the payment of compensations established in judgement of conviction and on the other hand, grants...
Why Edgar Allan Poe Probably Did Not Kill Himself
A computational analysis of language used by the writer Edgar Allan Poe has revealed that his mysterious death was unlikely to have been suicide. The author, poet, editor, and literary critic died in 1849 after spending several days in hospital while in a state of delirium. To date, Poe’s death remains an unsolved enigma, with...