Abstinence always seems like the easiest way to end behavior we don't like, but studies with homeless alcoholics finds that a little leeway leads to lots of savings. In the current edition of Miller-McCune magazine Frank Kosa's "The Homemakers," looks at three gentlemen whose efforts to tackle persistent homelessness in the United States "has greatly reduced — and just might end — homelessness." A study just published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has provided further evidence that this ambitious contention might not be all that wide of the mark. The study's ... Read More
Fit to be Ride(ing): Public Transit Patrons Pretty Physically Active
March 31, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
As part of a healthy lifestyle, the U.S. Department of Human Health and Services recommends individuals be physically active for a total of 30 minutes a day, five days a week. These levels of "moderate" physical activity, such as walking, dancing or climbing stairs, can reduce obesity, hypertension and heart disease in many individuals. But in a world of fast food and even faster workweeks, not everyone has time to squeeze even a moderate amount of moderate physical activity. According to recently published research in the Journal of Public Health Policy, however, if you are a public ... Read More
Face Time: Voters Young and Old Judge By Looks
March 31, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
In a study recently published in the journal Science, John Antonakis, professor of organizational behavior at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, and his graduate student Olaf Dalgas found that both adults and children as young as 5 are able to predict the outcomes of elections purely on the basis of the candidates' appearance. (This dovetails with research Miller-McCune.com reported recently, which found that Sarah Palin's good looks likely hurt her campaign. And we've also noted that, at least in the world of consumption, snap decisions may be the best ones.)The researchers first ... Read More
I Am Forever in Your Debt — And I Mean Forever
March 30, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Guilt makes people perform a wide range of tasks to make up for their transgressions. Men buy their wives flowers after forgetting an anniversary. Companies buy carbon credits to assuage environmental pollution. States give financial compensation to wrongly convicted citizens. Even AIG executives return million-dollar retention bonuses after being pummeled with negative press.Despite the uncomfortable sucker-punch feeling it induces in one's stomach, psychology and emotion researchers generally view guilt as a positive social behavior. It prompts the transgressor to compensate for their ... Read More
Video Games Can Encourage Positive Behavior, Too
March 27, 2009 • By • 1 Comment
If violent video games encourage violent behavior, as a series of studies suggests, do prosocial games — those that reward helpful behavior — inspire players to act in more constructive, cooperative ways? A newly published paper, featuring studies of three different age groups in three different countries, suggests the answer is yes. “Video games are not inherently good or bad,” concludes the team of 12 researchers led by psychologist Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University. Their findings suggest this popular form of entertainment “can have both positive and negative ... Read More
An Argument for Tap Water
March 27, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
According to Martin Wagner and Jörg Oehlmann from the Department of Aquatic Ecotoxicology at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, an analysis of 20 bottled water brands found that 60 percent are contaminated with estrogenic chemicals, which can disrupt hormonal systems by mimicking estrogen in the body. (As described in the Miller-McCune magazine story, "NAFTA and the Unmanning of America," chemicals that mimic estrogen are known as endocrine disruptors, and "scramble the chemical signals used by vertebrates from reptiles to humans to regulate a wide range of functions, including sexual ... Read More
AMA Lawsuits Shine Light on Health Care Spending
March 26, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
The mainstream media dog-piled yesterday onto a story about the most recent lawsuit filed by the American Medical Association and other medical societies that accuses another insurance company — this time WellPoint, the nation's largest — of price-fixing. The suit involves the use of a controversial software program that determined how much doctors should be paid for out-of-network services. It accuses WellPoint of using the program created by Ingenix, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, to artificially lower payments to doctors and therefore overcharge patients for millions of dollars ... Read More
Public Opinion’s Climate-Change Ping-Pong
March 26, 2009 • By • 3 Comments
Two years ago, when the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore received the Nobel Peace prize, many of us thought the global warming debate was over and it was time to address what they had identified as a problem threatening mankind. But there always have been skeptics of the panel's conclusions, and they have not gone home quietly. A recent Gallup poll suggests that their continued — and lately more vocal — dissent may be having an effect on Americans' attitudes. According to poll results, a record-high 41 percent of Americans think global warming, ... Read More
Fearing Death? Think Progress!
March 26, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Is the human race gradually evolving into a better version of itself? Scientific and technological advances aside, the historical evidence for this proposition is, at best, mixed. While cultural norms change, the 2,500-year-old dramas of the ancient Greeks still feel like accurate reflections of human behavior. Yet most of us cling to the notion of human progress, insisting that our children will inhabit a more just society, or that our own contribution will make the world a better place. Why? Three social psychologists from the University of Amsterdam have come up with a reason: It makes ... Read More
Joules Before Swine
March 25, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Family pig farms used to be as much a part of the old South as homemade sausage and red-eye gravy. What's left of swine farming in the Southeast today, however, has gone corporate — generating larger profit margins, but also a flood of new wastewater. Recently, all in the name of bioenergy, a portion of that effluent has been used to fertilize and irrigate an experimental stand of Southeastern coastal Bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon L.). Normally used as livestock forage, these particular grass swaths were cut and dried for analysis as bioenergy-rich hay. The details are in a paper to ... Read More
