Category Archives: Health

Are Your Values Right or Left? The Answer Is More Literal Than You Think

Up equals good, happy, optimistic; down the opposite. Right is honest and trustworthy. Left, not so much. That’s what language and culture tell us. “We use mental metaphors to structure our thinking about abstract things,” says psychologist Daniel Casasanto, “One of those metaphors is space.” (more…)

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Study Finds Public Relatively Unconcerned About Nanotechnology Risks

A new study finds that the general public thinks getting a suntan poses a greater public health risk than nanotechnology or other nanoparticle applications. The study, from North Carolina State University, compared survey respondents’ perceived risk of nanoparticles with 23 other public-health risks.

The study is the first to compare the public’s perception of the risks associated with nanoparticles to other environmental and health safety risks. Researchers found that nanoparticles are perceived as being a relatively low risk. (more…)

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How Child Molesters Justify Their Actions

Men who sexually abuse children generally blame external factors to explain their actions and diminish their guilt. “Every reason they give is a cognitive distortion,” says Sarah Paquette, a student who investigated the issue as part of her master’s thesis at the Université de Montréal School of Criminology. (more…)

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Fighting Twin Epidemics in Tanzania: Heroin and HIV

Sub-Saharan Africa is struggling with twin epidemics — HIV and heroin addiction — and Tanzania, in eastern Africa, is one of the hardest-hit regions.

But now, with funding from the U.S. government and organizational expertise from Yale, an effort is underway there to get heroin addiction and the viruses spawned by the sharing of contaminated needles — HIV, Hepatitis B and C — under control. (more…)

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Older Lesbians, Gays Have Higher Rates of Chronic Disease, Mental Distress, Isolation

*California’s aging LGB population is set to double in next 20 years*

Members of California’s aging lesbian, gay and bisexual population are more likely to suffer from certain chronic conditions, even as they wrestle with the challenges of living alone in far higher numbers than the heterosexual population, according to new policy brief from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. 

Half of all gay and bisexual adult men in California between the ages of 50 and 70 are living alone, compared with 13.4 percent of heterosexual men in the same age group. And although older California lesbians and bisexual women are more likely to live with a partner or a family member than their male counterparts, more than one in four live alone, compared with one in five heterosexual women.  (more…)

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