A Blog Around The Clock

Female Medical Students Underestimate Their Abilities And Males Tend To Overestimate Theirs:

Despite performing equally to their male peers in the classroom and the clinic, female medical students consistently report decreased self-confidence and increased anxiety, particularly over issues related to their competency.

Direct Recording Shows Brain Signal Persists Even In Dreamless Sleep:

Neuroscientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have taken one of the first direct looks at one of the human brain's most fundamental "foundations": a brain signal that never switches off and may support many cognitive functions.

Why Does Lederhosen Conquer The Oktoberfest In Munich?:

The beer's tapped and suddenly it seems the whole city is intoxicated: dirndls and lederhosen are becoming the ever more popular choice of outfit for going to the Oktoberfest - and not only among the born-and-bred Munich inhabitants.

Whether Combat Or Peacekeeping, PTSD Impacts Veterans' Well-being:

Deployed peacekeeping veterans with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have significant impairments in health-related quality of life according to research by Dr. J. Donald Richardson of The University of Western Ontario and his co-investigators.

Where You Live Matters When You're Seriously Ill: Three U.S. States Earn 'A' Grade, Three An 'F':

America does a mediocre job caring for its sickest people. The nation, says a new report, gets a C. Palliative care programs make patients facing serious and chronic illness more comfortable by alleviating their pain and symptoms and counseling patients and their families.

Parents Still Fear Autism Could Be Linked To Vaccines, Poll Shows:

The first national survey of attitudes toward autism reveals that a small but significant percentage of people still believe the disease is caused by childhood vaccines. The survey of 1000 randomly selected adults was conducted for the Florida Institute of Technology.

Making Metabolism More Inefficient Can Reduce Obesity:

In a discovery that counters prevailing thought, a study in mice has found that inactivating a pair of key genes involved in "fat-burning" can actually increase energy expenditure and help lower diet-induced obesity. These unusual findings might lead to some new roads in weight-loss therapy.

Musicians Use Both Sides Of Their Brains More Frequently Than Average People:

Supporting what many of us who are not musically talented have often felt, new research reveals that trained musicians really do think differently than the rest of us. Vanderbilt University psychologists have found that professionally trained musicians more effectively use a creative technique called divergent thinking, and also use both the left and the right sides of their frontal cortex more heavily than the average person.