Research

MU professor finds men doing field research on women are limited to certain subjects

From the Petri dish in the controlled environment of a sterile laboratory to the faraway fields of another country, virtually anything can be the topic of scientific study. However, a University of Missouri religion professor found that if the researcher is a male fieldworker studying women, the situation can be challenging.

             “The question of whether men can conduct field research on women ultimately will be determined by the quality and type of the data that they gather,” said Robert M. Baum, professor of religious studies in the MU College of Arts and Science. [continue reading…]

Monkey Think, Monkey Do

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine have taught a pair of monkeys how to feed themselves with the aid of a robotic arm. What’s more amazing, the arm is controlled by the monkeys’ brainpower.

It’s a scientific marvel that could have tremendous potential for disabled humans: a monkey using a robotic arm to eat a marshmallow.

 

Source: CBS, University of Pittsburgh

Study suggests a single 20-minute writing session positively impacts a patient’s quality of life

Expressive writing –writing about one’s deepest thoughts and feelings—may help change the way cancer patients think and feel about their disease.  In one of the first studies published in an oncology journal about the benefits of writing therapy, researchers say those who immediately reported changes in thoughts about their illness also reported a better physical quality of life three weeks later.

“Previous research suggests expressive writing may enhance physical and psychological well-being,” said Nancy P. Morgan, M.A., writing clinician and director of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Arts and Humanities Program.  “But most of those studies involved three to five writing sessions that were conducted in a controlled laboratory setting. Here, we found that just one writing session in a busy cancer clinic where the patients are frequently interrupted can still have a positive impact on patients.”  The study appears in the February issue of The Oncologist. [continue reading…]

In her PhD, defended at the University of the Basque Country, Maria Luisa de Francisco Maiz provided a clinical-forensic evaluation of brain injuries and also a study on the variables that influence the length of “legal time periods”.

Brain injuries are a serious problem in the industrialised countries, not only for their high incidence but also because they mainly affect young people. At a clinical level, the increase in the efficacy of intensive medical treatments has enabled a drop in the rates of mortality but this fact has generated, in turn, an increase in the number of persons affected by the consequences or after-effects of brain injury. Amongst the various consequences, the neuropsychological and neuropsychiatric ones pose the greatest difficulty for assessment and estimation/quantification of damage [continue reading…]