Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
The push for performance has never been higher. Students today are faced with a grueling course load, extra-curriculars, and standardized tests. In the wake of this competitive atmosphere, the United States has seen a spike in both ADHD diagnoses and increased demand for prescription medicine. But who’s to blame?
By Karen Blakey and Richard J. Q. McNally
Since their introduction in the United States in the 1940s, artificial fluoridation programmes have been credited with reducing tooth decay, particularly in deprived areas. They are acknowledged by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as one of the ten great public health achievements of the 20th century (alongside vaccination and the recognition of tobacco use as a health hazard).
Hominins and their closest living relative, chimpanzees, diverged approximately 6.5 million years ago on the African continent. Fossil evidence suggests hominins have migrated away from Africa at least twice since then. Crania of the first wave of migrants, such as Neanderthals in Europe and Peking Man in East Asia, show distinct morphological features that are different from contemporary humans (also known as Homo sapiens sapiens).
By Dorothy Crawford
On 24 February 1964 a young research virologist at the Middlesex Hospital in London peered at the screen of an electron microscope and saw a new virus. It turned out to be a human cancer virus – the first ever discovered.
By Demosthenes G. Katritsis
As Charles Darwin elegantly demonstrated, survival depends on the ability for adaptation. This principle, however, can be conceptualized beyond species evolution. By reference to contingent or contextual considerations, adaptation is also relevant to the need of human activity, in general, to correlate with the speed of scientific progress, and technological innovation.
Lisa Bartolotti
Madness and irrationality may seem inextricably related. “You are crazy!” we say, when someone tells us about their risk-taking behaviour or their self-defeating actions). The International Classification of Diseases (ICD 10) and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5) describe people with depression, autism, schizophrenia, dementia, and personality disorders as people who infringe norms of rationality.
Each year cardiovascular disease (CVD) causes over 4 million deaths in Europe and 1.9 million deaths in the European Union (EU). Although the rates of death attributed to CVD have declined over the years, the burden of the disease remains high and on-going research into cardiovascular medicine remains vital. Through clinical and scientific research, we […]
By Jamie Davies
Embryologists who study the beginning of life, and gerontologists who study its end, interact rather little. This is hardly surprising: the former work with growth, construction and preparation for the long life ahead, while the latter work with loss, decline, and the inevitable journey to oblivion.
Is undiagnosed and untreated chronic pain a nationwide epidemic? Does the American legal system’s treatment of the pharmaceutical and medical fields impedes citizens’ struggles to heal themselves? Has the media egregiously focused on the abuses of pain medication rather than extolling its virtues?
By Philip A. Mackowiak
In the January issue of the journal Clinical Toxicology, investigators at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand and the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom offer yet another theory as to the cause of the untimely death of Alexander the Great just prior to his 33rd birthday.
By Hank Giele
In its article ‘UK plastic surgery statistics 2012: brows up, breasts down’, The Guardian reported that 39,000 women underwent cosmetic plastic surgery in 2012: nearly 10,000 breast augments, 4,000 reductions, 5,000 facelifts, 3,000 nose jobs and 3,000 tummy tucks.
The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and the HIV Medicine Association (hivma) are launching a new peer-reviewed, open access journal, Open Forum Infectious Diseases (OFID), providing a global forum for the rapid publication of clinical, translational, and basic research findings.
By Phil Ambery
It’s good to see the problem of anti-microbial resistance revisited by Professor Farrar — a timely reminder to us all of the potential dangers ahead. Memories are short, few will remember the days of the early 90s, when anti-HIV therapies were limited, as were the lives of patients with AIDS. Others will assume that the days of death by “consumption” have long since passed.
By Leonard A. Jason
Names of diseases have never required scientific accuracy (e.g. malaria means bad air, lyme is a town, and ebola is a river). But some disease names are offensive, victim-blaming, and stigmatizing. Multiple sclerosis was once called hysterical paralysis when people believed that this disease was caused by stress linked with oedipal fixations.
By Nick Dragojlovic
When scientists in Scotland announced the successful cloning of Dolly the Sheep in 1997, it triggered a frenzy of speculation in the global media about the possibility of human cloning, and elevated ethical questions to the fore of public discussions about biotechnology. This debate had far-reaching consequences, with citizens’ perceived moral objections to human cloning contributing to the imposition of restrictive policies on stem cell research that involves the cloning of embryos.
By Eldar Sarajlic
Public controversies over non-therapeutic infant circumcision have become frequent occurrences in our time. Recently, an Israeli religious court fined a mother of a one-year-old for refusing to circumcise her son. We all remember last year’s circumcision controversy in Germany.