Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
Acupuncture is a medical therapy that originated in China several thousand years ago and is rooted in a complex practice ritual based on a philosophy that predates our current understanding of physiology. Despite its long history, though, the intervention itself, particularly when coupled with electrical stimulation, significantly overlaps with many conventional peripherally-focused neuromodulatory therapies.
Writing in 1990 about her experience attending antenatal classes in the 1950s, British mother and childbirth activist Heda Borton recalled her husband squirming as he watched a film of a baby being born in their antenatal education class: “My husband came to the evening under protest, and sat blowing his nose and hiding behind his handkerchief.”
Cancer patients experience substantial psychological effects from facing death, financial issues, emotional problems with friends and family, and adverse medical outcomes from treatment. The psychological effects are so severe that some patients consider suicide. Depression is more common in people with cancer than in the general population, said Kelly Trevino, PhD, from the Center for Research on End-of-Life Care at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York.
Carotenoids are yellow, orange, and red pigments synthesized by plants and algae. They are responsible for the colours in fruits and vegetables, like the redness in tomatoes. When consumed, these pigments are used by many animals to produce brightly coloured displays. Examples range from the orange patches on guppies, the pink feathers of flamingos, the yellow-orange underside of common lizards, to the orange exterior of ladybird beetles.
How to make sense of the Brexit vote and its aftermath? To where can we look if we are to learn more, and to learn more deeply, of the agonistic parts played by principle and pragmatism in human decision-making where self, sovereignty and economic well-being are concerned? King John – Shakespeare’s English history play with the earliest setting of all – casts the longest and, perhaps the strongest, light.
Many might think that the best way to reduce the global tobacco epidemic is by health education and banning sales to minors – policies well-liked by teachers, parents, and governments. But these are ineffective means of reducing smoking prevalence. Surprisingly, it is a fiscal measure that is the critical and easily the most important means of improving public health, as by raising the price, cigarettes become less affordable, especially to the young.
Fifteen years ago, as a junior scholar, I was advised not to publish my first book on the persecution of gay men in Germany. And now, one of the major journals in the field has devoted an entire special issue to the theme of queering German history. We have come a long way in recognising the merits of the history of sexuality–and same-sex sexuality by extension–as integral to the study of family, community, citizenship, and human rights.
Think about a situation in the past few years where your mind was at its very best. A situation where you felt immune to distractions, thinking was easy and non-strenuous, and you did not feel information-overloaded. If you take a moment, you can probably recall one such situation. As you think about it, you may even experience it actively right now and get a sense that you could be in that state again.
We take it for granted that our entire brain only produces one conscious agent, despite the fact that the brain actually consists of many different, more or less independent modules. But how is this possible? The classic answer to this riddle is cortical connectivity. Separate brain regions only give rise to one conscious agent because the different parts continuously exchange massive amounts of information.
‘You do realise that they’ll talk differently to you because you’re British?’ I thought about this advice a lot. It came from a Zimbabwean who I met as I began research for my book about Zimbabwe’s International Relations. I planned to interview Zimbabweans to find out how they saw the world, and how they understood themselves in relation to it. There are many ways to conduct research interviews.
How will the Trump administration utilize economic statecraft and how will his approach be distinct from previous presidents? To answer these questions, we look to what we know about Trump’s stances and early actions on trade policy, sanctions, and foreign aid. For much of the early history of the republic, economic statecraft was the primary bargaining tool employed.
The 2017 International Studies Association meeting will be held this year from February 22nd until February 25th in Baltimore, Maryland. The International Studies Association is one of the oldest interdisciplinary associations devoted to studying international, transnational, and global affairs since 1959. The 58th Annual Convention is dedicated to understanding change in world politics.
As infectious diseases around the world continue to evolve, so does the research surrounding the discipline. To find out more about the progress and future challenges in this field, we’ve caught up with Robert T. “Chip” Schooley, Editor-in-Chief of the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases (CID), who began his term in January after serving as an associate editor for the past decade.
I have been working on preservation of Southern Queer history for ten years, and I have never felt the urgency that I feel at this moment to make certain it is safe and available. I think many archivists would agree that urgency is an undercurrent of most of the work that we do since so much information is lost when people die or move or leave their work.
Prey animals must constantly stay alert and rely on publicly available information to avoid being eaten, find suitable foraging and mating opportunities, and to assess local competition for resources. Reliable information allows prey to make behavioural decisions in order to ensure sufficient foraging and mating gains while reducing predation risks. However, complete information is rarely available to prey.
The integrity of science is threatened in many ways – by direct censorship; by commercial, political, or military secrecy; by various forms of publication bias; by exorbitant journal subscription fees that effectively deny access to the general public; by cheating and falsification of results; and by sloppiness in the research process or the editorial process prior to publication.