Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
In the spring of 2015 the National Institutes of Health announced new guidelines for the incorporation of sex as a biological variable in any research they fund. Chromosome compliment (XX for female, XY for male in all mammals), gonadal phenotype, and gamete size define sex as a biological parameter. (In contrast, gender is a human construction based on an individual or society’s perception of sex.)
Every two days, humans produce more textual information than the combined output of humanity from the dawn of recorded history up through the year 2003. Much of this text is directly relevant to questions in political science. Governments, politicians, and average citizens regularly communicate their thoughts and opinions in writing, providing new data from which to understand the political world and suggesting new avenues of study in areas that were previously thought intractable.
Anyone who is even remotely familiar with the crisis in Greece must be aware of its record-high unemployment. From an already elevated value of 8% in 2008, the Greek unemployment rate rocketed to 27% in 2013 and has since remained in that ballpark.
Should EU-US investment disputes be solved by arbitral tribunals constituted separately for each dispute, as is currently the case under most Bilateral Investment Treaties (BITs), or should a permanent court be established? This is one of the key questions that might kill the efforts for what would be the largest regional free-trade agreement in history, covering 46% of world GDP: the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).
On Sunday September 13, the United States will celebrate National Grandparents’ Day. This annual holiday, held on the first Sunday after Labor Day, celebrates our grandmothers and grandfathers. Marian McQuade, grandmother to 43 and great-grandmother of 15, is widely credited with founding the holiday.
In the wake of the development of advanced neonatal intensive medical care, more and more children born very preterm manage to beat the previously tough odds and survive the perils of infections and respiratory distress that are some of the common problems in the group. While this is one of the success stories of modern medicine, long-term follow-up of premature-born pediatric cohorts show that the obstacles don’t cease with the need of intensive medical care.
How would we know if a medieval person had a neurological disorder? If we did know, would it be possible to pinpoint the type of condition? What insight can we gain about the practical impact of disorders on medieval life? Fortunately, a physical record survives that provides a reliable window into the health of medieval people—or, at least, those who were able to write.
Plastic surgery, aesthetic surgery, cosmetic surgery: the field has many different names. Yet despite its high profile today, many people even within the medical field have a limited understanding of it and the drastic changes it’s undergoing. From noninvasive procedures to patient education, aesthetic surgeons face a variety of new challenges. We sat down with Foad Nahai, editor of Aesthetic Surgery Journal, to learn more about developments in the field.
Who decides with whom we are allowed to have sex? Generally, consenting adults are considered to have the ability to make decisions regarding sexual activity and are allowed to pursue a sexual relationship with whomever they choose, assuming appropriate criteria for consent are met.
We recently asked you to tell us to send us your reflections, stories, and the difficulties you’ve faced while doing oral history. This week, we bring you another post in this series, focusing on an oral history project from Carmen Doncel and Henry Eric Hernández. We encourage you to to chime into the discussion, comment below or on our Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and G+ pages.
The research literature on health inequalities (health differences between different social groups) is growing almost every day. Within this burgeoning literature, it is generally agreed that the UK’s health inequalities (like those in many other advanced, capitalist economies) are substantial.
Animal research has always attracted a lot of attention because it involves the welfare of animals being compromised. Given this pressure, you would expect that animal studies are performed according to the highest scientific standards; however, there are big methodological problems.
Phantom limb pain is thought to result from changes in brain organisation. Recent evidence challenges this view, leaving this mysterious phenomenon unsolved. Picture yourself waking up in the hospital. Your body is hurting, but you can’t remember what happened. The doctor tells you that you had a severe accident causing you to lose your left arm.
For a brief moment in July of 2015, the American news media exploded with headline stories about a work of literature, something of an unprecedented turn for the mass media. That this coverage should have focused almost exclusively on race issues and ignored the “new” volume’s revelations about gender issues in Lee’s novels is understandable. The explanation lies in the coincidence of the book’s publication with a series of wrenching racial events from Ferguson to Charleston and summarized in the “Black Lives Matter” campaign.
Sexual exploitation and abuse (SEA) by UN peacekeepers is not fresh news. It has been going on for years. It first hit the headlines over ten years ago, and the scandal drove the UN to take action. Yet recent allegations over SEA by French peacekeepers in 2014 have brought the issue to the forefront again, and have motivated the UN Secretary-General to escalate the UN’s response to SEA in its peacekeeping operations.
What is the future of cancer research? In recent years, new developments in this rapidly changing field have delivered fundamental insights into cancer biology. Patient options have not only increased but improved, with thousands of individuals benefiting from these often life-saving discoveries, many of which have been documented by the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, an internationally acclaimed source for original cancer-related research, up-to-date news, and information.