Oxford University Press's
Academic Insights for the Thinking World
In March of 2020, for many Americans and older workers especially, what it meant to go to work changed in an instant. As some workers moved their offices into their homes, others had to go to work and face significant risks to their health each day.
Symptoms of the looming climate crisis abound: 50-year extreme heat events happening every year, melting of polar ice sheets, forest fires that encircle the globe, tropical cyclones of greater size, intensity and, as was very evident in Ida’s recent visit to New York, unprecedented levels of precipitation.
Food plays an important role in brain performance and health. In our review, we outline the role of diet in five key areas: brain development, signalling networks and neurotransmitters in the brain, cognition and memory, the balance between protein formation and degradation, and deteriorative effects due to chronic inflammatory processes.
A new census of the Universe will allow scientists to understand more about how galaxies are born, age, and die. The millions of galaxies that have been painstakingly catalogued come in many shapes and sizes and this new work shines a light on every variety that we can see.
Each year an estimated 40 million people are in need of palliative care, 78% of whom live in low- and middle-income countries. This reading list of recent titles can help you to reflect on palliative medicine as a public health need.
What is it about highly processed foods that causes such a public health threat? Why are people unable to quit even when they are highly motivated to do so? Evidence is growing that highly processed foods are capable of triggering addictive processes akin to addictive drugs like tobacco.
We are delighted to announce the OUP published titles that have been presented with awards at this year’s British Medical Association Medical Book Awards.
Take a virtual tour of three of America’s national parks: the Grand Canyon, Zion Canyon, and Bryce Canyon, to get a complete picture of the West’s geology and landscape.
The usual way of thinking considers obesity a problem of energy balance. Take in more calories than you expend—in other words, “overeat”—and weight gain will inevitably result. The simple solution, according to the prevailing Energy Balance Model (EBM), is to eat less and move more. New research shows that viewing body weight control as an energy balance problem is fundamentally wrong, or at least not helpful, for three reasons.
Coping with a global pandemic has laid bare the need for public trust in science. And there is good news and bad news when it comes to how likely the public is to trust science. Our work over the past ten years reveals that the public trusts science and that religious people seem to trust science as much as non-religious people. Yet, public trust in scientists as a people group is eroding in dangerous ways. And for certain groups who are particularly unlikely to trust scientists, the belief that all scientists are loud, anti-religious atheists is a part of their distrust.
This blog post looks at five peer review models currently in use, describing what they mean for authors, reviewers and editors, and examines the various benefits and consequences of each.
Elderspeak or baby talk to older adults is frequent in the healthcare context. Although elderspeak is typically well-intentioned it arises from a place of implicit ageism and can have negative consequences for older adults, particularly those with dementia.
The theme of Peer Review Week 2021 is “Identity.” From carrying out open peer review GigaScience makes sure that early career researchers and students emerge from the shadows of their supervisors and are credited when they jointly carry out reviews. New initiatives are promoting review of preprints as a way to improve skills and join editorial boards and reviewer pools. GigaScience is participating in the Preprint Reviewer Recruitment Network and encourages reviewers and other journals to join.
More than half a century ago, powerful civil rights laws brought disabled children into American school systems, breaking down the physical barriers that held these young people at the margins of society. But attitudes towards disability as a devalued limitation persisted, holding social and cultural barriers between disabled and nondisabled people firmly in place.
From a psychological perspective, entitlement refers to one’s sense of deservingness. Entitled people believe they deserve more than others. For entitled white people, the latest Census data triggers panic at being replaced by those who have historically been on the margins.
We are still in the throes of the worst respiratory disease pandemic since the “Spanish” flu of 1918─and it’s far from over yet. Given the pain and misery, we will surely absorb all that COVID-19 can teach us about preventing another pandemic.