ScienceDaily: Science & Society News

Better concussion prevention in youth sports needed, experts say Posted: 19 Feb 2015 08:57 AM PST With mandated provisions in youth sports concussion laws high among Rhode Island Interscholastic League high schools, compliance with recommended concussion protocols was very limited, researchers have found. The study suggests that more concussion related standards and protocols should be written into law in order to raise compliance rates among youth sports groups.

Words used in Chinese books illuminate how a nation's values changed during reforms Posted: 19 Feb 2015 07:17 AM PST Individualistic values have been rising in China as the country has undergone rapid economic and social change, researchers report. The researchers chose 16 words that they determined represent a cross-section of values in Chinese culture, and then used the Google Ngram Viewer, a free online tool, to determine how frequently they were included in the texts.

Social media can help alert students during campus emergencies, study finds Posted: 18 Feb 2015 11:14 AM PST Using social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to spread information during campus emergencies can help keep students safer, according to new research.

Hair dye 'CSI' could help police solve crimes Posted: 18 Feb 2015 11:13 AM PST Criminals with a penchant for dyeing their hair could soon pay for their vanity. Scientists have found a way to analyze hair samples at crime scenes to rapidly determine whether it was colored and what brand of dye was used.

Physicians less likely than other health professionals to be divorced, study finds Posted: 18 Feb 2015 11:13 AM PST The largest investigation of divorce rates among physicians has made what may be a surprising finding -- physicians are actually less likely to be or to have been divorced than those in other occupations -- including lawyers, nurses, and other health care professionals. The study did find that female physicians had a greater likelihood of being divorced than did male physicians, particularly those female physicians who worked longer hours.

Challenges of soldier rehabilitation, reintegration need closer attention Posted: 18 Feb 2015 09:37 AM PST Veterans returning from combat often face a multitude of challenges that can create a situation in which veterans are unable to reintegrate into civilian life as they had planned and hoped. Now a group of authors, many of whom are veterans themselves, present a wide-ranging view of the environment and treatment options for returning soldiers.

When it comes to an opening number, sometimes the best bargaining move is to offer two Posted: 18 Feb 2015 09:37 AM PST Social psychologists conducted five studies to explore the effects of different kinds of opening offers in negotiations. "For years, we taught students to avoid making range offers in negotiations, assuming that counterparts receiving those offers would have selective attention, hearing only the end of the range that was attractive to them," said a co-author. "Our results surprised us, up-ending how we teach the topic. We can't say that range offers work 100% of the time, but they definitely deserve a place in the negotiator's toolkit."

Think again about gender gap in science Posted: 17 Feb 2015 01:29 PM PST Scholars from diverse fields have long proposed that interlocking factors such as cognitive abilities, discrimination and interests may cause more women than men to leave the science, technology, engineering and mathematics pipeline after entering college. Now a new analysis has poked holes in the much referenced 'leaky pipeline' metaphor. The research shows that the bachelor's-to-Ph.D. pipeline in some STEM fields no longer leaks more women than men as it did previously.