TOP 100 SCIENCE SITES
| |||
|
| |||
| |||
|
| |||
| Vital Signs: Screening: One More Reason to Get Up Early The new study looked at the results from colonoscopies performed on 477 patients at the West Los Angeles Veterans Medical Center in 2006 and 2007. feeds.nytimes.com |
Why caring can sour a happy marriage New psychological research has revealed surprising data about how relationships failTrue love may be the key to a long and happy marriage – but being a dentist or an agricultural engineer helps, too, according to new research.A paper that correlates occupations with divorce and separation rates, to be published in the Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, reveals that those employed in extrovert and stressful jobs are highly likely to divorce, as are those who work in the caring professions.Dancers, choreographers and bartenders have around a 40% chance of experiencing a relationship breakdown. But also at high risk are nurses, psychiatrists and those who help the elderly and disabled. Conversely, agricultural engineers, optometrists, dentists, clergymen and podiatrists are all in occupations which carry a 2-7% chance of family breakdown."This is a fascinating piece of research containing all sorts of surprises," said Dai Williams, a chartered occupational psychologist and member of the British Psychological Society. "It won't amaze anyone that relationships frequently break down under the pressure of jobs involving long hours and unpredictable working patterns. Or that if you work in an extrovert environment, you will have more chance to meet other people and develop competing relationships. Opticians, who have a low divorce rate, meet lots of people, but don't have the time to chat them up."But what is interesting is that those involved in caring professions experience a high level of break-up. This might be because they spend too long caring for other people at the cost of their own families, or because they are naturally sensitive people who are more vulnerable and sensitive in their own relationship," he said.The study found that chefs, secretaries and mathematicians shared a 20% chance of being divorced or separated. Journalists and urban planners had a 18% chance, while librarians, dietitians and fitness instructors had a 17% chance.Travel agents, writers and police shared a 16% likelihood of divorce, slightly above firefighters and teachers. At a 12% chance of divorce, judges and magistrates were slightly less likely to succeed in their relationships than vets and funeral directors.Despite their long hours, or perhaps because of them, chief executives had only a 10% chance of experiencing marriage breakdown, slightly above pharmacists, dentists and farmers. Agricultural engineers were the most faithful of all, with their relationships suffering a breakdown rate of less than 2%.Dr Caroline Schuster Cotterell, a chartered psychologist and author of Leadership Behaviour & Corporate Success, said: "Chief executives may be a case on their own. One might expect the leaders of organisations to experience high levels of stress involving personnel issues, financial implications and personal leadership style, but this may not be the case. While CEOs are busy, they are also excellent at time management, conflict resolution, delegation and are, more often than not, highly emotionally intelligent – all necessary ingredients of a successful relationship."Dr Michael Aamodt, an industrial psychologist at Radford University in Virginia, invented a formula to work out the likelihood of success of a marriage based on the occupation of one of the partners. The formula (separated plus divorced) divided by (total population minus never married) was used to establish the percentage of people in 449 occupations who were once in a marital relationship.Aamodt rated professions and trades according to their likelihood of a successful marriage. "I looked at the divorce rate for each given occupation after controlling for gender, race, age and income characteristics," said Aamodt. "By controlling for demographic variables that might be related to divorce rates, we also obtained race, gender, age and income information for each occupation."However, shift work, overtime and weekend work made no significant difference, he said.Percentage chance of a divorce1. Dancers and choreographers 43.05%2. Bartenders 38.43%3. Massage therapists 38.22%4. Nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides 28.95%5. Entertainers and performers, sports and related workers 28.49%6. Baggage porters and concierges 28.43%7. Telemarketers 28.10%8. Waiters/waitresses 27.12%9. Roofers 26.85%, and maids and housekeeping cleaners 26.38%10. Chefs/head cooks 20.10%MarriageRelationshipsPsychologyAmelia Hillguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Darwin and Wallace inspired by Malthus Intellectual priority is often hard to establish (Letters 3 and 8 December). Evolution was very much "in the air" in the 1850s; the crucial question was "what is the mechanism?". (As it happened, both Darwin and Wallace found their inspiration in Malthus). Wallace's letter of 1858, succinctly setting out his mechanism, sent Darwin into a panic and we know that Charles Lyell and Joseph Hooker took the matter out of his hands and arranged that miscellaneous evidence of Darwin's priority, with the letter, would be presented at the Linnean Society. This was an untidy and unusual process, but I am not convinced the alleged conspiracy went further than that.Thereafter Darwin fully acknowledged their discovery to have been a joint one and Wallace seemed happy throughout his long life to regard Darwin as the senior partner in the enterprise of Darwinism, the title of his own book on natural selection. Darwin was subsequently relieved to find that Wallace was an agreeable and generous man who harboured no resentment. The most likely reason for Wallace's subsequent demotion was probably his later pursuit (right up to 1913) of unpopular causes, including land nationalisation, socialism, spiritualism and anti-militarism.Emeritus professor David CollardUniversity of Bath• Charles Darwin did not have the theory of evolution as we now understand it 20 years before publishing On the Origin of Species. His migration theory of 1844 still dominated his thoughts until Hooker damned it unreservedly in the summer of 1856. Only in the months which followed did Darwin's ideas begin to resemble those published by Alfred Russel Wallace in September 1855, September 1856 and those received in a private letter in January 1857, but which Darwin only admitted receiving in a letter he dated 1 May 1857. All this is made clear in The Darwin Conspiracy by Roy Davies.Professor Mark BrakeUniversity of GlamorganEvolutionCharles Darwinguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Solar showdown in Calif. tortoises' desert home LOS ANGELES (AP) -- On a strip of California's Mojave Desert, two dozen rare tortoises could stand in the way of a sprawling solar-energy complex in a case that highlights mounting tensions between wilderness conservation and the nation's quest for cleaner power.... hosted.ap.org |
Really?: The Claim: Coughing Can Blunt the Pain of a Doctor’s Needle Can coughing during an injection be a cheap and easy way to ease the needle’s sting? feeds.nytimes.com |