Free Republic

Do guns make people safer or more susceptible to violence? Does banning assault-style weapons or expanding background checks save lives, or are such measures merely inconveniences for law-abiding gun owners? These are just some of the questions in the debate over gun control, with advocates and foes lobbing a dizzying number of statistics and studies to make their case. Often, those facts and figures contradict one another. The lack of objective research on gun violence has become evident as Minnesota and the nation grapple with a slew of proposed changes to gun laws after the Newtown, Conn., school shooting that...

On traditional versus “alternative” marriage, several decades of proselytizing, aided and abetted by the mass media and popular culture, have borne fruit. “There is a generational divide on this issue,” according to CBS News. “Young Americans (those ages 18-29) are some of the strongest proponents of allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.” “Seventy-two percent of them support it, as do a majority –albeit a smaller one– of Americans ages 30-44. However, support for same-sex marriage drops to 44 percent among those who are age 45-64 and even further to just a third of Americans age 65 and over. In...

(WOMENSENEWS)--Since two of her children were born with special needs that may be linked to environmental pollution, Melissa Wolfe has worried about flame retardants in her home. Today's release of two studies in the journal Environmental Science and Technology indicate that these chemicals are prevalent in couch upholstery and dust, and raise Wolfe's level of concern. "One of my sons is a thumb sucker, and this news makes me even more nervous about what he is putting in his mouth," says Wolfe, who lives in Brentwood, N.H., and is a board member of the New Hampshire Learning Disabilities Association. Flame...

<p>Two new studies indicate that people who suffer sleep apnea have a higher risk of developing cancer.</p> <p>Due to be presented in San Francisco this week at an American Thoracic Society conference, the findings have been touted as "striking" by researchers, the New York Times reported.</p>

Two independent groups working with advanced-stage cases say the drug extended the period before the disease worsened by more than 3.5 months. Avastin can stabilize tumors in women suffering from advanced-stage ovarian cancer, extending the period before the disease worsens by more than 3.5 months, according to the results of two large, international clinical trials conducted by separate research teams. The findings, published in Thursday's edition of the New England Journal of Medicine, come less than a week after the European Commission approved Avastin for treating women newly diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer. The drug, known generically as bevacizumab, has...

Tucson's Mexican American studies program violates state law, an Arizona administrative law judge ruled Tuesday, paving the way for the program's possible demise. Judge Lewis D. Kowal affirmed a prior decision by the state's schools chief that the Tucson Unified School District's program violates a new law prohibiting divisive ethnic-studies classes. John Huppenthal, the state superintendent of public instruction, had deemed the program in violation in June. Among other things, the law bans classes primarily designed for a particular ethnic group or that "promote resentment toward a race or class of people."

UCLA-Harvard study highlights 3 types of confusing outcome measures Studies about medications published in the most influential medical journals are frequently designed in a way that yields misleading or confusing results, new research suggests. Investigators from the medical schools at UCLA and Harvard analyzed all the randomized medication trials published in the six highest-impact general medicine journals between June 1, 2008, and Sept. 30, 2010, to determine the prevalence of three types of outcome measures that make data interpretation difficult. In addition, they reviewed each study's abstract to determine the percentage that reported results using relative rather than absolute numbers,...

It is a common saying that nice guys finish last - and when it comes to pay packets, at least, research shows the genial really do end up at the back of the queue. A study which looked at the link between personality and wages has found that 'agreeable' workers earn significantly less than their meaner colleagues. The gap is particularly telling when broken down by gender, with the difference in pay between mean and nice men almost $10,000 a year. The study, titled 'Do Nice Guys - and Gals - Really Finish Last?', examined levels of 'agreeableness' attributed to...

Studies: Missed meds waste billionsPublished: May 27, 2011 at 11:02 AM WASHINGTON, May 27 (UPI) -- Studies say Americans who don't take prescribed medications waste billions annually because the missed doses lead to emergency room visits and hospitalizations. A study by Express Scripts, an independent prescription- filling company, says the problem costs $258 billion a year, while a second study by CVS Caremark, Harvard University and Brigham and Women's Hospital put the figure at $290 billion, USA Today reported Friday. **SNIP** "Drugs don't work if you don't take them, and people often don't take them the way they're supposed to,"...

Late last month, I came out for spanking... As predicted, the hysterics came out of the woodwork with their hysterical talking points (one even trying to create a false link between spanking children and sexual abuse). Needless to say, I thought I’d use this post to share some more studies. Take the work of...Gunnoe, professor of psychology at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan again. Her “study found that youngsters smacked up to the age of six did better at school and were more optimistic about their lives than those never hit by their parents,” reported the Telegraph UK, last...

Harris County recently received mixed results from a nationwide project designed to assess health indicators in various regions of the United States, even coming in dead last in one area studied. The county rankings were compiled by the Mobilizing Action Toward Community Health (MATCH) project, a collaboration between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute. In Texas, 223 counties were studied. Two of the most common measures of overall health are mortality (number of deaths) and morbidity (how often people are sick). In these Areas, Harris County did relatively well. Because of a 41...

The quest was a noble one: To develop, and help bring to market, new energy technologies that are better for the environment, provide greater system reliability and lower system costs, while furnishing “tangible benefits to electric utility customers.” Well, electric utility customers, you’ve shelled out $700 million for this noble effort since 1996, and what have you gotten? Precious little that could be even loosely interpreted as “tangible benefits,” concludes a report by the Legislative Analyst’s Office. TENUOUS CONNECTIONS Meet the state’s Public Interest Energy Research (PIER) program, built into your electric bill as a “public goods” charge. It has...

One: Breastfeeding improves boys’ literacy Are anti-breastfeeding feminists robbing boys? “Researchers found that children who were predominantly breastfed for six months did better in mathematics, reading, writing and spelling. The effect was strongest in boys,” reported The Telegraph UK’s medical editor, Rebecca Smith. “It is thought that the bonding between mother and baby fostered during breastfeeding may mean mothers are more attentive and supportive of their children.” Doctor Wendy Oddy, from the Centre for Child Health Research at Perth’s University of Western Australia, found more evidence “that breastfeeding for at least six months has beneficial effects on optimal child development.”...

— Africa can feed itself. And it can make the transition from hungry importer to self-sufficiency in a single generation.The startling assertions, in stark contrast with entrenched, gloomy perceptions of the continent, highlight a collection of studies published December 2 that present a clear prescription for transforming Sub-Saharan Africa's agriculture and, by doing so, its economy. The strategy calls on governments to make African agricultural expansion central to decision making about everything from transportation and communication infrastructure to post-secondary education and innovation investment.

Researchers are scratching their heads over the massive number of college dropouts. “During a five-year period, more than $9 billion was spent by state and federal governments to support students at four-year colleges and universities who left school before their sophomore year,” according to the American Institutes for Research (AIR). “California, Texas and New York led the nation in government spending on students who dropped out before their second year.” “Every fall, first-year college students receive significant funding from colleges, states and the federal government,” said Dr. Mark Schneider, an AIR vice president. “And every spring, hundreds of thousands of...

Meeting a beautiful woman can be bad for your health, scientists have found.Just five minutes alone with an attractive female raise the levels of cortisol, the body's stress hormone, according to a study from the University of Valencia. The effects are heightened in men who believe that the woman in question is "out of their league". Cortisol is produced by the body under physical or psychological stress and has been linked to heart disease. Researchers tested 84 male students by asking each one to sit in a room and solve a Sudoku puzzle. Two strangers, one male and one female,...

The 1,334-page financial markets bill now pending in the Senate would implement a vast array of changes in the way banks and other financial institutions are regulated. Issues range from how best to protect consumers to how to liquidate failing firms to what rules to apply to complex financial instruments. These issues tend to be as complex as they are critical to the future of the U.S. economy. The good news is that there is a wealth of expert analysis on the key issues. Here are 16 of the best. Consumer Protection The Senate bill would create a new financial...

Tonight, Shawn addresses issues of difference between Christianity and Mormonism. The link [http://www.hotm.tv/streaming.htm] takes you to the streaming video of tonight's program at 10 PM Eastern time. While the show originates from Salt Lake City on every Tuesday night at 10 PM Eastern, Shawn usually takes calls from all over the world, literally, for the second half hour. His fine instructions on Mormonism at variance with the Bible encompasses the first half-hour. The main website is http://www.hotm.tv . If you have a question during the first half hour, call him! He is very likely to put you on air, especially...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.,- A scientist at Massachusetts' Harvard University says there are three main reasons why researchers study issues with seemingly "obvious" conclusions. Marc Abrahams, a co-founder of the magazine Annals of Improbable Research, said "obvious" studies are often performed by researchers who are "oblivious to the obvious," attempting to prove an obvious conclusion wrong or seeking data to confirm a commonly held belief to obtain funding for programs, the Sacramento (Calif.) Bee reported Tuesday. "The first type is the most fun for everybody else," Abrahams said. "By everybody, I mean even the individuals who work with them. They usually find...

ST. LOUIS -- While too much amyloid beta protein in the brain is linked to the development of Alzheimer's disease, not enough of the protein in healthy brains can cause learning problems and forgetfulness, Saint Louis University scientists have found. The finding could lead to better medications to treat Alzheimer's disease, said John Morley, M.D., director of the division of geriatrics at Saint Louis University and the lead researcher on the study. "This research is very exciting because it causes us to look at amyloid beta protein in a different way," Morley said. "After 20 years of research, what we...