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In a global perspective, depression is the leading cause of ill health and disability. More than 264 million people are affected and at least 25 percent of all women and 15 percent of all men experience a depression that requires treatment at some point during their life. The possibility that contraceptive pills might have negative effects on mental health and even lead to depression has long been discussed. This study is one of the largest and widest-ranging to date, following more than a quarter of a million women from UK Biobank from birth to menopause. The researchers collected data about...

NYU Psychology professor Eric Knowles and doctoral student Sarah DiMuccio queried 300 men on Amazon's crowdsourcing platform Mechanical Turk to discover whether they had or would search for terms such as "erectile dysfunction," "how to get girls," "penis enlargement," "testosterone," and "Viagra," among others. They discovered a high level of concern about masculinity "was strongly associated with interest in these search topics." They then correlated the geopgrahic dispersion of these search topics in 2016 with how such areas voted in that year's election, finding "that support for Trump in the 2016 election was higher in areas that had more searches...

It turns out clues about a person’s identity and ethnicity can come from a surprising source: earwax. Researchers from the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia decided to analyze earwax as a possible source of personal information based on previous studies in which researchers analyzed underarm odor to unlock clues about a person’s identity. "Our previous research has shown that underarm odors can convey a great deal of information about an individual, including personal identity, gender, sexual orientation and health status," study author George Preti, an organic chemist at Monell, said in a press release. "We think it possible that...

Pollution Causes Homosexuality in Birds, Study Suggests Published December 02, 2010 | FoxNews.com The nature versus nurture debate just took an unexpected turn -- thanks to pollution. Increased exposure to the toxic chemical mercury can affect sexual preference in certain species of birds -- inducing homosexuality, a new study has revealed. Peter Frederick, an ecologist from the University of Florida, and Nilmini Jayasena from the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka found that male American white ibises that consumed methylmercury, the most toxic and easily digested form of mercury found in the environment, were more likely to pair with other...

CAMBRIDGE - Studying a species known to chase its own tail may seem an unlikely way to better understand the human mind. But scientists at Harvard University's new Canine Cognition Lab hope to gain insight into more than the psychology of dogs from visiting pet pooches - including an alert German shepherd named Celia and a rottweiler called Taylor who loves to eat chicken.

Music taste 'linked to drug use' Club music fans are more likely to take drugs, the study says More than a quarter of classical music fans have tried cannabis, says a study from the University of Leicester. Researchers were trying to find out what people's taste in music revealed about their lifestyles. They discovered that fans of every style of music had taken drugs, with those who preferred DJ-based club music topping the list. The study also revealed that blues buffs are the most likely to have received a driving penalty. Mild-mannered fans More than 2,500 people were interviewed for...

LONDON (AFP) - The tiny South Pacific Ocean archipelago of Vanuatu is the happiest country on Earth, according to a study published measuring people's wellbeing and their impact on the environment. Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominica and Panama complete the top five in the Happy Planet Index, compiled by the British think-tank New Economics Foundation (NEF). The index combines life satisfaction, life expectancy and environmental footprint -- the amount of land required to sustain the population and absorb its energy consumption. Zimbabwe came bottom of the 178 countries ranked, below second-worst performer Swaziland, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ukraine....