PRESS-NEWS.org - Press Release Distribution
PRESS RELEASES DISTRIBUTION

Dwindling productivity in Congress linked to vanishing cooperation

2015-04-30
(Press-News.org) As the number of bills passed by Congress declines, fewer and fewer Congressional representatives are voting across party lines, leaving only a few key representatives as collaborative voters, according to researchers.

"We can't say for sure that the decline in cooperation is the sole reason that there are fewer bills being introduced or passed by Congress, but we do know the two are statistically correlated, and both have been dropping steadily over the past 60 years," said Clio Andris, lead author and assistant professor of geography at Penn State.

The researchers tracked roll call vote data -- the record of whether Congressional representatives abstained or voted "yay" or "nay" on motions or bills -- on every vote, beginning in 1949 -- the start of the 81st Congress -- and continuing through 2012 -- the end of the 112th Congress. The researchers then identified all times when a representative voted with members of the opposite party, referred to as a cross-party pair, or with members of the same party, referred to as a same-party pair.

The findings show that the number of cross-party votes decreased at an exponentially higher rate than same-party votes. From 1967 to 1979, there were more than 10,000 instances of representatives voting across party lines. From 2001 to 2010, there were fewer than 1,500 of these cooperative votes.

The findings also show that far fewer representatives today engage in cross-party voting than in the past. "If you look at past data, it was uncharacteristic that one representative would be involved in even 1 percent of the total cross-party voting, because people were more likely to vote against party lines. Today, several people account for upwards of 50 percent of the total cross-party votes, and these are the people we refer to as 'super-cooperators' because they account for a bulk of the cross-aisle voting," said Andris.

In the 112th Congress, 7 of the 444 members accounted for 98.3 percent of cross-party pairs, which indicates that the majority of representatives vote with their party members only. This study was the first to analyze congressional role call voting using a network model, and this approach allowed the researchers to identify patterns at the individual level.

"Our original goal was to try to identify 'hidden partnerships' among Congressional representatives and to understand whether geography played a role in any of those bonds. Surprisingly, we found that geography had very little influence over how representatives voted. You might think that issues around land resource management or tourism might be affected by local geographies, but that's not the case," said Andris. "What we're seeing now is that, more and more, party platforms are the determining factor for how the majority of representatives are voting."

INFORMATION:

The researchers published their findings in the April 21 issue of the journal PLOS ONE. Co-authors include David Lee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Marcus Hamilton, Santa Fe Institute and Arizona State University; Mauro Martino, IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center; Christian Gunning, North Carolina State University; and John Armistead Selden, United States Senate Budget Committee.



ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:

Can China sustain annual pollution reductions?

2015-04-30
China's government and other sources say that the country's carbon-dioxide emissions flattened out between 2013 and 2014. The leveling-off was a remarkable feat that could set the country on a course to beating its own goals for lowering emissions. But this optimistic outcome hinges on China overcoming some serious energy challenges, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. Steven Gibb, a senior editor at C&EN, reports that a number of factors could help explain the emissions plateau. China ...

Mammals not the only animals to feed embryo during gestation

2015-04-30
How and when does mom feed her embryo? We humans, like most mammals, experience pregnancy where a mother supplies nutrition directly to the embryo as it develops. But we're in the minority. Most members of the animal kingdom supply eggs with nutritious yolk before they are fertilized. With this yolk supply, fertilized eggs develop as embryos in the environment outside the mother's body. For over a century, the scientific understanding of matrotrophy ("mother-feeding") of an embryo developing inside a mom's body has come from vertebrate animals, especially mammals like ...

Preventive gynecology special issue honors memory of deceased pioneer

2015-04-30
The latest Special Issue from ecancermedicalscience is dedicated to the memory of our late friend, Dr Mario Sideri. The Special Issue, "Prevention of gynaecological cancers: in memory of Mario Sideri," consists of nine articles centred around Dr Sideri's favoured research topic. Dr Sideri was one of the first doctors in the world to identify the connection between the human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer. He served as the Director of the Preventive Gynecology Unit at the European Institute of Oncology (IEO) in Milan from 1994 until his tragic death in June ...

Wild bearded capuchin monkeys really know how to crack a nut

Wild bearded capuchin monkeys really know how to crack a nut
2015-04-30
When it comes to cracking nuts, wild bearded capuchin monkeys are more skilled than anyone had given them credit for, according to researchers who report new findings in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on April 30. The monkeys are known to use stone "hammers" to crack nuts. The new study shows that the monkeys are quite careful about the amount of force delivered to those nuts. They adjust the force applied with each strike based on the condition of the nutshell, making it less likely that they'll end up smashing the tasty kernel inside. "Wild bearded capuchin ...

Touch sensors on bat wings guide flight

Touch sensors on bat wings guide flight
2015-04-30
Bats are masters of flight in the night sky, capable of steep nosedives and sharp turns that put our best aircraft to shame. Although the role of echolocation in bats' impressive midair maneuvering has been extensively studied, the contribution of touch has been largely overlooked. A study published April 30 in Cell Reports shows, for the first time, that a unique array of sensory receptors in the wing provides feedback to a bat during flight. The findings also suggest that neurons in the bat brain respond to incoming airflow and touch signals, triggering rapid adjustments ...

Souped-up remote control switches behaviors on-and-off in mice

2015-04-30
Neuroscientists have perfected a chemical-genetic remote control for brain circuitry and behavior. This evolving technology can now sequentially switch the same neurons - and the behaviors they mediate - on-and-off in mice, say researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health. Such bidirectional control is pivotal for decoding the brain workings of complex behaviors. The findings are the first to be published from the first wave of NIH grants awarded last fall under the BRAIN Initiative. "With its new push-pull control, this tool sharpens the cutting edge of ...

Brain scan reveals out-of-body illusion

Brain scan reveals out-of-body illusion
2015-04-30
The feeling of being inside one's own body is not as self-evident as one might think. In a new study from Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, neuroscientists created an out-of-body illusion in participants placed inside a brain scanner. They then used the illusion to perceptually 'teleport' the participants to different locations in a room and show that the perceived location of the bodily self can be decoded from activity patterns in specific brain regions. The sense of owning one's body and being located somewhere in space is so fundamental that we usually take it for granted. ...

Telomere changes predict cancer

2015-04-30
First study to show pattern of telomere changes at multiple time points as cancer develops Telomeres can look 15 years older in people developing cancer Pattern suggests when cancer hijacks the cell's aging process CHICAGO -- A distinct pattern in the changing length of blood telomeres, the protective end caps on our DNA strands, can predict cancer many years before actual diagnosis, according to a new study from Northwestern Medicine in collaboration with Harvard University. The pattern -- a rapid shortening followed by a stabilization three or four years before ...

Vitamin D toxicity rare in people who take supplements, Mayo Clinic researchers report

2015-04-30
Rochester, Minn. -- Over the last decade, numerous studies have shown that many Americans have low vitamin D levels and as a result, vitamin D supplement use has climbed in recent years. Vitamin D has been shown to boost bone health and it may play a role in preventing diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and other illnesses. In light of the increased use of vitamin D supplements, Mayo Clinic researchers set out to learn more about the health of those with high vitamin D levels. They found that toxic levels are actually rare. Their study appears in the May issue of ...

Vital step in stem cell growth revealed

Vital step in stem cell growth revealed
2015-04-30
LA JOLLA--Stem cells, which have the potential to turn into any kind of cell, offer the tantalizing possibility of generating new tissues for organ replacements, stroke victims and patients of many other diseases. Now, scientists at the Salk Institute have uncovered details about stem cell growth that could help improve regenerative therapies. While it was known that two key cellular processes--called Wnt and Activin--were needed for stem cells to grow into specific mature cells, no one knew exactly how these pathways worked together. The details of how Wnt and Activin ...

LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:

Scientists glimpse how enzymes “dance” while they work, and why that’s important

California partnership aided COVID-19 response and health equity, report finds

University of Oklahoma secures $19.9 million for revolutionary radar technology

Study finds restoring order to dividing cancer cells may prevent metastasis

High-accuracy tumor detection with label-free microscopy and neural networks

Wayne State research reveals fetuses exposed to Zika virus have long-term immune challenges

Researchers deconstruct chikungunya outbreaks to improve prediction and vaccine development

Study finds one-year change on CT scans linked to future outcomes in fibrotic lung disease

Discovery of a novel intracellular trafficking pathway in plant cells

New tool helps forecast volcano slope collapses and tsunamis

Molecular coating cleans up noisy quantum light

From Parkinson's to rare diseases, discovered a key switch for cellular health

Tiny sugars in the brain disrupt emotional circuits, fueling depression

Mini-organs reveal how the cervix defends itself

Africa, climate, and food: How to feed a continent without increasing its carbon footprint

Researchers demonstrates substrate design principles for scalable superconducting quantum materials

How better software choices could cut US health care costs

Concussion history in NCAA athletes yields mixed health outcomes

Counting plastic reveals hidden waste and sparks action

Warming oceans may pose a serious threat to American lobsters

Deaths from drug-induced unintentional injury rise across the US

In car crashes with pedestrians, age and zip code may predict extent of traumatic injuries

AI optimizes evacuation, diagnosis, and treatment of wounded soldiers in Ukraine

Mastectomy linked to worsened sexual health, body image after surgery

Drop in credit score after cancer diagnosis linked to increased mortality, study shows

Use of weight loss drugs before bariatric surgery has soared in recent years, study finds

EMS call times in rural areas take at least 20 minutes longer than national average

Rectal bleeding in young adults linked to 8.5 times higher risk of colorectal cancer

Hospital closures disproportionately affect socioeconomically disadvantaged communities

Global disparities in premature mortality

[Press-News.org] Dwindling productivity in Congress linked to vanishing cooperation