Yes, a good cry indeed might go a long way to make you feel better, says Asmir Gračanin of the University of Tilburg in the Netherlands, lead author of a study in Springer's journal Motivation and Emotion. These findings were established after a research team videotaped a group of participants while watching the emotionally charged films La vita è bella and Hachi: A Dog's Tale. Afterwards, the participants were asked a few times to reflect on how they felt. Although humans are the only species able to shed emotional tears, little is known about the function ...

21.08.2015: In mountainous regions earthquakes often cause strong landslides, which can be exacerbated by heavy rain. However, after an initial increase, the frequency of these mass wasting events, often enormous and dangerous, declines, in fact independently of meteorological events and aftershocks. These new findings are presented by a German-Franco-Japanese team of geoscientists in the current issue of the journal Geology, under the lead of the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. Even after strong earthquake the activity of landslides returns back over the course ...

By minimizing the acceleration of industrial robots, energy consumption can be reduced by up to 40 percent - while retaining the given production time. This is the result of a new optimization algorithm that was developed by researchers at Chalmers University of Technology. Optimization of the robot's movements reduces acceleration and deceleration, as well as the time the robot is at a standstill since being at a standstill also consumes energy. "We simply let the robot move slower instead of waiting for other robots and machines to catch up before carrying out the ...

The public sector has long served as an equalizer in American society, a place where minority workers could find stable employment that offered advancement and a reliable path to a middle-class life. But the Great Recession wiped out many of those jobs, as tax revenues declined and anti-government sentiment added to a contraction that continued long after the Great Recession ended in 2008. Those job cuts disproportionately hurt African-American workers and increased racial disparity in the public sector, a new study by University of Washington sociologist Jennifer Laird ...

CHICAGO -- As the World War I military draft brought to the forefront the high rate of venereal disease among the civilian population, states began to enact measures to quarantine people and begin forms of treatment to try to control syphilis, gonorrhea and other potential outbreaks. However, a University of Kansas (KU) researcher has documented examples of how this process continued well into peacetime and how these laws were generally enforced along lines of gender and class, especially punishing poor women. Nicole Perry, a University of Kansas graduate student in ...

CHICAGO -- Early adolescent girls lose friends for having sex and gain friends for "making out," while their male peers lose friends for "making out" and gain friends for having sex, finds a new study that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA). "In our sample of early adolescents, girls' friendship networks shrink significantly after they have sex, whereas boys' friendship networks expand significantly," said Derek A. Kreager, the lead author of the study and an associate professor of sociology and criminology at ...

CHICAGO -- Skin color is a significant factor in the probability of employment for male immigrants to the United States, according to a new study by two University of Kansas (KU) researchers. The researchers, Andrea Gomez Cervantes, a doctoral candidate in sociology, and ChangHwan Kim, an associate professor of sociology, found that among men, darker skin color negatively influenced their likelihood of employment, even after accounting for the effects of race and other demographic and education related variables. The negative effect of darker skin color was particularly ...

A new analysis of patient records indicates that certain drugs taken to improve heart health may also have anti-cancer properties. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings indicate that additional studies are warranted to determine whether patients with cancer may benefit from adding beta blockers to their treatment regimen. There is growing evidence that stress hormones can stimulate cancer to grow and spread. Beta blockers, which are drugs commonly used to treat hypertension and other heart-related conditions, ...

One in five older people who drink alcohol are consuming it at unsafe levels - over 21 units of alcohol for men and 14 units for women each week - according to a study by King's College London. The research in inner-city London, published in BMJ Open, found these unsafe older drinkers are more likely to be of higher socioeconomic status. The researchers used anonymised electronic GP health records for 27,991 people aged 65 and over in the Borough of Lambeth in London. From these records, they identified 9,248 older people who had reported consuming alcohol and of these ...

Amsterdam, NL, August 24, 2015 - Bedwetting, or nocturnal enuresis, causes distress in children and young adults, as well as for their parents or caregivers. The causes are not fully understood and there may be both physiological and psychological components to the condition. In a new study published in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience, researchers report that repetitive sacral root magnetic stimulation (rSMS) can reduce the frequency of nighttime bedwetting and improve quality-of-life for sufferers. In a study conducted by researchers at the Assiut University Hospital, ...

CHICAGO-If men take up more of the child-care duties, splitting them equally with their female partners, heterosexual couples have more satisfaction with their relationships and their sex lives, according to new research by Georgia State University sociologists. The research was presented Aug. 23 at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. Daniel L. Carlson, along with graduate students Sarah Hanson and Andrea Fitzroy used data from more than 900 heterosexual couples' responses in the 2006 Marital Relationship Study (MARS). The researchers found ...

CHICAGO -- African women in polygamous marriages or with alcoholic husbands have a significantly higher risk of being physically abused by their husbands than women in monogamous marriages or women whose husbands don't abuse alcohol, new research shows. A trio of researchers pulled data from the Demographic Health Survey to look at intimate partner physical violence in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Zimbabwe. The four countries have high rates of domestic violence. The researchers selected the countries based on the availability of timely data and to represent different regions ...

CHICAGO -- People who report having spiritual awareness have it vary throughout the day, rather than being constant, according to a study by University of Connecticut researchers. The study, which will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA), found that people had the highest levels of spiritual awareness in the morning and while engaged in activities such as praying, worship, and meditation. Spiritual awareness also was high when people listened to music, read, or exercised. It was low while people were doing work-related ...

CHICAGO -- Despite having only about 5 percent of the world's population, the United States was the attack site for a disproportionate 31 percent of public mass shooters globally from 1966-2012, according to new research that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA). "The United States, Yemen, Switzerland, Finland, and Serbia are ranked as the Top 5 countries in firearms owned per capita, according to the 2007 Small Arms Survey, and my study found that all five are ranked in the Top 15 countries in public mass shooters ...

CHICAGO -- Heterosexual couples that split childcare duties have higher quality relationships and sex lives than those who don't, according to new research that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA). The study by Daniel L. Carlson, an assistant professor of sociology at Georgia State University (GSU), and GSU graduate students Sarah Hanson and Andrea Fitzroy, used data from 487 heterosexual couples in the 2006 Marital and Relationship Survey (MARS). The GSU researchers grouped the couples, all of whom had children, ...

CHICAGO -- When it comes to supporting working mothers, the United States' work-family welfare policies leave much to be desired, according to a comparative study of working mothers in multiple countries by the University of Texas (UT) at Austin. "Work-family policies reflect and reinforce ideologies about gender: what men and women 'should' and 'shouldn't' do," said study author Caitlyn Collins, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology at UT Austin. "Through policies, countries say something about their citizens and shape the opportunities available to them." In ...

CHICAGO -- Same-sex couples encounter more obstacles to treatment for infertility than opposite-sex couples, suggests a new study that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA). "For example, same-sex couples often must undergo psychological evaluations before being treated for infertility -- a process that is not normally required for opposite-sex couples," said study author Ann V. Bell, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Delaware, who noted that the U.S. medical system is standardized to work ...

CHICAGO -- The explosion in worldwide coffee consumption in the past two decades has generally not benefitted farmers of coffee beans in poorer nations along the equator. A University of Kansas (KU) researcher studying trade and globalization has found that the shift to "technified" coffee production in the 1970s and 1980s has created harsher economic and ecological consequences for heavy coffee-producing nations, such as Honduras, Colombia, Guatemala, Brazil, Vietnam and Ethiopia. "Historically, coffee has been exploited by the West in various ways, because it's consumed ...

CHICAGO -- In an era where popular culture is increasingly recognized for its impact on lay understanding of health and medicine, few scholars have looked at television's powerful role in the creation of patient expectations, especially regarding pregnancy and birth. As part of a larger research project funded by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Improvement Grant, Danielle Bessett, an assistant professor of sociology in the McMicken College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Cincinnati, examined how women understand their television viewing practices ...

CHICAGO -- More Americans than ever before are supporting their local food markets, and it's not just because they believe the food is fresher and tastes better. According to a new University of Iowa (UI) study, people are shopping at farmers markets and joining food co-ops in record numbers because they enjoy knowing who grows their food. These so-called "locavores" are also driven to eat locally grown produce and locally raised meat because their commitment to do so makes them feel a part of something greater than themselves -- a community that shares their passion ...

CHICAGO -- When members of the U.S. military leave the service, they tend to settle in neighborhoods with greater overall diversity than their civilian counterparts of the same race, according to a new study that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA). "It's encouraging that having served in the military appears to have a long-term impact on how people choose their neighborhoods," said study co-author Mary J. Fischer, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Connecticut. "According to the social contact ...

CHICAGO -- Women are more likely than men to initiate divorces, but women and men are just as likely to end non-marital relationships, according to a new study that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA). "The breakups of non-marital heterosexual relationships in the U.S. are quite gender neutral and fairly egalitarian," said study author Michael Rosenfeld, an associate professor of sociology at Stanford University. "This was a surprise because the only prior research that had been done on who wanted the breakup was ...

CHICAGO -- Why do unmarried women tend to be more liberal and Democratic than their married counterparts? A key reason is because unmarried women -- those who have never been married and those who are divorced -- are more concerned about the status of women as a collective group, suggests a new study that will be presented at the 110th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association (ASA). "Over 67 percent of never married women and 66 percent of divorced women perceive what happens to other women as having some or a lot to do with what happens in their own ...

CHICAGO -- For American women, a book club membership means more than having status as a reader, as it might pay dividends to them in the dating field as well. A University of Kansas (KU) researcher as part of a study on gendered sexuality compared women's book clubs in Colorado and Ireland and made the finding regarding how the women in each country used the role of reading in romantic relationships. "American women utilized their status as readers and book club members to increase their popularity in the dating field and explained that they would never date or marry ...

CHICAGO -- As supporters and opponents of the proposed Keystone XL (KXL) Pipeline testified at public hearings in Nebraska between 2010-2013, several interest groups attempted to frame the debate in different ways. A University of Kansas (KU) researcher who examined 528 testimonies from public hearings in Nebraska said the debate boiled down to a confrontation between stakeholders in two types of natural resources: water from the Oglala Aquifer and bitumen extracted from Alberta, Canada. "It's not a battle between these two resources, but the cultural values people ...