Humanities & Society

Interested in keeping the pounds off this holiday season? A nutrition expert at Washington University in St. Louis has some very simple tips for remembering accurate portion sizes, which may be even more important than the food choices you make. Video available.

LowryThe President’s call to end a decades-old ban on offshore oil and gas drilling highlighted key differences in the big-oil platforms of presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees Obama and McCain, suggests William Lowry, a WUSTL expert on the politics of environmental and energy issues.

In a new study published in the journal Pediatrics, Paul T. Shattuck, Ph.D., professor of social work at Washington University in St. Louis, found that families with similar demographics and nature of their children’s special needs have different out-of-pocket health expenditures depending on the state in which they live. “This is one of the few studies that focuses on families’ costs when caring for children with special needs, rather than the overall cost for society as a whole,” he says. Shattuck notes that wealthier states tend to have a lower average extra cost for caring for a child with special needs. “At the low end, families in Massachusetts paid an average of $560 for out-of-pocket medical expenses,” he says. “At the high end, families in Georgia shouldered an average of $970 in additional care expenses.” Editor’s note: Video and a complete rankings table are available.

Image courtesy of Richard AbramsTo see objects better, take matters into your own hands.WUSTL psychologists have shown that to see objects better, you should take the matter into your own hands. Humans are compelled to closely analyze objects near our hands, they suggest, because we have a non-conscious, almost reflexive need to figure out how to handle nearby items or to provide protection against them. Recognizing that the location of your hands influences what you see is a new insight into the wiring of the brain, one that may even offer scientific support for California’s new ban on driving with hand-held cell phones.

The School of Medicine will receive approximately $9 million over 5 years to investigate new ways to diagnose and treat stroke. The new research center will become part of a national network of stroke centers.

Saturday can be the worst enemy for our waistlines, according to researchers at the School of Medicine. They found that study subjects on strict diet and exercise programs tend to lose weight more slowly than expected because they eat more on weekends than during the week.

Saturday can be the worst enemy for our waistlines, according to researchers at the School of Medicine. They found that study subjects on strict diet and exercise programs tend to lose weight more slowly than expected because they eat more on weekends than during the week.

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President Bush’s call this week for Congress to end its decades-old ban on offshore oil and gas drilling has highlighted key differences in the big-oil platforms of presumptive Republican and Democratic presidential nominees Barak Obama and John McCain, suggests William Lowry, an expert on the politics of environmental and energy issues at Washington University in St. Louis.

SadatThe Supreme Court’s recent ruling giving the Guantanamo Bay detainees the right of habeas corpus “underscores the commitment of the United States to be governed by the rule of law even during times of national stress, and is a courageous response to the overreaching policies of the executive branch, buttressed by a compliant Republican Congress, that have caused world-wide criticism of U.S. interrogation and detention policies,” says Leila N. Sadat, expert on international law and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. Sadat, the director of the Whitney R. Harris World Law Institute, is the author of the leading treatise on the international criminal court, “The International Criminal Court and the Transformation of International Law: Justice for the New Millennium,” and is closely following the status of the detainees at Guantanamo.