science wire

The University of Oxford has announced the creation of a new centre to conduct research into how to improve outcomes for foster children and looked after children (in care) so they achieve more and have more fulfilling lives. The new centre called the Oxford University Rees Centre for Research in Fostering and Education is a collaboration between Oxford's Department of Education and the Core Assets Group, a major provider of children's services in the UK that will also financially support the centre.

Undocumented Latino youth who migrate to the United States face futures clouded by limited rights and the constant fear of deportation, according to a new report from the University of Chicago and the University of California, Irvine.

International collaboration launched with plans to create a more energy efficient world A new pioneering partnership has been signed between the University of Sheffield and Nanjing University in Chin

The Scottish Parliament should establish a separate Human Rights Committee because the current committee system has failed to adequately consider human rights issues.

Both the US and China will have to make big compromises if they are to see one another as equals, Hugh White writes in East Asia Forum .

In the first exhibition of its kind, the Fitzwilliam Museum will relate the story of the quest for immortality and struggle for imperial legitimacy in ancient China's Han Dynasty.

AUSTIN, Texas — Maximum running speed is the most important variable influencing mammalian eye size other than body size, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin. Species with larger eyes usually have higher visual acuity, says Chris Kirk , associate professor in the Department of Anthropology.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-New research shows that 40 percent of older Americans postponed retirement in the wake of the Great Recession. The research, presented at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America, is the first to link actual data on household wealth just before and after the downturn to the retirement plans of a nationally representative sample of Americans age 50 and older.

MEDIA ADVISORY ANN ARBOR, Mich. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is traveling to China amid reported negotiations about securing American asylum for a blind Chinese legal activist who escaped house arrest and is in the protection of U.S. diplomats.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-Consumer confidence remained largely unchanged at improved levels in April as consumers were still hopeful about future job gains despite disappointing recent developments, according

Donald Tuzin with Arapesh people of Ilahita Village during his first fieldwork in Papua New Guinea in the early 1970s.

Violence injuries requiring casualty treatment fell 4 per cent in England and Wales in 2011, according to the University's annual study of injury trends. An estimated 307,998 people were admitted to accident and emergency units for violence-related injuries, 10,879 fewer than in 2010. The study shows that the previous two years' worrying rise in violence against children appears to have reversed.

A new report finds that while there has been an increase in the UK parliament's involvement in debates about human rights over the last decade, and in the quality of that debate, there is still considerable scope for parliament to have a bigger role in making human rights more democratic.

How will the unrelenting demand for energy in China be met? And where does Australia fit in the picture? Frank Jotzo answers these questions in East Asia Forum.

Three University social scientists have been honoured by The Academy of Social Sciences.

UCLA anthropologists asked hundreds of Americans to guess the size and muscularity of four men based solely on photographs of their hands holding a range of easily recognizable objects, including handguns. The research, which publishes today in the scholarly journal PLoS ONE, confirms what scrawny thugs have long known: Brandishing a weapon makes a man appear bigger and stronger than he would otherwise.

Alan Harvey is an expert in evolving digital and print-on-demand delivery of books. He will lead Stanford University Press through a period of industry-wide upheaval when he takes the reins July 1.

Is democracy up to our 21st-century problems? Will the UK ever sort out its relationship with Europe? Is tragedy the perfect form for the modern plight? The Cambridge series is a wonderful way to get

The body beautiful - is it time to cover up? Salon experts debate the beauty ideal in the media Do images of flawless, slim models make us feel bad about ourselves? Should pictures of perfect bodies

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-Consumer confidence edged upward as more favorable income and job trends offset rising gas prices, according to University of Michigan economist Richard Curtin, director of the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers.

The student incubator at Lund University, VentureLab, is opening a branch at Zhejiang University in Hangzhou.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-Although women continue to lag behind men in pay, the gender wage gap has narrowed considerably since the 1960s. Now a new University of Michigan study is the first to quantify the impact of the pill on women's labor market advances. The study shows that roughly one-third of women's wage gains through the 1990s are due to the availability of oral contraceptives.

The United States faces few good choices in its dealings with Afghanistan and Pakistan, says a longtime expert in the region, and must take a "longer view" than what has been exhibited in a decade plus of conflict.

A world-renowned expert on ageing, the family and health is to give a public lecture at The University of Manchester on Monday.

A secretly negotiated treaty, called The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), should be rejected by the Australian Parliament, according to a leading intellectual property expert.

When Pablo Piccato was a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, a professor suggested he look at crime and public health in Mexico City in the early 20th century for his dissertation.

Twelve leading figures from the Chinese gay and lesbian community are to speak at The University of Manchester in the first event of its kind in the UK this week (22 to 24 March).

Research into how children are affected by a parent’s imprisonment is to be presented at a conference hosted by Plymouth University next month.

Blogging for World Social Work Day The Social Work department at Sussex will be using a specially developed blog to reflect on the significance of World Social Work Day on Tuesday (20 March).

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that 'kettling' tactics used by the Met in 2001 protests were lawful.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Mothers who financially struggle to provide food for their families tend to put themselves at risk for obesity while trying to feed their children, according to Penn State sociologists.

In 15 years of studying owl monkeys in Argentina, this was a first: Late last November, Eduardo Fernandez-Duque , assistant professor in the Anthropology Department at the University of Pennsylvania, got news from his field assistants that they had spotted a set of newborn twins.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-Last fall's harvest in the Sahel region of West Africa was the worst in nearly 30 years, and now a University of Michigan anthropologist who has studied the region for decades is working to save the people from starvation.

Archaeologists from the University of Bristol have unearthed a unique slave burial ground on the remote South Atlantic island of St Helena. The excavation, which took place in advance of construction of a new airport on the island, has revealed dramatic insights into the victims of the Atlantic slave trade during the notorious Middle Passage.

China is already the world’s largest industrial producer, the world’s largest exporter and the country with the world’s largest currency reserve.

New findings on the links between drinking in the home ahead of a night out, and violent crime, are set to be presented at the inaugural conference of a multi-disciplinary research institute at Plymouth University.

New analysis by Oxford University's Migration Observatory shows that any short term cut to net-migration brought about by reductions in immigration will be partially reversed in the long term because of declining emigration.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Couples who are married or living together will probably have more trouble parenting as a team if they have been violent toward one another during pregnancy, according to a team of psychologists. "This finding is helpful because working as a parenting team, in what we call the co-parenting relationship, is a key influence on everything from mothers' postpartum depression to sensitive parenting to the children's emotional and

Prison inspector "kept awake" by shameful treatment of women inmates The treatment of women prisoners in England and Wales is shameful, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons said in a lecture on the University of Sussex campus yesterday (Wednesday 29 February).