A Big Creepy Peruvian Tomb; 'Teen Mom' and the Daddy Complex
Discovered: Smoking bans scare some smokers, your relationship with daddy determines how you watch Teen Mom, get ready to have your DNA sequences, and a big creepy Peruvian tomb.
Smoking bans cause a chunk of smokers to quit. It's not a huge portion, but a study found that 5 percent of smokers quit after a ban went to effect in Spain. They say that means it is working. "The results suggest that the enforcement of the law has accompanied a progressive reduction in the percentage of smokers and the consumption amongst the working population," explains researcher Carlos Catalina-Romero. You know what this really means though. Get ready for more places smokers can't smoke. "Our data suggests that progressive strictness of the smoking ban in public places is an extraordinarily useful measure in the fight against the tobacco epidemic in our country" he continues. "The most important factors in giving up tobacco are regulatory and fiscal policies." [Revista Española de Salud Pública]
Teen relationships with their Dads determine how viewers watch Teen Mom. How viewers digest the controversial MTV show depends on their background, in a more interesting way than expected. "The hypothesis driving our study was that the family background of the viewer might determine whether they focused on the negatives or the positives," explains researcher Paul Wright. Turns out, if dads tell their daughters about the evils on teen pregnancy, they're likely to watch the show as a public service announcement. "Females who have been regularly sent these types of messages should be especially likely to attend to the negatives of being a young mother depicted on '16 and Pregnant' and 'Teen Mom'," explains Wright. One's relationship with their mother, however, had no effect. [Indiana University]
A big, creepy Peruvian tomb. Archeologists discovered a mass tomb with over 80 bodies in Peru, all of different ages. It actually sounds like something shady went on to craft this thing. From the research report: "A dozen newborn babies and infants were distributed around the perimeter, their heads oriented towards the tomb," explains the write-up. "Inside the chambers, the archaeologists uncovered the remains of more than 70 skeletons and mummies (many of which still retained their wrappings), all in the characteristic fœtal position. The burials represented both sexes and all ages, and were often accompanied by offrenda including ceramic vessels, animals (dogs, guinea pigs), copper and gold alloy artefacts, masks (or 'false heads') in painted wood, calabashes, etc. These items are currently under restoration and analysis. Babies and very young infants were particularly common," the research continues. What were all those babies doing in there? The researchers don't even know. [Libre de Bruxelles, Universit]
Get ready to have your DNA sequenced. Science is predicting it will be the next hip thing. See research had a breakthrough that will get the price close to the $1,000 mark, which will make it affordable enough for everyone to get it. This is exactly what just got discovered: "Stuart Lindsay, director of the Biodesign Institute's Center for Single Molecule Biophysics has just successfully addressed a central stumbling block in nanopore sequencing -- reading single nucleotide bases in a DNA chain," explains the research release. That breakthrough makes sequencing faster, and cheaper and one step close to the doctor's office. [Arizona State University]
