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Boosting breast size with plastic surgery has been linked to a significantly higher suicide rate among women in a new 15-year study. While overall risk of health problems did not change, the suicide rate was much higher for women with breast implants compared with the general population, scientists announced today. Jacques Brisson and Louis Latulippe of Laval University in Quebec, Canada, and their colleagues from the Canadian Public Health Agency and Cancer Care Ontario collected information on 24,600 women who had received breast implants for cosmetic purposes. The women, who underwent the implant surgery at an average age of 32,...

Men are smarter than women, according to a controversial new study that adds another cinder to the fiery debate over whether gender impacts general intelligence. "For 100 years there's been a consensus among psychologists that there is no sex difference in intelligence," said J. Philippe Rushton, a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Recent studies, however, have raised questions about the validity of this claim, he said. One such study showed that men have larger brains than women, a 100 gram difference after correcting for body size. Rushton found similar results in a study of gender and brain...

Men may have developed a psychology that makes them particularly able to engage in wars, a scientist said on Friday. New research has shown that men bond together and cooperate well in the face of adversity to protect their interests more than women, which could explain why war is almost exclusively a male business, according to Professor Mark van Vugt of the University of Kent in southern England. "Men respond more strongly to outward threats, we've labeled that the 'man warrior effect'," he told the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting. "Men are more likely to support a...

In case anyone needed proof, a new study supports the widely held perception: Celebrities are more in love with themselves than the average person. That's the conclusion drawn by Drew Pinsky and S. Mark Young of the University of Southern California, whose study of 200 celebrities will appear in the Journal of Research in Personality. It's not the entertainment industry that turns stars into narcissists, the study found. Rather, it suggests, the self-adoring seek jobs in show business. The study, whose subjects were all guests on Pinsky's sex-advice radio show — not a place for shrinking violets — found that...

While researchers have long shown that tall people earn more than their shorter counterparts, it's not only social discrimination that accounts for this inequality -- tall people are just smarter than their height-challenged peers, a new study finds. "As early as age three -- before schooling has had a chance to play a role -- and throughout childhood, taller children perform significantly better on cognitive tests," wrote Anne Case and Christina Paxson of Princeton University in a paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. The findings were based primarily on two British studies that followed children born in...

Although American women are increasingly better educated and likely to have careers, they're still uncertain about their financial futures, according to a study released Tuesday. When asked "How secure do you feel financially?" just 10 percent of the women respondents said they felt extremely secure, the survey found. Fifty-seven percent said they felt somewhat secure, and 33 percent said they didn't feel secure at all. "It was the most eye-opening aspect of the study," said Mark A. Zesbaugh, president and chief executive of Allianz Life, one of the sponsors of the study "Women, Money and Power." Women's feelings about money...

Emphasizing teamwork may be popular in workplaces across America, but a new study says companies that focus more on individual achievement produce more innovative ideas. The findings may support the view that creative companies need to encourage differences rather than build teamwork, which leads to conformity, said Barry Staw, professor at the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business and co-author of the study. "The more you emphasize collectivity and team membership and orientation, the lower is the creativity," Staw said. "So much of creativity is being different, being willing to deviate and take chances and be the...

Scientists had thought that there was one potential upside to global warming: more food to feed the world. Years of laboratory tests led them to believe that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could fertilize food crops such as corn, soybeans, wheat and rice, offsetting the plant-damaging effects of higher global temperatures and less rainfall. But a new study with field tests in Illinois and other spots around the globe is challenging that assumption, suggesting that any increase in crop yields due to the buildup of greenhouse gases would be modest or non-existent. Lower-than-expected yields could have dire consequences for...

A man's sexual orientation appears to be determined in the womb, a new study suggests. Past research by Dr. Anthony F. Bogaert of Brock University in St. Catherines, Ontario and colleagues has shown that the more older brothers a man has, the more likely he is to be gay. But it has not been clear if this is a prenatal effect or a psychosocial effect, related to growing up with older male siblings. To investigate, Bogaert studied 944 gay and straight men, including several who were raised with adopted, half- or step-siblings or were themselves adopted. He reasoned that if...

Teenage girls commonly have sex not because they want to, but because they feel pressured into it - and the result may be a higher risk of sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy, a new study suggests. Researchers found that among 279 teenage girls they interviewed, many said they'd given in to unwanted sex at some point because they were afraid their boyfriend would get angry. The findings, published in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, indicate that may teenagers -- both female and male -- need help in negotiating their relationships. "We need to give guidance to teens on...

A busy beaver's dam work is felt downstream in a major way, a new study suggests. Beavers are well known for creating large pond-like areas upstream from their dams, but scientists have found that the construction projects also spread water downstream with the efficiency of a massive once-every-200-years flood. Researchers spent three years in the Rocky Mountain National Park examining downstream valley ecosystems in the Colorado River. They found that beaver dams force water out of the natural stream channel and spread it across and down the valley for hundreds of yards. Dams also change the direction of groundwater movement....

Sex during the final weeks of pregnancy does not hasten labor and delivery, according to a new US study. "Patients may continue to hear the 'old wives' tale' that intercourse will hasten labor, but according to this data, they should not hear it from the medical community," said Jonathan Schaffir, an obstetrician at Ohio State University Medical Center and author of the study published in the June issue of the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology. The study looked at 93 women with low-risk pregnancies. Half of the women reported having sex during the final weeks of their pregnancies, a higher number...

Scientists have found something about the North Pole that could send a shiver down Santa's spine: It used to be downright balmy. In fact, 55 million years ago the Arctic was once a lot like Miami, with an average temperature of 74 degrees, alligator ancestors and palm trees, scientists say. That conclusion, based on first-of-their-kind core samples extracted from more than 1,000 feet below the Arctic Ocean floor, is contained in three studies published in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Scientists say the findings are both a glimpse backward at a region heated by naturally produced greenhouse gases run...

Eight in 10 of the nation's youngest children — babies up to age 6 — watch TV, play video games or use the computer for about two hours on a typical day. A third live in homes where the TV is on most of the time. Even for the littlest tots, TV in the bedroom isn't rare: 19 percent of babies under 2 have one despite urging from the American Academy of Pediatrics that youngsters not watch any television at that age. So concludes a new study that highlights the immense disconnect between what child-development specialists advise and what parents...

Exposure to sexual content not only in movies and TV but also in music and magazines speeds up the sexual activity of white teens, increasing their chances of early intercourse, a new study contends. The link between sex-filled media and early intercourse was not as apparent for black teens, who were found to be more influenced by parents and peers, said Jane D. Brown, the lead author of the study, which appears in the April issue of the journal Pediatrics. "The unique part of this study is, we're finding this effect not only for television but for all four media...

The usual suspects are crying out about a study suggesting whiny babies become conservative adults. Plus, bloggers herald news of 8.5 million Chinese moving into cities. And, are comic book publishers keeping a super hero from the public? Oh Baby! It's been a busy couple of weeks for social scientists. This week, psychologist Jack Block's controversial study is heating up the blogosphere, making it one of the most-cited news stories of the week. Block's study began in the 1960's when he began tracking over 100 nursery school kids in Berkely, California as part of a study of personality. Teachers and...

I love when science and politics intertwine. See, I’m a scientist first, and a political analyst second. So much of politics is based in the realms of opinion and propaganda that it makes my scientific disposition go haywire with frustration. Now, my preference tends to be the opposite of my opponents. People like Bill O’Reilly, Ann Coulter, every “intelligent design” supporter on the planet, Senate Majority Leader and medical doctor Bill Frist and countless other prominent conservatives much prefer to shout propaganda, pseudo-rhetoric and outright lies before even looking at anything that could be considered a fact. I guess that’s...

Cigarette smoking strongly increases the risk of dying in middle age for both men and women, but kicking the habit, even at older ages, strongly decreases the risk of dying prematurely. These are the findings of the largest and longest study to date on smoking habits and consequences. The study is published today in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Among nearly 50,000 residents of rural Norway who were followed for 25 years, researchers found that 41 percent of men who continued to smoke heavily (at least one pack a day) died between 40 and 70 years of age compared with...

A husband or wife with a debilitating illness can hasten your own death, a study suggests. ADVERTISEMENT The researchers blame the stress and the loss of companionship, practical help, income and other support that can occur when a spouse gets sick. "You can die of a broken heart not just when a partner dies, but when your partner falls ill," said chief researcher Dr. Nicholas Christakis at Harvard Medical School. The study at Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania was published Thursday in The New England Journal of Medicine. The research, backed by the National Institutes of Health, analyzed Medicare...

Call it a sexual revolution of the virtual kind -- young Canadians are practicing a new style of safe sex and the only touching required involves a keyboard. Of more than 2,500 university and college students polled across Canada, 87 percent of them are having sex over instant messenger, webcams or the telephone, according to results of a national survey released on Monday. "We were very surprised," Noah Gurza, a founder of Toronto-based CampusKiss.com, an online dating community for students, which commissioned a Canadian CampusKiss & Tell Survey. "We did realize that new technologies are always embraced by younger individuals,...