news 2015

Centre for the Freedom of the Media investigating the safety of journalists around the world Issue of journalistic freedom and the public right to know to be discussed in Question Time style debate in Sheffield Event is part of the Economic and Social Research Council Festival of Social Science Those who murder journalists are managing to escape justice, according to ongoing research by the University of Sheffield.

A team from the University's Experimental Psychology and Anthropology Departments wanted to see whether our feelings of social closeness when dancing with others might be linked to endorphins - the body's 'feel good' chemicals. Endorphins are neurotransmitters that form part of the brain's pain control system, but they are also implicated in social bonding.

We have long known the power of a good sing-along. Now, research from the University of Oxford has shown that singing is a great ice-breaker and can get groups of people to bond together more quickly than other activities can. The new study, published in the Royal Society's Open Science journal, looked at how people attending adult education classes grew closer over seven months.

These touch maps are based on the responses from all women who responded in all five countries. Each figure refers to a different relationship with the respondents. Red and Blue labels for the relationship denote women and men respectively. Blue outlined black areas highlight taboo zones, where a person with that relationship is not allowed to touch.

Kevin Greenbank, archivist at the Centre of South Asian Studies, explores the ways in which the home movie offers fascinating insights into the lives of those in front of, and behind, the camera - as rare footage of a 1935 Raj picnic shows. The Collection is perhaps most interesting when the films reveal something unintended by the film-maker Kevin Greenbank For most people, owning a mobile phone also means owning a video camera.

Evolutionary 'trade-off' between size of throat and testes discovered in howler monkeys furthers Darwin's theory of sexual selection and corresponds to mating systems: males with larger throats but smaller testes often have exclusive access to females, while those with larger testes share mates.

The mating choices of birds are naturally affected by their social environment, because it determines the number and availability of potential partners they can choose from. Whether a pair of birds will divorce or stay together after they first breed is influenced by the social environment in which the relationship is formed, according to a new study by researchers from Oxford University.

Dying at home could be beneficial for terminally ill cancer patients and their relatives, according to research published in the journal BMC Medicine . The study shows that, according to questionnaires completed by their relatives, those who die at home experience more peace and a similar amount of pain compared to those who die in hospital, and their relatives also experience less grief.

The way our brain responds to others' good fortune is linked to how empathetic people report themselves to be, according to new UCL-led research. The study, published today in the Journal of Neuroscience and funded by the Medical Research Council, shows that a part of the brain called the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) seems particularly attuned to other people's good news, but how it responds varies substantially depending on our levels of empathy.

Pengzhou, China February 1, 2014: Three men smoking cigarettes, drinking tea, seated at a table in Pengzhou Cityni Park playing a game of cards One in three of all the young men in China will eventually be killed by tobacco, unless a substantial proportion stop smoking, according to new research published in The Lancet.

Protecting vulnerable youth in West Africa Research work undertaken at King's by the Conflict and Security Development Group has been named as one of the 20 most impressive examples of research contributing to global development in the UK by the UK Collaborative on Development Science. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is a 15-member West African intergovernmental organisation.

Researchers from Glasgow, Sheffield and Beijing are to work together to study the transformation of China's cities as migrants move from rural to urban environments in greater numbers. International Centre Partnership funding worth £200,000 from the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) will support 27 researchers across three institutions.

Association between employment and property crime - which was strong in 1970s and 1980s - fell from 1995 and became non-existent by 2005 Other research to be presented at Centre for Crime and Justice Studies includes changes in domestic property crime in the 1980s and 1990s and changing attitudes to crime and punishment across generations The assumption that rising unemployment means rising crime is challenged by new research by the Universities of Sheffield, Southampton and SciencesPo in Paris.

The impact of social media on young people's lives is underlined today as a new study by researchers from the University-based Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research Data (WISERD) reports that more than one in five teenagers say they "almost always" wake up during the night to look at or post messages.

Pressure to be cool and look good is detrimental to many children The pressure to be cool, look good and own the 'right stuff' is detrimental to many children and teenagers, according to new research by University of Sussex psychologists. The study shows that, while many young people buy into consumer culture believing it will make them feel better about themselves and help them to make friends, often the reverse happens.

US fans of the National Football League (NFL) and sports reporters assigned to specific teams have unrealistic expectations about how well their team will perform, finds new research from UCL and Oxford University. The study, published in PLOS ONE, also reveals which teams are most liked and disliked, as well as which teams have the most optimistic fans.

New study using Facebook network data, including a dataset of over 57 billion friendships, shows correlation between higher social class and fewer international friendships. Researchers say results support ideas of 'restricting social class' among wealthy, but show that lower social classes are taking advantage of increased social capital beyond national borders.

US fans of the National Football League (NFL) and sports reporters assigned to specific teams have unrealistic expectations about how well their team will perform, finds new research from UCL and Oxford University. The study also reveals which teams are most liked and disliked, as well as which teams have the most optimistic fans.

New results published by researchers at the Autism Research Centre (ARC) show both men and women with autism show an extreme of the typical male pattern on the 'Reading the Mind in the Eyes' test. Imagine looking at people's eyes and not being able to 'read' them effortlessly and intuitively for what the other person may be thinking or feeling.

Exercising together brings us closer to one another, while exercising with those close to us improves our performance. Those are the conclusions of an Oxford University study published this Friday in the journal PLoS ONE. Emma Cohen, Arran Davis and Jacob Taylor, from the University's Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology, carried out two experiments to look at how group exercise and social cohesion influence one another.