Latest news with #UniversityofBologna
Scottish Sun
a day ago
- Health
- Scottish Sun
Cancer patients risk dying because of ‘RUBBISH they read on social media', top doctors warn
The NHS, top UK charities and global experts warn the problem is out of control LETHAL LIES Cancer patients risk dying because of 'RUBBISH they read on social media', top doctors warn Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) CANCER patients are refusing medical treatment because of rubbish they read online, top doctors warn. People are becoming incurable and even dying as a result of misinformation on social media. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up A study led by the University of Bologna found that almost all cancer-related videos on YouTube and TikTok – between 88 and 100 per cent – contain incorrect information. The NHS, top UK charities and global experts warn the problem is out of control, killing patients who have cancer and terrifying those trying to stay healthy. Professor Richard Simcock, NHS doctor and chief medical officer at Macmillan Cancer Support, said: 'I recently saw two young women who have declined all proven medical treatments for cancer and are instead pursuing unproven and radical diets, promoted on social media. 'As a doctor, I want to be able to use the best available therapies to help people with cancer. 'A person is perfectly entitled to decline but when they do that on the basis of information which is frankly untrue or badly interpreted it makes me very sad.' Polling by Macmillan has found that 59 per cent of Brits – more than 30million people – believe myths or misconceptions about the disease. For example experts say patients are being sucked in by influencers' claims that low-carb diets can battle cancer, recommendations for unproven drugs, and a belief that negative thoughts can cause relapse. Internet users have also been convinced of false or unproven cancer risks such as from deodorants, mobile phones, underwired bras and dairy, they added. They also accuse search engines and artificial intelligence of regurgitating false information. Professor Stephen Powis, NHS England's medical director, said: 'Social media can provide a supportive community but we're also seeing an alarmingly high level of misinformation on some of these platforms. The signs and symptoms of cancer 'I would urge people to be sceptical of any 'miracle cures' and to use trusted, credible sources like the NHS website. 'These fairy tales aren't just misleading, they can be harmful.' Dr Julie Gralow, president of the American Society for Clinical Oncology, said: 'Several patients of mine wanted an all-natural treatment approach and found clinics online. 'In some cases they died within nine months. 'It's tragic and we wonder what we could have done differently but in the end we can't force anybody to do anything.' About 400,000 people develop cancer in the UK each year and 50 per cent survive for 10 years or more after diagnosis. Matthew Hobbs, of Prostate Cancer UK, added: 'Sadly there are a lot of poor sources of information out there. 'Sometimes they are deliberately pushing unproven treatments or ideas, other times it is well meant advice but lacking expertise and full understanding of all the facts.' Retired breast surgeon Dr Liz O'Riordan said: 'We need to get more doctors talking to patients on social media and explaining things to them.'
Daily Mail
14-05-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
People with THIS personality trait are more likely to enjoy themselves in the bedroom - so, are you one of them?
When it comes to sexual satisfaction, a certain personality trait can make you more likely to enjoy yourself, according to a new study. Researchers have discovered that people with higher levels of emotional intelligence tend to have a better time in-between the sheets. This could be because it means people are more comfortable with intimacy and getting close to someone, they said. And in good news, there are steps anyone can take to improve it. The team, from the University of Bologna in Italy, collected data from 864 adults who were currently in a relationship or dating. Participants were asked to complete a series of psychological assessments including those which measured emotional intelligence, attachment anxiety and avoidance, and comfort with interpersonal touch. Analysis revealed that higher levels of emotional intelligence was linked with better sexual satisfaction. The team found that this was mainly due to the fact that these people have a higher tolerance for emotional and physical intimacy, and had less anxiety. Researchers have discovered that people with higher levels of emotional intelligence tend to have a better time in-between the sheets They also discovered that higher levels of emotional intelligence was linked to higher body appreciation and fewer problematic sexual behaviours. The trait has also been associated with emotional self-awareness, empathy, the ability to regulate emotions and social skills. Luckily, for those who may struggle in this area, there are steps you can take to improve your emotional intelligence. Experts say reconnecting with core emotions – through practicing mindfulness – can help. 'It's important that you learn how to manage stress first, so you'll feel more comfortable reconnecting to strong or unpleasant emotions and changing how you experience and respond to your feelings,' experts told Help Guide. 'In order to build emotional intelligence —and become emotionally healthy—you must reconnect to your core emotions, accept them, and become comfortable with them. You can achieve this through the practice of mindfulness.' They added: 'Become aware of how effectively you use nonverbal communication. 'The emotional part of your brain is always on—and even if you ignore its messages—others won't. 'Recognizing the nonverbal messages that you send to others can play a huge part in improving your relationships.' They also recommended using humour and play to relieve stress, and learning to see conflict as an opportunity to grow closer to others. The new study was published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. The authors wrote: 'The findings highlight the importance of trait emotional intelligence in mitigating negative emotions linked to insecure attachments, reducing the risk of problematic sexual behaviours, and improving overall sexual satisfaction.' WHAT TACTICS DO PEOPLE USE TO STOP THEMSELVES CHEATING? Researchers at the University of New Brunswick asked 362 heterosexual adults how they had staved off temptations to cheat while in a relationship. 1. 'Relationship enhancement' Seventy-five per cent of the study's respondents, who were aged between 19 and 63, selected 'relationship enhancement' as their primary tactic. This ploy included things like taking their partner on a date, making an extra effort with their appearance around them, or having more sex with them. 2. 'Proactive avoidance' The second most-popular was 'proactive avoidance', which involved maintaining distance from the temptation. As well as physically avoiding the temptation, people also avoided getting close in conversation with that person. 3. 'Derogation of the temptation' The third and final tactic used by people was 'derogation of the temptation', which involved feelings of guilt, and thinking about the tempting person in a negative light. Participants reported flirting less when they applied the final, 'derogation of the temptation' strategy. But none of the strategies had an effect on the levels of romantic infidelity, sexual infidelity, and whether the relationship survived. Psychologist Dr Alex Fradera, who was not involved in the research, said the findings show little can be done once feelings of temptation have crept in.
The Age
08-05-2025
- Politics
- The Age
After four decades abroad, Italians hope the papacy is coming home
Rome: On the eve of the conclave, Italian Cardinal Matteo Zuppi found himself dodging questions as he was mugged by a waiting media pack about his chances of being the next pope. Walking the cobblestone streets of Vatican City, he joked with reporters, telling them he was on his way to his barber, poking fun at the intense media focus on his candidacy. 'If the conclave lasts a couple of months, at least I'll fix myself up a bit,' he quipped, laughing as he added, 'As my mother would have said: 'Where are you going looking like that?'' Despite his self-deprecating denial of being 'papabile' – the Italian term for a man who could be pope – speculation around his name continues to grow, fuelled by his diplomatic achievements as Francis' special envoy to Russia and Ukraine. For Italians, the idea of an Italian pope has always been more than just a matter of religion; it's an integral part of their identity. The Vatican, sitting at the heart of Rome, has long been part of the country's cultural fabric. For centuries, the papacy was firmly in Italian hands, with 213 of the 266 popes throughout history coming from Italy. That relationship came to an end in 1978 when Albino Luciani, the patriarch of Venice, briefly ascended as Pope John Paul I. His death 33 days later marked a shift in papacy, with popes from Poland, Germany, and Argentina following. As the church became more global, Italy's influence within the College of Cardinals waned, although it still has 17 cardinal electors. As one Roman prelate reportedly quipped this week: 'Wouldn't it be nice if the next pope were Italian?' Alberto Melloni, a historian of the Catholic Church at the University of Bologna, says Italy's history is inseparable from the Vatican. 'The church's influence has shaped everything from art to politics to education in this country,' he said.
Yahoo
05-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Almost Every Speck of Light in This Incredible Image Is a Galaxy
If you ever want to get a bit of perspective, there's very little that's more humbling than a good deep field image – and JWST has just dropped a real showstopper. In the latest image release, the powerful space telescope gazed back nearly 12 billion light-years into a tiny patch of sky, less than a fifth of the width of the full Moon. That little patch of sky is teeming with glittering lights. It looks a lot like any patch of the sky seen when you look up from the ground on a cloudless night, with one major, jaw-dropping difference. Most of the lights in the new JWST-Hubble composite image are not bright stars, but galaxies, stretching back almost as far across space-time as the beginning of the Universe. You can tell the difference, because only the stars have the pointy diffraction spikes that are characteristic of a JWST image. This pattern is generated when light from a concentrated point source bends around the edges of the telescope. The light in galaxies is much less concentrated, so it doesn't produce the same effect. This makes it easy to identify foreground stars in JWST images, and tell them apart from background objects. The focus of this particular image is a group of galaxies concentrated just below the center, glowing with a kind of golden light. The light from that group of galaxies has traveled for around 6.5 billion years to reach us – nearly half the 13.8 billion-year age of the Universe. The observations were taken as part of the COSMOS-Web survey, a project aimed at cataloguing groups of galaxies to better understand the evolution of the Universe, which includes the cosmic web. The distribution of galaxies throughout the Universe isn't random or higgledy-piggledy; they organize themselves into clusters, connected by an invisible cosmic web of dark matter and hydrogen. Combining JWST data with X-ray data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory reveals just how large this group is, the most massive identified in the view field. The hot gas that suffuses the cluster glows in X-radiation powerfully enough for Chandra to detect. There is, however, a lot more to be seen in the image, if you know how to look. In a catalog compiled from these data, an international team of astronomers led by astrophysicist Greta Toni of the University of Bologna has identified 1,678 groups of galaxies. Not 1,678 galaxies – 1,678 groups. There is also nothing special about this little patch of sky, measuring just 6.44 by 6.44 arcminutes. The full Moon, for context, is around 30 arcminutes across. Every other tiny patch of sky should be just as teeming with galaxies, thousands upon thousands that can be imaged in an area smaller than your pinky nail. If that's not awe-inspiring, we don't know what is. If you want to remind yourself daily how small you are, you can download wallpaper-sized versions of the deep field on the ESA's JWST website, and the most recent paper on Astronomy & Astrophysics. The Eta Aquariid Meteor Shower Is Just About to Peak 'Super-Earths' May Be Surprisingly Common, Scientists Reveal JWST Confirms Coldest Exoplanet Ever Found, Circling Its Dead Star
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Senna: Revelations from the men who analysed the broken steering column
It is a quirk of Italian law that, if a fatality occurs, even on a race track, someone must be held responsible. The tragic deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna during the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix weekend resonated through the world and put Formula 1 under intense scrutiny. While Ratzenberger's accident was clearly caused by front-wing failure, Senna's became the object of frenzied speculation. As the FIA sought to find lessons from the fatalities that could be translated into effective safety improvements, the Italian legal machine swung into action and a criminal trial ensued. Advertisement Public prosecutor Maurizio Passerini's case focused on establishing that a shear in the steering column of Senna's FW16 caused him to spear off the circuit at the Tamburello corner and into the wall. Passerini appointed Professor Enrico Lorenzini, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Bologna, as an expert. Lorenzini ordered the column to be analysed by two teams of specialists from different institutions so the results could be compared and correlated. One part of the investigation was entrusted to the Air Force's Research and Experimentation Division, based in Pratica di Mare, near Lazio, and the other to the Metallurgy Laboratory of Industrial Chemistry at the University of Bologna. Both teams used a SEM – Scanning Electron Microscope – the most advanced tool of the time. Thirty years later, managed to contact Gian Paolo Cammarota and Angelo Casagrande, the two professors from the University of Bologna who performed the analyses. They have remained friends and still occasionally see each other. Cammarota and Casagrande give their thoughts on what happened that fateful day Cammarota and Casagrande give their thoughts on what happened that fateful day Motorsport Images Motorsport Images Advertisement Cammarota, born in 1936 in Milan, now retired, divides his time between Bologna, Venice, and Germany. A slender, reserved man, he weighs every word carefully. While Cammarota's speciality was Industrial Chemistry, Casagrande, a Bolognese, is still part of the teaching staff in the Faculty of Metallurgy. 'We're phasing out the SEM now – more modern and advanced investigative systems exist – but the scanning electron microscope gave us clear, indisputable answers in the Senna case,' says Casagrande. In the original design of the Williams FW16, the steering column was a single-piece metal tube measuring 910.2mm in length, from the connection with the steering box to the steering wheel hub. At a distance of 685.5mm from the lower end (steering box), the column was attached to the chassis via an aluminium alloy support with a self-lubricating bushing made of Teflon-like material, leaving the remaining portion – 224.7mm long – as a cantilever. Advertisement Senna complained to the team of being uncomfortable in the cockpit: he wanted the steering column to be lowered, to improve his driving position because, when using his preferred steering wheel design his knuckles rubbed against the top of the chassis, with painful results. It wasn't a simple task because regulations required that, once the steering wheel was removed, there had to be enough clearance in the cockpit section for a 250mm x 250mm template to pass through, as per the 1994 FIA rules. To accommodate Senna's wishes, Adrian Newey – then Williams' chief designer – directed the drawing office to lower the steering column by 2mm. When this was found to snag the FIA template, the next best solution was to reduce the diameter of the column by 4mm in that area. 'Reducing the diameter of the tube was a major design mistake,' Cammarota says. 'The chemical and mechanical property analyses of the parts weren't consistent – they clearly showed the use of two different materials.' The modified column was divided into three parts, two made of T45 steel, with external diameters of 22.225mm and a wall thickness of 0.9mm, with an intermediate section of EN14 steel 18mm in external diameter and a wall thickness of 1.2mm. These parts were welded together. Senna was uncomfortable in his FW16, so modifications were made Senna was uncomfortable in his FW16, so modifications were made Motorsport Images Motorsport Images Advertisement Franco Nugnes: What tests did you perform? Gian Paolo Cammarota: We carried out a superficial metallographic analysis, then internal and external roughness tests, and a fractographic examination. The chemical analysis was entrusted to Cermet. In the expert report submitted to the court by Professor Lorenzini, it reads: 'In general terms, it must be said that the three-piece steering column is indicative of a poorly designed modification, as the thinness of the section precisely at the point of maximum stress, the abrupt change in cross-section with an excessively small fillet radius, and the scratches caused by the mechanical processes of drilling and turning all contribute to creating a structurally critical situation, with a consequent high risk of failure under static loads and dynamic fatigue. 'Incidentally, on the external and internal surfaces of the joint, immediately below the fracture surface, pronounced circumferential marks from machining tools can be observed, so the external and internal surfaces of the tube exhibit a surface finish unsuitable for components operating under fatigue in extreme experimental conditions.' Advertisement FN: Could human error have occurred during welding? GPC: I rule that out. I showed our images to Professor Horst Herold from the University of Magdeburg, a leading expert in the field, and he assured me that the welds were perfect. The problem lay entirely in the reduction of the tube's cross-section precisely at the point where the stress was at its maximum. FN: So why did the steering column fail? Angelo Casagrande: It was already damaged before the start of the grand prix. In short, there was a crack [in metallurgy, a thin and often deep fissure that precedes a break] that was progressing and had formed before the race in which Senna lost his life. The presence of oxidation didn't allow us to determine exactly when the fatigue phenomenon began, but it was enough for us to understand what had happened. Advertisement FN: In Formula 1, the best materials available are usually chosen – what could have gone wrong? AC: They made an unplanned modification. The dimensions of the shaft and the cantilever section were such that, even with a super-material, it might have lasted one more race at best. Then it would have failed if not replaced, because it couldn't withstand the stresses. There's no point blaming the material: that was an aggravating factor but, given the dimensions and the structural characteristics of the component, that metal couldn't have done much better. The engineering experts spent a week examining the remains of Senna's car The engineering experts spent a week examining the remains of Senna's car Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images Advertisement FN: How long did you have the steering column for? GPC: Less than a week, then we returned it. Just enough time to perform the SEM exams. Engineer Danesi was always present during the analysis, representing Williams. At first, the British team didn't want to hear anything about fatigue, but we immediately saw the failure and had to assess how much of the tube had broken due to fatigue and how much due to tearing. FN: The investigation also included roughness tests... GPC: Roughness is the ratio between the base of a groove and the surface. If the value is high, you risk serious trouble. In aerospace, all surfaces must be polished to a mirror finish. There must be no striations that can concentrate stress and become the starting point for surface alterations when the fatigue threshold of the material is exceeded. Advertisement On our column, there was only partial polishing on the outside – it should have been mirror-finished – and inside, nothing had been done at all. The crack definitely started from the inside, probably already during practice. There were three sections in the tube: one showed fatigue; the middle section showed a mix of fatigue and ductile fracture, which is to be expected when the material is very tough; and in the third, the final section, there was clear evidence of a catastrophic fracture caused by the impact with the wall. FN: The team had removed layers of carbonfibre and cut part of the chassis covering. Did these interventions reduce the stiffness of the monocoque, and could they have contributed to initiating the steering column fractures? GPC: It's possible, but this issue wasn't addressed in the trial. There may have been an acceleration in the crack's propagation – we would need to know precisely when the crack began. Advertisement -- Newey's role was examined in the trial Newey's role was examined in the trial Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images Rainer W. Schlegelmilch / Motorsport Images The criminal trial was wide-ranging, accusing Frank Williams, Patrick Head and Adrian Newey of manslaughter, and FIA official Roland Bruynseraede, race organiser Federico Bendinelli and Imola track manager Giorgio Poggi of culpable homicide. As it progressed, Passerini moved to drop the charges against Williams, Bruynseraede, Bendinelli and Poggi, focusing his attentions on Head and Newey. Once it had possession of the steering column and recognised the fatigue crack, Williams built a test rig to establish whether the column was strong enough to transmit steering inputs at the required torque for normal driving even in a weakened state. Its findings suggested this was the case. Advertisement The TV footage clearly showed the rear end of Senna's car stepping out just before his car left the track, which wasn't consistent with the prosecution's argument that the steering had failed and caused the car to go straight on. It was impossible to prove whether the failure was the cause or effect of the accident – so, rightly, Head and Newey were acquitted and a subsequent attempt to appeal the decision failed. The lessons of Imola not only informed the FIA's ongoing safety project, they affected the process of car design. Williams, for example, brought in a system whereby safety-critical components could be signed off for production only after the designs had been counter-signed by an experienced stress engineer. 'Regardless of whether that steering column caused the accident or not,' wrote Newey in his autobiography, 'there is no escaping the fact that it was a bad piece of design that should never have been allowed to get on the car.' To read more articles visit our website.
