Appointed in 1931, he began research for an extensive clinical and genetic study of 1280 residents who had various forms of mental and physical disability. In many ways, this extended canonical ...19th-century anatomy, notably surgeon Charles Bell's book The Hand. Any physician now would appreciate Saunders’ instruction for a routine examination of the hand, the fingers, and the nails, their shape and proportion, the hand's moisture, dryness, colour, and texture. Penrose thought it curious that palmists typically speak of a mound attached to each finger—the mounts of Jupiter, Saturn, Apollo, and Mercury—since this was plainly erroneous.
Twitter has considerable capacity for health education and proves to be an efficient and accessible communication tool in the coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic. Although many stakeholders ...saturate Twitter with COVID-19-related information, it remains unknown who disseminates information most efficaciously. COVID-19-related tweets were obtained from Twitter accounts of health agencies, governmental authorities, universities, scientific journals, medical associations, and celebrities. Posts' impact was measured with the nominal and relative (%followers) number of likes and retweets. A sentiment analysis was conducted.We have identified 17,331 COVID-19-related tweets posted by 338 accounts in >4 months since the virus began to spread. The largest number of likes was received by tweets of celebrities (median nominal, relative likes; 14,918, 0.036 percent), politicians (259, 0.174 percent), and health agencies (231, 0.007 percent). Most retweeted messages were also posted by celebrities (2,366, 0.005 percent), health agencies (130, 0.004 percent), and politicians (55, 0.041 percent). Retweets and likes peaked in March 2020, and the overall sentiment of the tweets was growing steadily. Whereas celebrities and politicians posted positive messages, the scientific and health authorities often employed a negative vocabulary. The posts with positive sentiment gained more likes and relative likes than nonpositive. During the pandemic, the tweets of celebrities and politicians related to COVID-19 outperform those coming from health and scientific institutions. Active engagement of Twitter influencers may help key messages go viral.
•Politicization of COVID-19 vaccine approval undermines U.S. public confidence.•Approval prior to presidential election reduces uptake intentions.•Endorsements by politicians have a polarizing effect ...among those most confident in vaccines.•Dr. Anthony Fauci’s endorsement increases confidence and uptake more broadly.•Results document the importance of the politicization of vaccination and medicine.
The global spread of COVID-19 has created an urgent need for a safe and effective vaccine. However, in the United States, the politicization of the vaccine approval process, including which public figures are endorsing it, could undermine beliefs about its safety and efficacy and willingness to receive it. Using a pair of randomized survey experiments, we show that announcing approval of a COVID-19 vaccine one week before the presidential election compared to one week after considerably reduces both beliefs about its safety and efficacy and intended uptake. However, endorsement by Dr. Anthony Fauci increases confidence and uptake among all partisan subgroups. Further, an endorsement by Dr. Fauci increased uptake and confidence in safety even if a vaccine receives pre-election approval. The results here suggest that perceptions of political influence in COVID-19 vaccine approval could significantly undermine the viability of a vaccine as a strategy to end the pandemic.
•Attractive celebrity and peer images have a negative effect on mood and body image.•No difference found between celebrity and peer images.•The effect of celebrity and peer images is mediated by ...social comparison.•Celebrity worship moderates the effect of celebrity images on body dissatisfaction.
A large body of research has documented that exposure to images of thin fashion models contributes to women's body dissatisfaction. The present study aimed to experimentally investigate the impact of attractive celebrity and peer images on women's body image. Participants were 138 female undergraduate students who were randomly assigned to view either a set of celebrity images, a set of equally attractive unknown peer images, or a control set of travel images. All images were sourced from public Instagram profiles. Results showed that exposure to celebrity and peer images increased negative mood and body dissatisfaction relative to travel images, with no significant difference between celebrity and peer images. This effect was mediated by state appearance comparison. In addition, celebrity worship moderated an increased effect of celebrity images on body dissatisfaction. It was concluded that exposure to attractive celebrity and peer images can be detrimental to women's body image.
Social media have permeated the lives of adolescents and may be altering the way that teens engage with their favorite media celebrities and characters. This study surveyed 316 adolescents to examine ...the relationship between social media surveillance and the strength of adolescents' parasocial relationships (PSRs) with media personae they follow on social media. Results indicated a significant positive relationship between exposure to media personae on Twitter and strength of PSRs. Adolescents who had experienced social interactions with their favorite media personae on Twitter in the form of retweets or responses to tweets had stronger PSRs than adolescents who had no such interactions. The realism of the media personae did not moderate findings as expected. The findings suggest that Twitter provides intimate glimpses into the personal lives of media personae that increase audiences' feelings of connectedness to those celebrities and characters, an important finding given that teens are more likely to learn from media personae with whom they have PSRs.
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