Return to Oz: voice pitch facilitates assessments of men's body size.

Listeners associate low voice pitch (fundamental frequency and/or harmonics) and formants (vocal-tract resonances) with large body size. Although formants reliably predict size within sexes, pitch does not reliably predict size in groups of same-sex adults. Voice pitch has therefore long been hypothesized to confound within-sex size assessment.

Sociosexual attitudes and dyadic sexual desire independently predict women's preferences for male vocal masculinity.

Research suggests that the desire to behave sexually with a partner (dyadic sexual desire) may reflect desire for intimacy whereas solitary sexual desire may reflect pleasure seeking motivations more generally. Because direct reproductive success can only be increased with a sexual partner, we tested whether dyadic sexual desire was a better predictor of women's preferences for lower pitched men's voices (a marker of relatively high reproductive success) than was solitary sexual desire. In Study 1, women (N = 95) with higher dyadic sexual desire scores on the Sexual Desire Inventory-2 preferred masculinized male voices more than did women with lower dyadic sexual desire scores.

Men's preferences for women's femininity in dynamic cross-modal stimuli.

Men generally prefer feminine women's faces and voices over masculine women's faces and voices, and these cross-modal preferences are positively correlated. Men's preferences for female facial and vocal femininity have typically been investigated independently by presenting soundless still images separately from audio-only vocal recordings. For the first time ever, we presented men with short video clips in which dynamic faces and voices were simultaneously manipulated in femininity/masculinity.

Men's judgments of women's facial attractiveness from two- and three-dimensional images are similar.

Although most research on human facial attractiveness has used front-facing two-dimensional (2D) images, our primary visual experience with faces is in three dimensions. Because face coding in the human visual system is viewpoint-specific, faces may be processed differently from different angles. Thus, results from perceptual studies using front-facing 2D facial images may not be generalizable to other viewpoints.

Apparent height and body mass index influence perceived leadership ability in three-dimensional faces.

Facial appearance has a well-documented effect on perceived leadership ability. Face judgments of leadership ability predict political election outcomes across the world, and similar judgments of business CEOs predict company profits. Body height is also associated with leadership ability, with taller people attaining positions of leadership more than their shorter counterparts in both politics and in the corporate world.

Venous thromboembolism and mortality associated with recombinant erythropoietin and darbepoetin administration for the treatment of cancer-associated anemia.

Context: The erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) erythropoietin and darbepoetin are licensed to treat chemotherapy-associated anemia in patients with nonmyeloid malignancies. Although systematic overviews of trials have identified venous thromboembolism (VTE) risks, none have identified mortality risks with ESAs.

Objective: To evaluate VTE and mortality rates associated with ESA administration for the treatment of anemia among patients with cancer.

Cost considerations in the management of cancer in the older patient.

Patients aged 65 years and older represent 12% of the US population yet account for approximately 56% of cancer cases and 69% of all cancer mortalities. The overall cost of cancer in 2005 was $209.9 billion--$74 billion for direct medical costs and $118.

Evaluation of serious adverse drug reactions: a proactive pharmacovigilance program (RADAR) vs safety activities conducted by the Food and Drug Administration and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Background: The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and pharmaceutical manufacturers conduct most postmarketing pharmaceutical safety investigations. These efforts are frequently based on data mining of databases. In 1998, investigators initiated the Research on Adverse Drug events And Reports (RADAR) project to investigate reports of serious adverse drug reactions (ADRs) and prospectively obtain information on these cases.

Adverse effects of drugs used to treat hematologic malignancies: surveillance efforts from the research on adverse drug events and reports project.

Pharmaceuticals used to treat hematologic malignancies can lead to unexpected adverse events that involve a wide range of organ systems and physiological processes. The National Cancer Institute and National Heart Lung and Blood Institute-funded Research on Adverse Drug Events and Reports (RADAR) project-a collaboration of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, and numerous academic institutions-identifies and evaluates unexpected adverse drug reactions associated with drugs used to treat malignant disorders.