• A new study conducted by Pitt researchers has shown that a handshake conveys more than a simple “How do you do?” According to a Dec. 25 Pittsburgh Tribune-Review article, scientists say that the strength of a handshake is a good predictor of how long one will live. The Pitt study might hold serious implications for elderly people in developing countries like India as compared to senior citizens in the United States, suggesting that elderly populations in developing countries are at a greater risk for disability and shorter life expectancy than are their American counterparts, Steven Albert, professor of behavioral and community health sciences in Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health, explained in the article.

Albert and his colleagues measured the grip strength of more than 600 people in New York City and New Delhi. Elderly women in New York averaged 18 pounds of pressure, compared to 10 pounds—or almost 45 percent less—in New Delhi, the Pitt study found. According to the article, the pattern of weaker grip strength among the elderly in India versus American senior citizens held true regardless of gender, medical conditions, or self-reported difficulties in daily activities. Albert attributes the weaker grip strength and general poor health of people in Third World countries to years of nutritional deprivation and the backbreaking effects of manual labor, as well as limited access to health care and mass migration of young caregivers away from their families.

• Imagine your quiet evening at home has been interrupted by a knock at the door. On the other side of the door stands a union organizer who has used the license plate on your car parked in your employer’s lot to get personal information and track you down. According to a Dec. 27 article in The Wall Street Journal that quoted Marick F. Masters, Pitt professor of business administration and public and international affairs and the director of Pitt’s Center on Conflict Resolution and Negotiation, that is just what some Emmaus, Pa., employees of Cintas Corp faced before bringing a lawsuit against the union.

Labor experts like Masters regard the joint effort by Unite Here and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to organize laundry workers and truck drivers at Cintas as the most important current union drive, the article explained, apart from the battle to persuade Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to let unions represent its workers. Furthermore, the lawsuit points to deeper problems facing the labor movement. According to Masters, the lawsuit will have “a very chilling effect” on workers’ willingness to support the organizing drive at Cintas.