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Are you born with it? Or do you develop it over time? Although a new study on preferred learning styles was intended to make childhood education more efficient, its findings could hold some lessons for those who design safety training for adult workers.

OSHA’s recent call for comments that may be used to help update its Lockout/Tagout (LOTO) standard highlights an area of growing concern for safety professionals: robotics-human interaction. When the agency’s Control of Hazardous Energy (LOTO) standard was issued in 1989, industrial robots were in use – primarily in manufacturing – but they bore little resemblance to their modern day counterparts. In the 1960s, '70s and '80s, industrial robots were capable of gripping objects, moving them from one point to another and performing assembly tasks.

Jeremy Westfall was cutting the grass last month at his home in Mineralwells, West Virginia, when he decided to put his riding mower in reverse. He didn’t see his 6-year-old daughter Michaela walking up behind him, and backed over her.

Some 67 percent of highway contractors report that motor vehicles crashed into their construction work zones during the past year, according to the results of a new highway work zone study conducted by the Associated General Contractors of America (AGC). In response, association officials have launched a new radio and media campaign urging drivers to slow down and remain alert in highway work zones.

The recent destructive barrage of tornadoes in Ohio, Kansas and Pennsylvania that took lives and demolished buildings is a reminder that “tornado season” – the time of year when most tornadoes happen – is far from over. The dangerous vortex of violent, rotating wind that accompanies a storm system occurs most often in the U.S. from April to June, although tornadoes can wreak havoc long before and after that time.

Mother’s Day brought an unwelcome research result in a study done in Ecuador: high blood pressure among children exposed to pesticides sprayed during that country’s big flower harvest. Ecuador is among the largest commercial flower growers in the world, with significant rose exports to North America, Europe and Asia – especially for Mother’s Day, a holiday with one of the highest sales of flowers.

“It was a dark and stormy night” might be the title of the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) report on a passenger flight from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba to Florida that ended with the plane resting in the shallow water of a river. There were no serious injuries to the 142 passengers and crew onboard, but the airplane was substantially damaged in the May 3rd incident at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station (KNIP).