ATS 2015, DENVER -- Treatment of COPD with inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) may decrease the risk of dying from pneumonia and from other causes despite being associated with an increase in the occurrence of pneumonia, according to a new meta-analysis presented at the 2015 American Thoracic Society International Conference. "Our systematic review and meta-analysis of 38 studies echoes individual studies which have shown that while ICS use may increase the risk of pneumonia in COPD patients, it lowers the risk of both pneumonia-associated and overall mortality," said lead ...

Few local government organizations in Colorado had policies on environmental controls, such as the provision of outdoor shade, or administrative procedures, including training and resource allocation, to improve sun protection for their workers and most policies addressed employees' use of personal protection practices, according to an article published online by JAMA Dermatology. Outdoor workers are exposed to large amounts of UV radiation, often during the course of many years, and are at increased risk for skin cancer and ocular (eye) damage. Sun-safety policies have ...

DURHAM, N.C. -- Researchers at Duke Medicine have determined that kidney function plays a critical role in the fate of patients being treated for sepsis, a potentially life-threatening complication of an infection. In a study published May 20, 2015, in the journal Kidney International, Duke researchers and their colleagues identified physiological changes at the molecular level that might be affected by acute kidney injury. The findings could help physicians improve hemodialysis practices, increasing patient survival rates after kidney failure. Acute kidney injury ...

DENVER, CO -- Most people associate osteoporosis with women. But the truth is, one in four men over the age of 50 will break a bone as a result of this condition. That's more men than will have prostate cancer, according to the National Osteoporosis Foundation. Now a leading researcher at National Jewish Health is calling for men to be included in the screening guidelines for osteoporosis. Elizabeth Regan, MD, PhD, a researcher at National Jewish Health, studied more than 3,000 smokers and former smokers ages 45 to 80 and tested their bone density. What she found was ...

Is ovulation related to higher racial bias? Though recent research, from Michigan State University, suggested that there was a link, new research from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business was unable to replicate those findings. In four studies, documented in their paper "In Search of an Association Between Conception Risk and Prejudice," Carlee Beth Hawkins, a doctoral student, and her co-authors were unable to find any evidence that there is an increase in racial bias related to conception risk. Hawkins, along with Cailey Fitzgerald of the University ...

Some major trucking companies are turning to natural gas to fuel their fleets -- and to earn "green" credit among customers. But celebrating lower emissions could be premature, according to an analysis in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology. Researchers have found that converting heavy-duty trucks to run on natural gas could lead to negative climate impacts if steps are not taken to improve engine efficiency and reduce methane emissions from the fuel's supply chain. Burning natural gas emits less carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere than other fossil ...

May 20, 2015 -- Available research does not support the contention that athletes are uniquely at risk of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) or other neurodegenerative disorders, according to a review in the June issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Wolters Kluwer. Widely reported and publicized cases of CTE in retired athletes overlap with other neurodegenerative disorders, while the observed symptoms could result from a wide range of other factors, suggests the review by Dr. Gavin A. Davis of ...

Americans' energy use continued to grow slowly in 2014, fueled by increases in the use of natural gas, wind and solar, according to the most recent energy flow charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Each year, the Laboratory releases charts that illustrate the nation's consumption and use of energy. Overall, Americans used 0.9 quadrillion (quads) British thermal units (BTUs) more in 2014 than the previous year, an increase of about 1 percent. The Laboratory also released a companion chart illustrating the nation's energy-related carbon dioxide emissions. ...

New evidence has linked Arctic warming with severe weather in countries including the UK and US. Professor Edward Hanna and PhD student Richard Hall, from the University of Sheffield's Department of Geography, are part of a select group of international climate scientists investigating links between Arctic climate change and extreme weather in the northern mid-latitudes. They have found that while it is too soon to know for certain whether the Arctic played a role in persistent cold events during the extreme wet UK winter of 2013/14 and recent USA East Coast winters, ...

New Haven, Conn. -- Yale researchers found a close association between acute hospitalizations and the development and progression of disability among older adults at the end of life. Their findings may have profound implications for medical decision-making for older people and those who care for them. The research was published May 20 in The BMJ (British Medical Journal). In an earlier study, Thomas M. Gill, M.D., professor of medicine, and his co-authors at Yale School of Medicine had shown that the course of disability for older adults at the end of life was varied ...

TAMPA, Fla. - Melanoma is predicted to result in approximately 10,000 deaths in 2015. The majority of these deaths are due to advanced stage disease that has spread or metastasized to other sites. The prognosis for patients with metastatic melanoma remains poor, with 5-year survival rates of 63 percent in patients who have metastatic disease in regional lymph nodes, and only 17 percent in patients who have metastatic disease in distant sites. Moffitt Cancer Center researchers participated in an international phase 3 study that demonstrated that a drug called ipilimumab ...

A team led by environmental engineers from Drexel University are the first independent researchers to take a closer look at the air quality effects of natural gas extraction in the Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania. The group used a mobile air quality monitoring vehicle to survey regional air quality and pollutant emissions at 13 sites including wells, drilling rigs, compressor stations and processing areas. Their work establishes baseline measurements for this relatively new area of extraction. While there have been a number of studies focusing on water quality ...

The number of new Ebola cases is tapering off, but the search for new treatments continues. Now, one research team has found potential drug candidates that successfully treated up to 90 percent of mice exposed to the Ebola virus. They report their findings in the journal ACS Infectious Diseases. Bogdan A. Solaja, Rekha G. Panchal and colleagues note that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has yet to approve any therapeutic drugs or vaccines against the Ebola virus that, since December 2013, has infected more than 25,000 people and taken the lives of more than 10,000. ...

Despite efforts over decades to diversify the ranks of university faculty, only 4 percent of chemistry professorships at 50 leading U.S. colleges and universities are held by underrepresented minorities. That key finding and others related to diversity in academia came from a new survey conducted by a program called Open Chemistry Collaborative in Diversity Equity (OXIDE) in partnership with Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. Senior Editor Linda Wang and Assistant Managing Editor Sophie Rovner at C&EN report that ...

HOUSTON - (May 20, 2015) - Whether people locate their sense of self in the brain or the heart can have a major influence on people's decision-making, according to a new study by management and business experts at Rice University and Columbia University. Overall, the study found people tend to locate the self in the brain. The paper, "Who You Are Is Where You Are: Antecedents and Consequences of Locating the Self in the Brain or the Heart," will be published in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. "We view our research as a first step ...

Twitter 'big data' could provide valuable details about transgender individuals' health and social needs Transgender and gender nonconforming people are at high risk for diseases such as AIDS and are vulnerable to depression and other mental health issues, but may be reluctant to disclose their identities to researchers due to stigma. As a result, very little is known about their health and social needs. New research from the UC Institute for Prediction Technology in the UCLA Department of Family Medicine suggests that social media could help fill that knowledge gap. ...

A multidisciplinary team led by Johns Hopkins researcher Venu Raman, Ph.D., with notable contributions from Guus Bol, Farhad Vesuna and Phuoc Tran of Johns Hopkins, has identified a new therapy for lung cancer, the most common cancer worldwide. The therapy has been in development for six years and involves a first-in-class molecule designed by the team. The molecule, RK-33, interrupts the cell cycle of lung cancer cells without harming normal cells, and it is effective both on its own and in combination with radiation therapy. The team designed the molecule to bind to ...

LAWRENCE -- Whole Foods Market encourages its employees to connect with the supermarket's "core values" on a personal level and make them "come to life" every day in their work. Whether it's at the organic foods supermarket or firms such as Google or Apple or even Southwest Airlines, cohesive corporate culture is a strong buzzword among some of the world's most successful companies. However, a University of Kansas researcher who studies the intersection of economics, evolutionary theory and philosophy has found that strong culture among a business' employees is only ...

The drug dasabuvir (trade name Exviera) has been available since January 2015 for the treatment of adults with chronic hepatitis C infection. The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined in a dossier assessment whether this drug offers an added benefit over the appropriate comparator therapy. According to the findings, there are indications of an added benefit in patients who have not yet developed cirrhosis of the liver and who are infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV) genotype 1a. In case of genotype 1b, this only applies to treatment-naive, ...

Radio systems, such as mobile phones and wireless internet connections, have become an integral part of modern life. However, today's devices use twice as much of the radio spectrum as is necessary. New technology is being developed that could fundamentally change radio design and could increase data rates and network capacity, reduce power consumption, create cheaper devices and enable global roaming. A pioneering team of researchers from the University of Bristol's Communication Systems and Networks research group, have developed a new technique that can estimate ...

Oral care products containing a natural chemical that stops bacteria harming teeth could help prevent decay, a study suggests. The plant natural product acts against harmful mouth bacteria and could improve oral health by helping to prevent the build-up of plaque, researchers say. The compound - known as trans-chalcone - is related to chemicals found in liquorice root. The study shows that it blocks the action of a key enzyme that allows the bacteria to thrive in oral cavities. The bacteria - Streptococcus mutans - metabolise sugars from food and drink, which produces ...

Some mountain gorilla females linger into adulthood in the group into which they were born. In the process, they also remain in the company of their father, who is often their group's dominant male. To curb inbreeding, though, they appear to tactically avoid mating with their fathers. This strategy works so well that the chances of alpha gorilla males siring the offspring of their own daughters are effectively zero, according to Linda Vigilant of the Max Planck Institute for Anthropology in Germany. The findings are published in Springer's journal Behavioral Ecology and ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass--Researchers have found a way to couple the properties of different two-dimensional materials to provide an exceptional degree of control over light waves. They say this has the potential to lead to new kinds of light detection, thermal-management systems, and high-resolution imaging devices. The new findings -- using a layer of one-atom-thick graphene deposited on top of a similar 2-D layer of a material called hexagonal boron nitride (hBN) -- are published in the journal Nano Letters. The work is co-authored by MIT associate professor of mechanical engineering ...

The rapid evolution of gadgets has brought us an impressive array of "smart" products from phones to tablets, and now watches and glasses. But they still haven't broken free from their rigid form. Now scientists are reporting in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces a new step toward bendable electronics. They have developed the first light-emitting, transparent and flexible paper out of environmentally friendly materials via a simple, suction-filtration method. Technology experts have long predicted the coming age of flexible electronics, and researchers have ...

Scientists from General Atomics and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) have discovered a phenomenon that helps them to improve fusion plasmas, a finding that may quicken the development of fusion energy. Together with a team of researchers from across the United States, the scientists found that when they injected tiny grains of lithium into a plasma undergoing a particular kind of turbulence then, under the right conditions, the temperature and pressure rose dramatically. High heat and pressure are crucial to fusion, a process ...