MANHATTAN, Kansas -- Our belief in pure evil influences our feelings about capital punishment, finds a Kansas State University psychology study. Donald Saucier, associate professor of psychological sciences and 2015-2016 Coffman chair for distinguished teaching scholars, looked at how beliefs in pure evil influenced how people treated those who committed crimes. He recently completed the study with Russell Webster at St. Mary's College of Maryland. Approximately 200 participants were given a summary of a case in which a murderer confessed to his crime. Researchers then ...

AURORA, Colo. (May 14, 2015) - More than half of all Medicaid enrollees prefer the "one-stop shop" of a hospital emergency department to receive care for conditions that could be treated effectively at a primary care clinic, according to an article by a researcher at the University of Colorado School of Medicine on the Anschutz Medical Campus. The finding exposes a gap in the services provided to Medicaid enrollees. From a patient's perspective, going to the hospital emergency department may be less expensive because patients can avoid costs of travel and time away from ...

PHILADELPHIA - In the first-of-its-kind study since the passage of the HIV Organ Policy Equity Act (the HOPE Act), which lifted the ban on organ donations from one HIV-positive person to another, Penn Medicine researchers report on the quality of these organs and how their use might impact the country's organ shortage. The study, published online ahead of print May 14 in the American Journal of Transplantation, revealed that there are nearly 400 HIV-positive potential organ donors who could be sources of donated organs annually for HIV-positive patients waiting for organ ...

All land is not created equal. Some ecosystems do triple duty in the benefits they provide to society. Massachusetts forests, for example, filter public drinking water while also providing habitat for threatened species and storing carbon to combat climate change. Ecologists and conservation groups single out the hardest-working ecosystems -- called "hotspots" -- for their exceptional conservation value. A new study published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology reports that the number of ecosystem hotspots has increased in Massachusetts over the past decade, with ...

In 2013, the United States government passed the HIV Organ Policy Equity (HOPE) Act, which allows research to be conducted on the safety of organ donation from deceased donors with HIV to recipients with HIV. A new study published in the American Journal of Transplantation explores the quality of these organs and how their use might impact the country's organ shortage. In the United States, there are not enough organ donors to meet the needs of all patients who might benefit from lifesaving organ transplants. Some patients waiting for organs are infected with HIV, and ...

CHICAGO -- With the increasing demand for food with health benefits, high nutritional value food materials are attracting more attention from both consumers and food manufacturers. A new study by researchers at Wilmar (Shanghai) Biotechnology Research and Development Center Co., Ltd. in the Journal of Food Science, published by the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), found that germinated buckwheat, an important raw material for food and functional food production, had better nutritional value than ungerminated buckwheat. Germination is a complex process in which ...

An article publishing online today in Brain: A Journal of Neurology has found that individual differences in brain structure could help to determine the risk for future drug addiction. The study found that occasional users who subsequently increased their drug use compared with those who did not, showed brain structural differences when they started using drugs. In the two studies, researchers, led by Dr. Benjamin Becker, scanned the brain structure of 66 participants to provide the first likely evidence showing volumes of fronto-striato-limbic regions of the brain have ...

A robotic arm that can bend, stretch and squeeze through cluttered environments has been created by a group of researchers from Italy. Inspired by the eight arms of the octopus, the device has been specifically designed for surgical operations to enable surgeons to easily access remote, confined regions of the body and, once there, manipulate soft organs without damaging them. It is believed the device could reduce the number of instruments, and thus entry incisions, necessary in surgical operations, with part of the arm being used to manipulate organs whilst another ...

The use of glycated haemoglobin (sugar-bound haemoglobin, or HbA1c) is now in almost universal use to assist doctors in the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes. However new research published in Diabetologia (the journal of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes) highlights how anaemia--a common condition in the general population, especially in women--can lead to a false diagnosis of diabetes based on HbA1c, when a person's blood sugar control is actually normal. The research is by Dr Emma English, University of Nottingham, UK, and colleagues. In recent years, ...

Weak grip strength is linked with shorter survival and a greater risk of having a heart attack or stroke, according to an international study involving almost 140000 adults from 17 culturally and economically diverse countries [1]. The study, published in The Lancet, also found that grip strength is a stronger predictor of death than systolic blood pressure, and the authors suggest that it could be used as a quick, low-cost screening tool by doctors or other healthcare professionals to identify high-risk patients among people who develop major illnesses such as heart ...

Hamilton, ON (May 13, 2015) - The firmness of your hand grip is better than your blood pressure at assessing your health, Hamilton researchers have found, and reduced muscular strength, measured by your grip, is consistently linked with early death, disability and illness. The research by the Population Health Research Institute of McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences was published in the journal The Lancet today. "Grip strength could be an easy and inexpensive test to assess an individual's risk of death and cardiovascular disease," said principal investigator ...

PHILADELPHIA - Four different financial incentive programs, each worth roughly $800 over six months, all help more smokers kick the habit than providing free access to behavioral counseling and nicotine replacement therapy. Further, the way in which equally-sized payouts are structured influences their effectiveness. The findings are the result of a year-long randomized trial among CVS Caremark (now CVS Health) employees that was conducted by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and is published online first in the New England ...

PITTSBURGH, May 13, 2015 - Some cases of male infertility are due to mutations in the maternal X chromosome that prevent development of viable sperm, according to a study led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Magee-Womens Research Institute (MWRI). The study was published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Nearly half of cases of male infertility not due to a physical obstruction are estimated to have genetic roots, and about 20 percent of infertile men have azoospermia, meaning they don't make sperm, explained ...

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, May 13, 2015 - Myriad Genetics, Inc. (NASDAQ: MYGN) today announced it will present data from 19 clinical studies at the 2015 American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting to be held May 29 to June 2, 2015 in Chicago, Ill. Key podium presentations will highlight new prospective research programs with advanced companion diagnostic and molecular diagnostic tests aimed at revolutionizing how we treat and prevent cancers. Abstracts of the Company's presentations are available at: abstracts.asco.org. "Advances in personalized medicine will include ...

A new study finds the economic burden of cancer extends beyond diagnosis and treatment, and concludes that cancer survivors face thousands of dollars of excess medical expenses every year as well as excess employment disability and loss of production at work. The study abstract is being presented at the upcoming ASCO Annual Meeting and was released online today. Researchers led by Zhiyuan "Jason" Zheng examined the economic burden among survivors of the three most prevalent cancers (colorectal, female breast, and prostate) in nonelderly and elderly populations in the ...

MINNEAPOLIS - A new study suggests that medical marijuana pills may not help treat behavioral symptoms of dementia, such as aggression, pacing and wandering. The research is published in the May 13, 2015, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. However, researchers did find that the drug dosage used in the clinical trial was safe and well-tolerated. "Our study results are valuable since any firm evidence of the effectiveness and safety of medical marijuana in this disease area is scarce," said study author Geke A.H. van ...

DALLAS, May 13, 2015 -- Persistent depression may double the risk of stroke in adults over 50 -- and stroke risk remains higher even after symptoms of depression go away, according to research in the Journal of the American Heart Association. "Our findings suggest that depression may increase stroke risk over the long term," said Paola Gilsanz, Sc.D., study lead author and ?Yerby Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard University's T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, Mass. Researchers used data from 16,178 participants (ages 50 and older) who had been interviewed ...

Boston, MA -- Adults over 50 who have persistent symptoms of depression may have twice the risk of stroke as those who do not, according to a new study led by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Researchers found that stroke risk remains higher even after symptoms of depression go away, particularly for women. The study will be published online May 13, 2015 in the Journal of the American Heart Association. "This is the first study evaluating how changes in depressive symptoms predict changes in stroke risk," said lead author Paola Gilsanz, Yerby ...

Time is critical when it comes to stroke, and early treatment is associated with better outcomes. According to the Screening with MRI for Accurate and Rapid stroke Treatment (SMART) study, small changes in quality improvement procedures enabled clinicians to use MRI scans to diagnose stroke patients before giving acute treatment, within 60 minutes of hospital arrival. MRI scans provide detailed images but take longer to complete than CT scans, which are commonly used in most centers. The findings, published in Neurology, were supported in part by the National Institutes ...

PHOENIX, Ariz. -- May 13, 2015 -- A study led by the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) has for the first time matched dozens of infantile diseases and syndromes involving muscle weakness and stiff joints to their likely genetic origins. The study, in association with the University of British Columbia and BC Children's Hospital Vancouver, was published this month (May) in the American Journal of Medical Genetics. The study's goal is to better enable physicians and geneticists to advance new treatments that might help these children. "It's amazing to us ...

Washington, D.C., May 13, 2015 -- Using efficiency principles borrowed from "lean" manufacturing processes, two Washington-area hospitals have gotten a life-saving drug to stroke patients significantly quicker, while also obtaining better diagnostic information using MRI. That's according to a new study published online ahead of print in the May 13 issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. National benchmarks call for getting stroke patients from the door of the emergency room to injection with the clot-busting drug known as ...

MISSOULA -- The amount of time and effort songbirds spend warming their eggs directly correlates to their own survival probability and that of their eggs, according to a study by University of Montana researchers that will appear in an upcoming issue of The American Naturalist. The amount of care parents provide their young varies greatly across the animal kingdom, particularly among songbird species, who spend anywhere from 20 percent to nearly 100 percent of daylight hours warming eggs in their nests. A team of researchers led by Thomas Martin, senior scientist and ...

Cats may hold vital clues about the health benefits of vitamin D, a study suggests. Researchers found that higher levels of vitamin D are linked to better survival chances for hospitalised pet cats. Cats could prove useful for investigating the complex link between vitamin D and a range of health problems that also affect people, the researchers say. The findings may also help vets to give owners better advice about their pets' prognosis, according to researchers at the University of Edinburgh's Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies. Researchers examined blood ...

Eighty percent of a population of Burmese long-tailed macaques on an island in southern Thailand use stone and shell tools to crack open seafood, and do so using 17 different action patterns, according to a study published May 13, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Amanda Tan from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and colleagues, under an 8 year field project led by Michael D Gumert, also from NTU. The authors of the study explored variation in how Burmese long-tailed macaques used percussive stone and shell tools to hammer coastal foods on Piak Nam ...

Investigators at the Stanford University School of Medicine have identified a pattern of gene activity that could help scientists create a blood test for quickly and accurately detecting whether patients are experiencing a deadly immune-system panic attack. Sepsis is a whole-body inflammation syndrome set off when the immune system wildly overreacts to the presence of infectious pathogens. It is the leading cause of hospital deaths in the United States, accounting for nearly half of the total number, and is tied to the early deaths of at least 750,000 Americans each year. ...