Disney Research has demonstrated that battery-free, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags can be used to cheaply and unobtrusively determine how people use and interact with daily objects, enabling new types of interactive play, smart homes and work environments, and new methods for studying consumer shopping habits. RFID tags are designed to simply report an identifying code when energized by an RFID reader, but a Disney Research team directed by Dr. Alanson Sample showed that the radio frequency signals transmitted by these tags provide a unique RF signature which ...

An international team of scientists have put forward a blueprint for a purely space-based system to solve the growing problem of space debris. The proposal, published in Acta Astronautica, combines a super-wide field-of-view telescope, developed by RIKEN's EUSO team, which will be used to detect objects, and a recently developed high-efficiency laser system, the CAN laser that was presented in Nature Photonics in 2013, that will be used to track space debris and remove it from orbit. Space debris, which is continuously accumulating as a result of human space activities, ...

Half of all patients who survive a cardiac arrest experience problems with cognitive functions such as memory and attention. This has been shown by a major international study led from Lund University. Surprisingly, however, a control group comprising heart attack patients had largely the same level of problems. This suggests that it is not only the cardiac arrest and the consequent lack of oxygen to the brain that is the cause of the patients' difficulties. The study led by Lund University involved 950 cardiac arrest patients in Europe and Australia. Six months after ...

This news release is available in Japanese. It seems unnatural that a species could survive without having sex. Yet over the ages, evolution has endowed females of certain species of amphibians, reptiles and fish with the ability to clone themselves, and perpetuate offspring without males. Researchers at the at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) found that in species where females have evolved the ability to reproduce without males relatively recently, fertilization is still ensuring the survival of the maximum number of healthy ...

Scientists at the Vetmeduni Vienna investigated whether stomach ulcers in cattle are related to the presence of certain bacteria. For their study, they analyzed bacteria present in healthy and ulcerated cattle stomachs and found very few differences in microbial diversity. Bacteria therefore appear to play a minor role in the development of ulcers. The microbial diversity present in the stomachs of cattle has now for the first time been published in the journal Veterinary Microbiology. Gastritis and stomach ulcers in humans are often caused by the bacterium Helicobacter ...

Breast cancer patients often display mild cognitive defects even before the initiation of chemotherapy. A new study by Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich researchers now attributes the syndrome to post-traumatic stress induced by diagnosis of the disease. A large number of studies have shown that cancer patients very often exhibit mild deficits of attention, memory and other basic cognitive functions. The phenomenon has generally been attributed to putative side-effects of chemotherapeutic drugs on the brain, and the condition is therefore popularly referred ...

WASHINGTON --Droperidol is safe and effective for calming violent and aggressive emergency patients, and the negative effects that garnered a black box warning from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are actually quite rare. A new study of the once ubiquitous, now scarce, sedating agent was published online Wednesday in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("The Safety and Effectiveness of Droperidol for Sedation of Acute Behavioral Disturbance in the Emergency Department"). "In our study, the two side effects that led to the black box warning - QT prolongation and torsades ...

CLEVELAND -- Anthony J. Furlan, MD, Chairman of Neurology and Co-Director of the Neurological Institute at University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, who writes an accompanying editorial for five studies about endovascular stroke therapy published simultaneously in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM.org April 17), says these randomized clinical trials represent a breakthrough in showing the benefits of endovascular therapy for acute ischemic strokes. "Now even endovascular skeptics will be convinced," Dr. ...

MANHATTAN, KANSAS -- The key to better cellphones and other rechargeable electronics may be in tiny "sandwiches" made of nanosheets, according to mechanical engineering research from Kansas State University. Gurpreet Singh, assistant professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering, and his research team are improving rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. The team has focused on the lithium cycling of molybdenum disulfide, or MoS2, sheets, which Singh describes as a "sandwich" of one molybdenum atom between two sulfur atoms. In the latest research, the team has found ...

The death toll in Cambodia under Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot was most likely between 1.2 million and 2.8 million -- or between 13 percent and 30 percent of the country's population at the time -- according to a forthcoming article by a UCLA demographer. April 17 is the 40th anniversary of the Khmer Rouge's capture of the capital of Cambodia -- beginning a four-year period that many consider to be a genocide. For decades, researchers have sought to pinpoint the death toll from political executions, disease, starvation and forced labor inflicted under the Khmer Rouge. Conventional ...

When the stakes are high, people in positions of low power may perform better by using self-affirmations to boost their confidence, according to new research published by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. "Most people have experienced a time in their lives when they aren't performing up to their potential. They take a test or have a performance review at work, but something holds them back," says lead researcher Sonia Kang, Ph.D. "Performance in these situations is closely related to how we are expected to behave." The researchers conducted three experiments ...

Geneva, Switzerland, 17 April 2015 -- Many people still dangerously underestimate the health risks associated with smoking even a few cigarettes a day, despite decades of public health campaigning, French researchers have reported at the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) in Geneva, Switzerland. The results demonstrate powerfully that the war against smoking is far from over, says oncologist Dr Laurent Greillier from Hopital Nord in Marseille, France, who presented the results at the conference. Greillier and colleagues analysed data from a representative survey ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- When a hospital patient's heart stops, the drama starts, as doctors and nurses work furiously at resuscitation. And at many hospitals, that's the cue for someone to pull a curtain and hurry the patient's loved ones out of the room. But some hospitals allow those family members to stay, and watch the cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and other attempts to save the patient's life that the medical team makes. Now, a study has shown for the first time on a national scale that patients do just as well after a cardiac arrest at those hospitals, compared ...

PITTSBURGH, April 17, 2015 - A technique that removes blood clots from large brain blood vessels reduced disability after stroke in a trial conducted in Catalonia, Spain, and co-led by an expert from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The findings will be announced today at the annual meeting of the European Stroke Organisation in Glasgow, Scotland, and published online in the New England Journal of Medicine. The results of the trial, known as REVASCAT, echo findings from other recent large studies that were stopped early when the technique, called endovascular ...

Los Angeles, CA (April 17, 2015) Though it is widely believed that the media objectifies women, women further diminish themselves by constantly comparing their bodies to others'. Regardless of how much time young women devote to viewing television, music videos and using the internet, they will compare their appearances more frequently to photos in magazines and on Facebook, finds a new paper published today in Psychology of Women Quarterly. "Our research shows that spending more time reading magazines and on Facebook is associated with greater self-objectification among ...

Stroke is the leading cause of severe long-term disability in the United States, and less than 40 percent of patients who experience the most severe form of stroke regain functional independence if they receive the standard drug intervention alone. Now a study by an international group of stroke physician-researchers has found that removal of the clot causing a severe stroke, in combination with the standard medication, improves the restoration of blood flow to the brain and may result in better long term outcomes. The findings of the Swift Prime trial (Solitaire With ...

A research paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) today confirms earlier findings that a procedure called endovascular therapy (ET) for ischemic stroke is the best treatment option for many patients by reducing the incidents of disability. This is the fourth research paper published this year that confirms the efficacy of the treatment. "Endovascular treatment using stent retrievers will become the standard of care for patients with acute ischemic stroke" says Dr. Mayank Goyal, University of Calgary, Cumming School of Medicine, Hotchkiss Brain Institute ...

Geneva, Switzerland, 17 April 2015 -- A subset of lung cancer patients can derive important clinical benefits from drugs that are more commonly used to treat melanoma, the authors of a new academic clinical trial in Europe have reported at the European Lung Cancer Conference (ELCC) in Geneva, Switzerland. Dr. Oliver Gautschi, a medical oncologist from Lucern Cantonal Hospital in Switzerland, presented the results of the retrospective EURAF cohort study, which included lung cancer patients whose tumours carried specific mutations in the BRAF gene. The study was conducted ...

Many professional golfers live a lonely isolated life in the midst of intense rivalries and on a meagre income, new research shows. Dr John Fry told the British Sociological Association's annual conference in Glasgow today [Friday 17 April] that he interviewed 20 professionals, including Ryder Cup players and a former world number one, to reveal the "particular stresses" behind the glamour of the game. Dr Fry, of Myerscough College, said that the number of tournaments held abroad had increased over recent years. "The impact of the increasingly global nature of professional ...

Demand for natural rubber fuelled by the tyre industry is threatening protected parts of Southeast Asia - according to research from the University of East Anglia (UEA). A new study published today predicts that up to 8.5 million hectares of additional rubber plantations will be required to meet demand by 2024. But expansion on this scale will have 'catastrophic' biodiversity impacts, with globally threatened unique species and ecosystems all put under threat. Researchers say that the extent of the problem is comparable to oil palm and that it is closely linked ...

The 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City in 2001 have left a legacy of chronic ill health among emergency medical services workers who came to the rescue of the victims, reveals research published online in Occupational & Environmental Medicine. Those who arrived in the immediate aftermath of the attacks are most at risk of physical and mental ailments, the findings show. The health of 2281 New York City Fire Department emergency medical services workers deployed to the scene of the World Trade Center attacks was tracked over a period of 12 years, ...

(Boston)--A Boston researcher and physician caring for individuals with substance abuse disorders, believes the term opioid substitution therapy (OST) has unintended adverse consequences for patients receiving treatment for addiction. In a correspondence to the editors of the journal Lancet, Jeffrey H. Samet, MD, MA, MPH, professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and chief of the section of General Internal Medicine at Boston Medical Center maintains that the use of the non-medical term OST serves to reinforce the concept that this type of treatment ...

The Lancet Neurology journal is pleased to announce that the following papers will be published as part of a Series on autism spectrum disorder, ahead of the 2015 Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology: Gene hunting in autism spectrum disorder: on the path to precision medicine [Embargo: 6:30pm [New York time] Thursday 16 April, 2015] Neuroimaging in autism spectrum disorder: brain structure and function across the lifespan [Embargo: 6:30pm [New York time] Thursday 16 April, 2015] Gene hunting in autism spectrum disorder: on the path to precision medicine ...

Highlights Among dialysis patients, genetically related family members have about a 70% increased risk of cardiac arrest compared with unrelated dialysis patients. Spouses on dialysis do not have an increased risk. Cardiac arrest is the #1 cause of death in patients on dialysis. Washington, DC (April 16, 2015) -- The increased risk of cardiac arrest experienced by patients with kidney failure may, in part, be inherited, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). Uncovering the genes that are ...

A new study has found that wind instrument players have a reduced risk of developing obstructive sleep apnoea. The findings, presented today (17 April 2015) at the Sleep and Breathing Conference 2015, suggest that this could be considered beneficial to those individuals who are at high risk of developing sleep apnoea. Researchers in India conducted lung function testing in 64 people who played a wind instrument and compared results to a control group of 65 people who did not play any wind instruments. All participants also completed the Berlin questionnaire, an established ...