New Rochelle, NY, September 3, 2014–If continuing increases in health care costs are inevitable, as some economists predict, is it possible for health care delivery reform to succeed in reducing the overall burden of health care expenditures on the U.S. economy? According to the results of a new study, the focus should shift from cost control to improving utilization rates and quality outcomes, as described in detail in an article in Population Health Management, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The article is available free on the Population ...

After scoring a Supreme Court victory this spring, the Environmental Protection Agency can move forward with its strategy to cut air pollution from coal-fired power plants in several states — and new research suggests the impact could be lifesaving. Scientists assessed the effects of one state's prescient restrictions on plant emissions in a report in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology. They estimated that the state's legislation prevented about 1,700 premature deaths in 2012. Jacqueline MacDonald Gibson and Ya-Ru Li explain that the U.S. has been working ...

Alcohol industry magazine ads reminding consumers to "drink responsibly" or "enjoy in moderation" fail to convey basic public health information, according to a new study from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. A report on the research, published in the September issue of Drug and Alcohol Dependence, analyzed all alcohol ads that appeared in U.S. magazines from 2008 to 2010 to determine whether messages about responsibility define responsible drinking or provide clear warnings about the risks associated with alcohol consumption. According to the study, ...

Mobile phones, digital cameras, camcorders, notebooks: They all run on lithium-ion batteries. These are characterized by high energy densities while remaining small and light enough to be used in portable devices. "A lithium-ion battery can store three to four times the energy of a comparably sized nickel-cadmium battery," explains Dr. habil. Ralph Gilles, scientist at the Neutron Source Heinz Maier-Leibnitz (FRM II). Even temperature fluctuations and longer-term storage do not pose problems for lithium-ion batteries. These advantages make lithium-ion batteries a key ...

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (2 September 2014)—Small-scale family farmers across Africa— already struggling to adapt to rapidly rising temperatures and more erratic rains—risk being overwhelmed by the pace and severity of climate change, according to the 2014 African Agriculture Status Report (AASR).The analysis, prepared by the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), with contributions from several African scholars, provides the most comprehensive review to date of how climate change will affect Africa's smallholder farmers and highlights the most promising paths to ...

Since the introduction of the combination anti-retroviral therapy (cART) in the mid-90s, the life expectancy of HIV patients has significantly improved. As a result, long-term complications are becoming more relevant: almost every second HIV patient is affected by neurocognitive disorders, which can lead to dementia. It has not as yet been fully understood how these disorders occur. Researchers from Bochum have now successfully demonstrated that infected cells activate specific immune cells in a patient's brain, which subsequently display harmful behaviour and lead to the ...

When it comes to cell phones, the world is stunningly wasteful. Customers will buy more than 1.8 billion new ones by the end of this year only to abandon almost half of them to drawers, and they'll recycle a mere 3 percent of them. But creative and enterprising efforts are underway to reverse the seemingly unstoppable tide, says an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical Society. Alex Scott, a senior editor at C&EN, notes that there is much to be recovered and re-used from a cell phone. An average mobile contains ...

RNA is one of the most primitive molecules associated with life that has awakened most interest over the last decade; a sister molecule to cellular DNA from which it originates via a process called transcription. Seven years ago, the groups of María Blasco at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), Spain, and Joachim Lingner in Switzerland discovered that the DNA regions that contained telomeres, despite their compact and hard-to-access structure, generated RNAs that they christened TelRNAs or TERRA. Now, a study published in the journal Nature Communications, ...

Lighter, more flexible, and cheaper than conventional solar-cell materials, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have long shown promise for photovoltaics. But research stalled when CNTs proved to be inefficient, converting far less sunlight into power than other methods. Now a research team led by Mark Hersam, professor of materials science and engineering and the Bette and Neison Harris Chair of Teaching Excellence at Northwestern University's McCormick School of Engineering, has created a new type of CNT solar cell that is twice as efficient as its predecessors. It is also the ...

Go to the DIY-market in the morning, buy the fireplace, and that evening, enjoy the cozy warmth and homey atmosphere of your new ornamental hearth. The suppliers of ethanol fireplaces are doing a brisk business with the lightweight, easy-to-install ornamental stoves with no chimney. However, caution is warranted when operating these fireplaces, because ethanol is a fuel that, together with the air, forms a highly combustible atmospheric mixture. If ethanol runs out when filling the combustion chambers and it ignites, then the entire room could go up in flames. On top ...

Thousands of freight items are shipped by plane every day, around seventy percent of them in airliners. Stringent controls are supposed to prevent hazardous substances such as explosives from being smuggled on board. Screening procedures, such as x-ray scanning of freight, are time consuming and costly and have to be repeated in the event of suspicious circumstances. Easily verifiable features that verify that a freight item is "secure" have been lacking until now. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Factory Operation and Automation IFF in Magdeburg are working ...

VIDEO: Using a confocal microscope, researchers can study a cleared spherical 3-D tissue culture at any depth. The video begins on the near surface and exits on the far side of... Click here for more information. PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Because Brown University biomedical engineering graduate student Molly Boutin needed to study how neural tissues grow from stem cells, she wanted to grow not just a cell culture, but a sphere-shaped one. Cells grow and interact ...

This news release is available in German. Scientists from Oxford University, the University of Vienna, and the Max Planck Institute at Seewiesen have shown that a spontaneous innovation by a Goffin's cockatoo can spread to other conspecifics by social learning. After observing that an adult male Goffin cockatoo named Figaro spontaneously started to sculpt stick tools out of wooden aviary beams and used them for raking in nuts behind grit, the researchers wondered what effect, if any, such an individual technical invention might have on social companions. They used ...

Researchers from Kyoto University in Japan have developed a novel way to waterproof new functionalized materials involved in gas storage and separation by adding exterior surface grooves. Their study, published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, provides a blueprint for researchers to build similar materials involved in industrial applications, such as high performance gas separation and energy storage. 　 The materials, also known as porous coordination polymers (PCPs), are hollow nanoscale cage-like structures with the ability to house molecules within their empty ...

Melbourne researchers are making progress towards new antimalarial drugs, after revealing how an antibiotic called emetine blocks the molecular machinery that produces the proteins required for malaria parasite survival. Although emetine is effective against malaria it is not used as a preventive drug due to its significant side effects. However, the work of Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers Dr Wilson Wong, Dr Jake Baum and colleagues in showing how emetine attaches to and blocks the molecular machinery that makes the proteins required for malaria parasite survival ...

After complete transection of a nerve, good neuroanastomosis is needed to prevent the formation of fibrous connective tissues that form obstacles to nerve regeneration, and to facilitate repair of the injured nerve and reinnervation of its original targets. Peripheral nerve defects of more than 10 mm are commonly treated in clinics, and in these injuries a conduit is needed to bridge the gap, prevent the formation of obstacles to nerve regeneration, and guide axonal regrowth. Autogenous vein grafts have been used extensively for the repair of nerve defects in rats. Motor ...

Puerarin is a natural isoflavone isolated from plants of the genus Pueraria and functions as a protector against cerebral ischemia. Can puerarin be involved in the repair of peripheral nerve injuries? Minfei Wu and co-workers from the Second Hospital of Jilin University in China verified that puerarin exerts an ongoing role to activate growth-associated protein 43 in the corresponding segment of the spinal cord after sciatic nerve injury, thus contributing to neural regeneration after sciatic nerve injuries. Their relevant study has been reported in the Neural Regeneration ...

BOSTON –In a first-of-its-kind study, an international team of neuroscientists and robotics engineers have demonstrated the viability of direct brain-to-brain communication in humans. Recently published in PLOS ONE the highly novel findings describe the successful transmission of information via the internet between the intact scalps of two human subjects – located 5,000 miles apart. "We wanted to find out if one could communicate directly between two people by reading out the brain activity from one person and injecting brain activity into the second person, and do ...

This news release is available in Spanish. The UPV/EHU study analyses the electricity market in Spain during the 2008-2012 period -a time of maximum renewable penetration in Spain when energy production within the Special Scheme saw a 57% increase- and quantifies its cost. To do this, they firstly measured the market savings produced by participating in renewable sources, and secondly, they calculated the amount paid in the form of incentives to green energy. The difference between the two figures represents the net cost of renewable energy. In contrast to other ...

Working with mice, a multicenter team of researchers has found a new way to reduce the abnormal blood vessel growth and leakage in the eye that accompany some eye diseases. The finding could lead to the development of new drugs for wet macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema. The team reports their findings in the Sept. 2 issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation. The current standard of clinical care for wet macular degeneration and diabetic macular edema is repeated injections into the eye of antibodies against a protein called VEGF. Each injection costs ...

Northeastern organic dairy farms say their top concern is receiving steady, fair prices for their milk from milk processors, according to a new survey that is the first to assess the research and educational needs of organic dairy farmers in the region. The research is funded by the NH Agricultural Experiment Station at the University of New Hampshire College of Life Sciences and Agriculture. While this finding won't come as news to dairy farmers, it may surprise organic milk consumers who pay considerably more for organic milk than conventional milk at the grocery. ...

Cancerous brain tumors are notorious for growing back despite surgical attempts to remove them — and for leading to a dire prognosis for patients. But scientists are developing a new way to try to root out malignant cells during surgery so fewer or none get left behind to form new tumors. The method, reported in the journal ACS Nano, could someday vastly improve the outlook for patients. Moritz F. Kircher and colleagues at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center point out that malignant brain tumors, particularly the kind known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), are among ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Were Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci born brilliant or did they acquire their intelligence through effort? No one knows for sure, but telling people the latter – that hard work trumps genes – causes instant changes in the brain and may make them more willing to strive for success, indicates a new study from Michigan State University. The findings suggest the human brain is more receptive to the message that intelligence comes from the environment, regardless of whether it's true. And this simple message, said lead investigator Hans Schroder, ...

OTTAWA, September 3, 2014 – A team of researchers at the University of Ottawa Heart Institute, led by Dr. Alexandre Stewart, have uncovered an intriguing link between heart attacks and a protein that is of great interest to drug companies for its impact on cholesterol. The team found that levels of the protein PCSK9 were elevated in the blood of patients having an acute heart attack, but not in those who never had a heart attack or who had recovered from one previously. The results were replicated in two separate groups of patients, all of whom have coronary artery disease ...

Washington, DC, September 3, 2014 – When researchers searched the literature to determine adherence rates for various infection prevention protocols in the emergency department (ED), they discovered both a dearth of studies reporting ED practices and a lack of standardization that rendered some studies incomparable, according to a literature review published in the September issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC). A team of researchers from Columbia ...