The area of the brain involved in multitasking and ways to train it have been identified by a research team at the IUGM Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal and the University of Montreal. The research includes a model to better predict the effectiveness of this training. Cooking while having a conversation, watching a movie while browsing the Web, or driving while listening to a radio show – multitasking is an essential skill in our daily lives. Unfortunately, it decreases with age, which makes it harder for seniors to keep up, causes them stress, and decreases ...

Deaths from heart disease and stroke are declining overall in Europe, but at differing rates, according to research, published online today (Wednesday) in the European Heart Journal [1]. The research, which provides an update for 2014 on the burden of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in Europe, shows that death rates from CVD (diseases of the heart and blood vessels) vary enormously. For some eastern European countries, including Russia and Ukraine, the death rate from coronary heart disease for 55-60 year olds is greater than the equivalent rate in France for people 20 years ...

VIDEO: In this Science Minute from NIMBioS, Dr. Arik Kershenbaum explains new research that suggests the calls of many animals might contain more language-like structure than previously thought. Click here for more information. KNOXVILLE—The calls of many animals, from whales to wolves, might contain more language-like structure than previously thought, according to study that raises new questions about the evolutionary origins of human language. The study, published today ...

Stimulating nerves in your ear could improve the health of your heart, researchers have discovered. A team at the University of Leeds used a standard TENS machine like those designed to relieve labour pains to apply electrical pulses to the tragus, the small raised flap at the front of the ear immediately in front of the ear canal. The stimulation changed the influence of the nervous system on the heart by reducing the nervous signals that can drive failing hearts too hard. Professor Jim Deuchars, Professor of Systems Neuroscience in the University of Leeds' Faculty ...

The antibiotic clarithromycin -- widely used for treating common bacterial infections -- is associated with an increased risk of heart deaths, finds a study published on thebmj.com today. The authors say their findings require urgent confirmation, given that many millions of people are prescribed the drug each year. But they stress that the absolute risk is small and that prescribing practice should not be changed until results have been confirmed in an independent study. Clarithromycin belongs to a group of antibiotics known as macrolides. Macrolide antibiotics prolong ...

Commuting to work by active (walking or cycling) and public modes of transport is linked to lower body weight and body fat composition compared with those using private transport, suggests a UK study published on thebmj.com today. The researchers point out that the benefits were similar for both active (walking and cycling) and public transport, which may have important implications for transport and health policy. The health benefits of physical activity are well known, and studies suggests that active commuters are at lower risk of being overweight. However, self-reported ...

Between 3-6% of children in the UK have substantial difficulties learning to read, a condition often referred to as "dyslexia." They are at high risk of educational underachievement, explain consultant ophthalmologist Philip Griffiths and colleagues in an editorial. An accumulation of evidence supports the view that dyslexia is a verbal (not visual) disorder, and shows that reading difficulties are best addressed by interventions that target underlying weaknesses in phonological language skills and letter knowledge. Yet dyslexia is often associated with subjective ...

A rise in the number of reported floods in the UK over the past 129 years can mainly be explained by increased exposure, resulting from urban expansion and population growth, according to new research by the University of Southampton. In one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind, scientists have discovered that although the number of reported floods has gone up during the 20th and 21st Century, this trend disappears when the figures are adjusted to reflect population growth and increased building numbers over the same period. Published in the journal Hydrological ...

The way parents balance their work schedules may affect their adolescent children's eating habits, according to Penn State researchers. Those schedules may be even more important than the number of hours the parents spend at work, said Molly Martin, associate professor of sociology and demography. Adolescents with moms and dads who spend more time at home, especially at breakfast and dinner time, generally have healthier eating behaviors and in some cases better exercise habits than most adolescents, according to the researchers. For example, parents who spend time ...

Can nutrition rating systems be used in supermarkets to encourage healthier spending habits? A new study by Cornell University researchers sought to answer that very question by tracking the purchasing records in a supermarket chain that uses the Guiding Stars System to rate the nutritional value of foods for sale. The researchers, including Cornell Food and Brand Lab's David Just, PhD, and Brian Wansink PhD, author of Slim by Design (forthcoming), studied the sales records of over 150 Hannaford Supermarkets in the Northeastern United States between January 2005 and December ...

Smokers admitted to U.S. hospitals cannot smoke during their stay and could use this time as an opportunity to quit, but few are able to stay smoke-free after returning home. Now a study published in the August 20 issue of JAMA describes a program that increased the proportion of hospitalized smokers who successfully quit smoking after discharge by more than 70 percent. The system used interactive voice response technology – automated telephone calls – to provide support and stop-smoking medication for three months after smokers left the hospital. "Most smokers want ...

Among hospitalized adult smokers who wanted to quit, a postdischarge intervention that included automated telephone calls and free medication resulted in higher sustained smoking cessation rates at six months than standard postdischarge advice to use smoking cessation medication and counseling, according to a study in the August 20 issue of JAMA. Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of death in the United States. For the nearly 4 million smokers hospitalized each year, a hospital stay offers a good opportunity to quit smoking because all hospitals are now ...

Among infants presenting to a pediatric emergency department with mild to moderate bronchiolitis, those with an artificially elevated oxygen saturation reading were less likely to be hospitalized or receive hospital care for more than 6 hours than those with unaltered readings, suggesting that these readings should not be the only factor in the decision to admit or discharge, according to a study in the August 20 issue of JAMA. Bronchiolitis, a viral lower respiratory tract infection, is the leading cause of infant hospitalizations in the United States, with annual costs ...

Newborn screening performed in numerous states indicates that the incidence of the potentially life-threatening disorder, severe combined immunodeficiency, is higher than previously believed, at 1 in 58,000 births, although there is a high rate of survival, according to a study in the August 20 issue of JAMA. The purpose of newborn screening is early detection of inborn conditions for which prompt treatments can reduce the risk of death or irreversible damage. The first heritable immune disorders to which newborn screening has been applied are those that together comprise ...

In a study that included approximately 15,000 pregnant women, seroprevalence of herpes simplex virus (HSV) type 2 decreased substantially between 1989 and 2010 while there was no overall decrease for HSV type 1, but a slight increase among black women, according to a study in the August 20 issue of JAMA. Shani Delaney, M.D., and Anna Wald, M.D., M.P.H., of the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues examined trends in the seroprevalence of HSV-1 and HSV-2 among pregnant women who delivered newborns at the University of Washington Medical Center between January ...

Severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), a potentially life-threatening, but treatable, disorder affecting infants, is twice as common as previously believed, according to a new study that is the first to examine the national impact of this newborn screening test. The study is the first combined analysis of more than 3 million infants screened for SCID in 10 states and the Navajo Nation. Infants from participating programs born from the start of the first pilot program in January 2008 through July 2013 were included. In May, 2010, SCID was the 29th condition added ...

(Boston) – Some infants born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) secondary to in-utero opioid exposure have a more difficult time going through withdrawal than others, but the underlying reasons are not well understood. While genetic and epigenetic (when genes are turned on or off) changes have recently been identified as potential factors, researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Center (BMC) conducted a first of its kind study to identify some of these epigenetic changes that may influence symptom severity. The researchers focused ...

Philadelphia, PA, August 19, 2014 – Warfarin, the longtime standard treatment for atrial fibrillation, is facing competition from new options in the anticoagulant drug marketplace including dabigatran, rivaroxaban, and apixaban. A new study documents the rapid adoption of these novel oral anticoagulants (NOACs) into clinical practice. By mid-2013 NOACs accounted for 62% of all new anticoagulant prescriptions yet this represents 98% of total anticoagulant-related drug costs. Findings are published in The American Journal of Medicine. Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a serious ...

new web-based program developed by University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center researchers will provide a simple, free way for healthcare providers to determine which brain tumor cases require testing for a genetic mutation. Gliomas – a type of tumor that begins in the brain or spine – are the most common and deadly form of brain cancer in adults, making up about 80 percent of malignant brain cancer cases. In some of these cases, patients have a mutation in a specific gene, known as an IDH1 mutation – and patients who have this tend to survive years longer than those ...

LAWRENCE — It's not a monkey. It's not a lemur. It's not an African Bush Baby or even a Madagascan Mouse. Meet the Philippine tarsier: a tiny, adorable and downright "cool" primate from Southeast Asia. "It's really not like any animals that Americans are familiar with," said Rafe Brown, curator-in-charge at the University of Kansas' Biodiversity Institute. "A tarsier has giant eyes and ears; an extremely cute, furry body; a long tail with a furry tuft at the end; and interesting expanded fingers and toe tips that look a bit like the disks on the digits of tree frogs." Brown ...

In many parts of the world, leprosy and tuberculosis live side-by-side. Worldwide there are approximately 233,000 new cases of leprosy per year, with nearly all of them occurring where tuberculosis is endemic. The currently available century-old vaccine Bacille Calmette-Guerin, or BCG, provides only partial protection against both tuberculosis and leprosy, so a more potent vaccine is needed to combat both diseases. UCLA-led research may have found a stronger weapon against both diseases. In a study published in the September issue of the peer-reviewed journal Infection ...

New measurements from fish purchased at retail seafood counters in 10 different states show the extent to which mislabeling can expose consumers to unexpectedly high levels of mercury, a harmful pollutant. Fishery stock "substitutions"—which falsely present a fish of the same species, but from a different geographic origin—are the most dangerous mislabeling offense, according to new research by University of Hawai'i at Mānoa scientists. "Accurate labeling of seafood is essential to allow consumers to choose sustainable fisheries," said UH Mānoa biologist Peter ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- MIT chemical engineers have devised a new implantable tissue scaffold coated with bone growth factors that are released slowly over a few weeks. When applied to bone injuries or defects, this coated scaffold induces the body to rapidly form new bone that looks and behaves just like the original tissue. This type of coated scaffold could offer a dramatic improvement over the current standard for treating bone injuries, which involves transplanting bone from another part of the patient's body — a painful process that does not always supply enough bone. ...

Handwashing with antibacterial soap exposes hospital workers to significant and potentially unsafe levels of triclosan, a widely-used chemical currently under review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, according to a study led by researchers from UC San Francisco. Triclosan, a synthetic antibacterial agent, is found in thousands of consumer products, including soaps, cosmetics, acne creams and some brands of toothpaste. The FDA is reviewing its safety based on a growing body of research indicating that it can interfere with the action of hormones, potentially causing ...

A team of researchers at Michigan State University has developed a new type of solar concentrator that when placed over a window creates solar energy while allowing people to actually see through the window. It is called a transparent luminescent solar concentrator and can be used on buildings, cell phones and any other device that has a flat, clear surface. And, according to Richard Lunt of MSU's College of Engineering, the key word is "transparent." Research in the production of energy from solar cells placed around luminescent plastic-like materials is not new. ...