These are, in fact, the droids that NASA and its research partners are looking for. Inspired by a floating droid battling Luke Skywalker in the film Star Wars, the free-flying satellites known as Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) have been flying aboard the International Space Station since Expedition 8 in 2003. Although there have been numerous SPHERES investigations held on the orbiting laboratory, four current and upcoming SPHERES projects are of particular significance to robotics engineers, rocket launch companies, NASA ...

As sleep disorders and energy costs rise, Uopia launches a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for a new kind of LED nightlight. What makes their nightlight different is that it feels and looks like a warm incandescent bulb while providing the energy savings and longevity of an LED unit. The warm color temperature of the light is preferable to blue or cool lighting because of the negative effects they have on sleep. The light consumes less than 87% energy than the leading alternative, amounting to just $0.58 a year to operate. Uopia's CEO and co-founder, David Clark, ...

(NEW YORK, NY, February 26, 2014) – New diagnosis guidelines for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) issued by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) may reduce by almost one third the total number of people being diagnosed, according to new research from Columbia University School of Nursing published in the Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. The guidelines, released in May 2013 and the first major update to psychiatric diagnosis criteria in almost two decades, may leave thousands of developmentally delayed children each year without the ASD diagnosis they ...

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 26, 2014 – The second-most common type of breast cancer is a very different disease than the most common and appears to be a good candidate for a personalized approach to treatment, according to a multidisciplinary team led by University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI) scientists. Invasive lobular carcinoma, which is characterized by a unique growth pattern in breast tissue that fails to form a lump, has distinct genetic markers that indicate there may be benefits from drug therapies beyond those typically prescribed for the more common invasive ...

The Lancet reported today the results of a study in 9 European countries documenting that hospital nurse staffing and the proportion of nurses with bachelor’s education are associated with significantly fewer deaths after common surgery. A team of researchers led by the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing in the U.S. and Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, found that every one patient increase in patient to nurse ratios was associated with a 7% increase in deaths, while having a better educated nurse workforce is associated with fewer deaths. Every 10% ...

VIDEO: The film shows: 1. The patient in the augmented reality environment, 2. when he is practising specific arm movements with a racing game, 3. when he is executing random motions... Click here for more information. Max Ortiz Catalan, researcher at Chalmers University of Technology, has developed a new method for the treatment of phantom limb pain (PLP) after an amputation. The method is based on a unique combination of several technologies, and has been initially tested on ...

The prevalence of obesity remains high in the U.S., with about one-third of adults and 17 percent of children and teens obese in 2011-2012, according to a national survey study in the February 26 issue of JAMA. Obesity and childhood obesity, in particular, are the focus of many preventive health efforts in the United States, including new regulations implemented by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for food packages; funding by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of state- and community-level interventions; and numerous reports and recommendations issued ...

In a nationwide group of Danish children, receipt of the live measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine on schedule after vaccination for other common infections was associated with a lower rate of hospital admissions for any infections, but particularly for lower respiratory tract infections, according to a study in the February 26 issue of JAMA. Childhood vaccines are recommended worldwide, based on their protective effect against the targeted diseases. However, studies from low-income countries show that vaccines may have nonspecific effects that reduce illness and ...

One of the first, largest, and longest-running multipayer trials of patient-centered medical home medical practices in the United States was associated with limited improvements in quality and was not associated with reductions in use of hospital, emergency department, or ambulatory care services or total costs of care over 3 years, according to a study in the February 26 issue of JAMA. The patient-centered medical home is a team-based model of primary care practice intended to improve the quality, efficiency, and patient experience of care. Professional associations, ...

In an analysis that included more than two million patients who underwent a percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI; procedures such as balloon angioplasty or stent placement used to open narrowed coronary arteries), there was considerable variation in red blood cell transfusion practices among hospitals across the U.S., and receiving a transfusion was associated with an increased risk of in-hospital heart attack, stroke or death, according to a study in the February 26 issue of JAMA. Red blood cell transfusion among patients with coronary artery disease is controversial. ...

Study participants who handled receipts printed on thermal paper continuously for 2 hours without gloves had an increase in urine bisphenol A (BPA) concentrations compared to when they wore gloves, according to a study in the February 26 issue of JAMA. Human exposure to bisphenol A (BPA) has been associated with adverse health outcomes, including reproductive function in adults and neurodevelopment in children exposed shortly before or after birth. "Exposure to BPA is primarily through dietary ingestion, including consumption of canned foods. A less-studied source of ...

A three-year pilot of a "medical home" model of primary care yielded few improvements in the quality of care and no reductions in hospitalizations, emergency department visits or total costs of care, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Evaluating one of the nation's earliest and largest multipayer medical home pilots, researchers found that most participating primary care practices achieved recognition as medical homes, but the quality of care improved significantly for only one of 11 widely-used quality measures. The findings are published in the Feb. 26 edition ...

Increased brain cell activity boosts brain fluid levels of a protein linked to Alzheimer's disease, according to new research from scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Tau protein is the main component of neurofibrillary tangles, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. It has been linked to other neurodegenerative disorders, including frontotemporal dementia, supranuclear palsy and corticobasal degeneration. "Healthy brain cells normally release tau into the cerebrospinal fluid and the interstitial fluid that surrounds them, but ...

In December 2013, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first high-throughput DNA sequencer (also known commonly as a "gene sequencer"), an instrument that allows laboratories to quickly and efficiently sequence a person's DNA for genetic testing, medical diagnoses and perhaps one day, customized drug therapies. Helping get the new device approved was another first: the initial use of a reference set of standard genotypes, or "coded blueprints" of a person's genetic traits. The standard genotypes were created by the National Institute of Standards and Technology ...

Redevelopment of the London King's Cross station and the nearby neighborhood was announced in 2005 and completed with a grand opening in 2012. The internationally well-recognized engineering services firm Arup, famous among other things for their work on the Opera House in Sydney, Australia, and the Allianz Arena in Munich, worked on this 400 million pound construction project. In the process, the area to the north of the station including 50 new buildings, 2,000 new apartments, 20 new streets and ten new public squares was being renewed. Thus, a great challenge was to ...

February 25, 2014 -- From 1971-1982, Air Force reservists, who flew in 34 dioxin-contaminated aircraft used to spray Agent Orange and returned to the U.S. following discontinuation of the herbicide spraying operations in the Vietnam War, were exposed to greater levels of dioxin than previously acknowledged, according to a study published today in Environmental Research by senior author Jeanne Mager Stellman, PhD, professor emerita at the Mailman School of Public Health's Department of Health Policy and Management. "These findings are important because they describe ...

Organ transplant patients routinely receive drugs that stop their immune systems from attacking newly implanted hearts, livers, kidneys or lungs, which the body sees as foreign. But new research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that broadly dampening the immune response, long considered crucial to transplant success, may encourage lung transplant rejection. In a surprising discovery, the researchers found that newly transplanted lungs in mice were more likely to be rejected if key immune cells were missing, a situation that simulates ...

Eggs from head lice, also called nits, are incredibly difficult to remove. Female lice lay eggs directly onto strands of hair, and they cement them in place with a glue-like substance, making them hard to get rid of. In fact, the eggs are glued down so strongly that they will stay in place even after hair has been treated with pediculicides -- substances used to kill lice. Some shampoos and conditioners that contain chemicals or special oils are marketed as nit-removal products. However, new research just published in the Journal of Medical Entomology shows that ordinary ...

February 25, 2014 -- Late adolescence is a period when many youth become involved in high-risk behaviors with adverse consequences. Researchers at the Mailman School of Public Health with colleagues at Johns Hopkins University studied the degree to which two such behaviors, adolescent sexual behaviors and gambling, affected African American youth in nine primary schools in Baltimore, MD. In data collected from a cohort study, they assessed whether certain adolescent sexual behaviors linked with unintended consequences such as adolescent pregnancy and sexually transmitted ...

Temperature, not snowfall, has been driving the fluctuating size of Peru's Quelccaya Ice Cap, whose dramatic shrinkage in recent decades has made it a symbol for global climate change, a Dartmouth-led study shows. The findings support many scientists' suspicions that tropical glaciers are rapidly shrinking because of a warming climate, and will help scientists to better understand the natural variability of past and modern climate and to refine models that predict tropical glaciers' response to future climate change. The study appears in the journal Geology. A PDF ...

Washington, DC—Overweight children who were exposed to higher levels of perfluorinated chemicals tended to show early signs of developing the metabolic syndrome, according to a new study published in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. The term metabolic syndrome describes a cluster of risk factors that increase the chances of developing heart disease, stroke and diabetes. The study is the first to find changing metabolic markers in children were associated with exposure to perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs), common industrial chemicals ...

Washington, DC—Older individuals who are vitamin D deficient also tend to have compromised immune function, according to new research accepted for publication in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Vitamin D plays an important role in helping the body absorb calcium needed for healthy bones. The skin naturally produces vitamin D when it is exposed to sunlight. People also obtain smaller amounts of the vitamin through foods, such as milk fortified with vitamin D. More than 1 billion people worldwide are estimated to have deficient ...

Washington, DC—Patients were twice as likely to have a diabetic foot ulcer heal within eight weeks when they were treated with a tissue repair drug versus a placebo, according to new research accepted for publication in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM). Foot ulcers are a common complication from diabetes than can lead to hospitalization and lower limb amputation. In 2006, about 65,700 non-traumatic lower-limb amputations were performed in people with diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Up ...

Philadelphia, PA, February 25, 2014 – As heart disease continues to be one of the leading causes of death in the United States, practitioners and patients alike are looking for ways to cut risk factors and identify new clues to assist with early detection. New research published in the March issue of The American Journal of Medicine suggests that there is an association between a difference in interarm systolic blood pressure and a significant increased risk for future cardiovascular events, leading researchers to recommend expanded clinical use of interarm blood pressure ...

It has long been known that, in the form of free ions, silver particles can be highly toxic to aquatic organisms. Yet to this day, there is a lack of detailed knowledge about the doses required to trigger a response and how the organisms deal with this kind of stress. To learn more about the cellular processes that occur in the cells, scientists from the Aquatic Research Institute, Eawag, subjected algae to a range of silver concentrations. In the past, silver mostly found its way into the environment in the vicinity of silver mines or via wastewater emanating from the ...