Fortunately, more and more people survive critical illnesses and accidents. A new Danish-American survey shows, however, that hospitalisation where the patient has received mechanical ventilation can have serious consequences: - Of course, the good news is that more and more patients survive critical illness and treatment using ventilators. But at the same time, the bad news is that we have now documented that the ventilator patients have a considerable risk of developing psychological problems. The first few months after discharge are really critical, says professor ...

BOSTON (March 19, 2014) – Experts across academia, industry and government propose a new method for health care providers to get the right treatments to the right patients at the right time. This new approach, A Proposal for Integrated Efficacy-to-Effectiveness (E2E) Clinical Trials, published in Nature Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics, recommends a seamless transition from controlled experiments to real-world comparative effectiveness trials. This continuum will improve the accuracy of treatment selection and better determine how those treatments work on different ...

People lie – we know this. People lie to kids – we know this, too. But what happens next? Do children who've been lied to lie more themselves? Surprisingly, the question had not been asked experimentally until Chelsea Hays, then an undergraduate student in psychology at the University of California, San Diego, approached professor Leslie Carver with it. Now the pair have a paper out in Developmental Science, suggesting that adult dishonesty does make a difference, and not in a good way. "As far as we know," said Carver, associate professor of psychology and human development ...

University of Adelaide mathematicians have devised a method for identifying how cell clusters have formed by analysing an image of the cluster. Published in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, their mathematical modelling tool will be useful in helping biologists and tissue engineers to move towards growing human tissue such as liver in the laboratory. "When any tissue or organ develops, the cells have to organise themselves into the correct structure," says Dr Edward Green, researcher in the University's School of Mathematical Sciences. "This self-organisation process ...

A study by Curtin University researchers and colleagues from Denmark and New Zealand strengthens the case for human involvement in the disappearance of New Zealand's iconic megaherbivore, the moa - a distant relative of the Australian Emu. All nine species of New Zealand moa, the largest weighing up to 250 kilograms, became extinct shortly after Polynesians arrived in the country in the late 13th century. Researchers have previously suggested, from limited genetic evidence, that huge populations of moa had collapsed before people arrived and hence influences other ...

DALLAS, March 19, 2014 — A new kind of single-dose vaccine that comes in a nasal spray and doesn't require refrigeration could dramatically alter the public health landscape — get more people vaccinated around the world and address the looming threats of emerging and re-emerging diseases. Researchers presented the latest design and testing of these "nanovaccines" at the 247th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society (ACS), the world's largest scientific society. Their talk was one of more than 10,000 presentations at the meeting, being held here ...

VIDEO: In this JoVE video article, a set of methods to measure food-related motivation and values are described in JoVE's peer-reviewed video article format. Click here for more information. March 19, 2014 —Researchers at the University of Cambridge have developed a novel method for evaluating the treatment of obesity-related food behavior. In an effort to further scientific understanding of the underlying problem, they have published the first peer-reviewed video of their technique ...

The heart disease drug perhexiline is one of 101 compounds predicted to prevent cancer growth in most patients suffering from our most common liver cancer, HCC. This is an outcome from a novel simulation-based approach using personal sets of proteins of six HCC patients. "This is the first time personalized models have been used to find and evaluate new potential drugs," says Professor Jens Nielsen at Chalmers University of Technology. -- Our most common liver cancer, Hepatocellular carcinoma, HCC, causes more than half a million deaths worldwide every year. If the ...

Babies born prematurely are surviving in increasing numbers. But many withstand complications of early birth only to suffer late-onset sepsis — life-threatening bloodstream infections that strike after infants reach 72 hours of age. While early-onset sepsis often is caused by pathogens acquired from the amniotic sac or birth canal, the causes of late-onset sepsis have been far less clear. But now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have discovered that preterm babies' guts harbor infectious microbes that can cause late-onset sepsis. The ...

Consuming alcohol more frequently than twice a week increases the risk of stroke mortality in men, according to a study carried out at the University of Eastern Finland. The results show that the effects of alcohol are not limited to the amount consumed, but also the frequency of drinking matters. The results were published in Acta Neurologica Scandinavica on 8 March. Excessive consumption of alcohol is associated with a variety of different diseases. The relationship between alcohol consumption and ischaemic stroke shows a J curve pattern, which means that in people ...

This news release is available in German. FRANKFURT. WaterGAP (Water Global Assessment and Prognosis) is a hydrological model used to model water shortage, groundwater depletion, and floods and droughts (e.g. as impacted by climate change) over the land area of the globe. The Frankfurt hydrologist Prof. Petra Döll has examined how good a fit this model provides, using GPS observations and data from the GRACE satellite, which measures the gravitational field of the Earth. The study, published in the current issue of the scientific journal Surveys in Geophysics indicates ...

Researchers from the University of Melbourne and University of Sydney are confident their new reaserach results will make significant differences to the calculations of surface tension of water used by the next generation of atmospheric scientists, biophysicists and engineers of technology like inkjet printers. These latest investigations have clinched a long-standing controversy amongst the physical Chemistry community; the air-water interface is negatively charged by the adsorption of hydroxide ions. Prof Angus Gray-Weale from the Chemistry, Department of Chemistry ...

Ottawa, ON, March 19, 2014 — Scientists at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Research Institute have discovered a cellular pathway that is responsible for keeping blood sugar levels low in obese or pre-diabetic people, and may prevent the onset of Type 2 diabetes. The discovery published this month in a leading journal Nature Cell Biology. Following a meal, beta cells found in islets of the pancreas secrete insulin that helps to store food energy for future use. The inability of islet beta cells to produce enough insulin leads to diabetes. Unlike other ...

Older persons, in particular, tend to suffer from memory lapses and other types of cognitive impairment after undergoing surgical procedures (postoperative cognitive dysfunction, POCD). Surgery has been performed on older patients much more commonly in recent years than ever before, and their pre- and postoperative care has become an important matter. Ingrid Rundshagen, an anesthesiologist, has surveyed the available literature to find out what kinds of patients are more likely to have cognitive impairment after surgery, and how the clinical manifestations should best be ...

The global diversity of plants being cultivated by Britain's gardeners is playing a key role in the fight to save the nation's threatened bumblebees, new research has revealed. Ecologists at Plymouth University, in a study published this week, have shown the most common species of bumblebee are not fussy about a plant's origin when searching for nectar and pollen among the nation's urban gardens. But other species – and, in particular, long-tongued bees – do concentrate their feeding upon plants from the UK and Europe, for which they have developed a preference evolved ...

Major emitting countries may have to join the EU's effort much earlier to avoid a temporary overshoot of the 2 degree target, but even if they joined only in 2030, the overshoot would be limited to roughly 0.2 to 0.4 degrees Celsius. The initial unilateral leadership could be achieved at little extra costs for the EU. Late-comers would have the benefit of lower costs while they delay action but would face higher transient costs once their turn to decarbonize comes. "The crisis-stricken EU is asking itself whether it can still afford climate leadership" says lead-author ...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Some doctors are too quick to prescribe antidepressants to parents who have suffered the death of a child either during pregnancy or within the first month of life, according to a study conducted by Florida State University researcher Jeffrey R. Lacasse. In a study of 235 bereaved parents participating in an online support community, Lacasse found that 88 — or 37.4 percent — of them were prescribed a psychiatric medication to help them cope. Some women received prescriptions with a week of losing their children. "This is simply too soon after the ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Stopping massive data breaches like the one that hit Target will require a more sophisticated, collaborative approach by law enforcement agencies around the world, a Michigan State University cyber security expert argues. In a new research report for the National Institute of Justice, Thomas Holt found many hackers and data thieves are operating in Russia or on websites where users communicate in Russian, making it easier to hide from U.S. and European authorities. All countries need to better work together to fight hacking and data theft campaigns, ...

A recently-developed mobile phone application could make monitoring conditions such as diabetes, kidney disease, and urinary tract infections much clearer and easier for both patients and doctors, and could eventually be used to slow or limit the spread of pandemics in the developing world. The app, developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, accurately measures colour-based, or colorimetric, tests for use in home, clinical or remote settings, and enables the transmission of medical data from patients directly to health professionals. Decentralisation ...

This news release is available in German. The common bacterium Streptococcus pyogenes is responsible not only for scarlet fever, a childhood disease presenting with characteristic skin rash, but also for many suppurative infections of the skin. The infection can be associated with serious consequences such as acute rheumatic fever and inflammation of the kidneys. In Germany, physicians usually prescribe penicillin, an antibiotic. In less-developed countries, penicillin is not always an option though. Firstly, penicillin is often not available and secondly, co-infections, ...

When individuals engage in risky business transactions with each other, they may end up being disappointed. This is why they'd rather leave the decision on how to divvy up jointly-owned monies to a computer than to their business partner. This subconscious strategy seems to help them avoid the negative emotions associated with any breaches of trust. This is the result of a study by scientists from the University of Bonn and US peers. They are presenting their findings in the scientific journal "Proceedings of the Royal Society B." Trust is an essential basis for business ...

Stink bugs have been consistently ranked among the most damaging insect pests of cotton in the southeastern United States for the past several years. Apart from the feeding damage, stink bugs are capable of transmitting cotton seed and boll-rotting bacteria such as Pantoea agglomerans. In order to find out whether cultural practices could be used to manage stink bugs -- such as adjusting the date of planting to mitigate peak pest pressure -- researchers from the University of Georgia compared cotton plots that were planted in May to other plots that were planted in June. The ...

One hundred years ago on the brink of WWI, American botanists changed the course of plant science with the founding of a national publication, the American Journal of Botany. The journal not only endured through the Great War, it also continued to evolve through the wars that followed, the Great Depression, and the ever-changing arena of plant research. Today, the AJB remains at the forefront of essential botanical research as the flagship journal of the Botanical Society of America. In celebration of its centennial anniversary, science historian Betty Smocovitis takes ...

Football fascinates millions of fans, almost all of them unaware that the game is subject to the laws of physics. Despite their seemingly arbitrary decisions, players obey certain rules, as they constantly adjust their positions in relation to their teammates, opponents, the ball and the goal. A team of Japanese scientists has now analysed the time-dependent fluctuation of both the ball and all players' positions throughout an entire match. They discovered that a simple rule governs the complex dynamics of the ball and the team's front-line. These findings, published in ...

A newly deciphered 1,800-year-old letter from an Egyptian solider serving in a Roman legion in Europe to his family back home shows striking similarities to what some soldiers may be feeling here and now. Rice Religious Studies graduate student Grant Adamson took up the task in 2011 when he was assigned the papyrus to work on during a summer institute hosted at Brigham Young University (BYU). The private letter sent home by Roman military recruit Aurelius Polion was originally discovered in 1899 by the expedition team of Grenfell and Hunt in the ancient Egyptian city ...