Campaigns to get young people to stop smoking may be more successful by focusing on the positive benefits, such as having more money and better skin, rather than emphasising negative outcomes like increased disease risk, a study from Wellcome Trust researchers suggests. The findings reveal that young people have greater difficulty in learning from bad news to interpret their risk of future events, which might explain why they often do not respond to warnings. We all make decisions based on what we believe may happen in the future as a consequence of our actions. We ...

In one of the first studies of its kind, a joint UCLA/RAND Corporation study addressed the prevalence and cost of critical care therapies provided in intensive care units (ICU) that were perceived by physicians as "futile." Reported in the Sept. 9 online issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, researchers found that the majority of patients received appropriate care, but 11 percent of patients received treatments during their ICU course that their physicians perceived to be futile. The study took place at a single health care system. Advances in medicine have enabled critical ...

Critical care treatment for patients that was perceived to be futile was common and cost an estimated at $2.6 million at one academic medical center during a three-month period, according to a report published by JAMA Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication. Physicians often perceive as futile those intensive care interventions that prolong life without achieving an effect for the patient that would be viewed as a benefit. Thanh N. Huynh, M.D., M.S.H.S., of the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, and colleagues sought to ...

An intervention to improve household routines known to be associated with obesity increased sleep duration and reduced TV viewing among low-income, minority children, and the approach may be an effective tool to reduce body mass index (BMI) in that population, according to a study published by JAMA Pediatrics, a JAMA Network publication. Racial and ethnic minority children and those who live in low-income households are disproportionately overweight and it is urgent to develop an intervention for them, Jess Haines, Ph.D., M.H.Sc., of the University of Guelph, Ontario, ...

Undervaccination with the diptheria, tetanus toxoids and acelluar pertussis (DTaP) vaccine appears to be associated with an increased risk of pertussis (whooping cough) in children 3 to 36 months of age, according to a study by Jason M. Glanz, Ph.D., of the Institute for Health Research at Kaiser Permanente Colorado, Denver. "Undervaccination is an increasing trend that potentially places children and their communities at an increased risk for serious infectious disease," according to the study. The study involved children born between 2004 and 2008 and cared for at ...

White matter loss in an area of the brain known as the fornix may be associated with cognitive decline in healthy elderly patients and may be helpful in predicting the earliest clinical deterioration, according to a study by Evan Fletcher, Ph.D., of the University of California, Davis, and colleagues. Atrophy in the hippocampus is well recognized in the later stages of cognitive decline and is one of the most studied changes associated with the Alzheimer disease process. However, changes to the fornix and other regions of the brain structurally connected to the hippocampus ...

While great strides have been achieved in cancer treatment, scientists are looking for the new targets and next generation of therapeutics to stop this second leading cause of death nationwide. A new platform for drug discovery has been developed through a collaborative effort linking chemists at NYU and pharmacologists at USC. In a study appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research groups of Paramjit Arora, a professor in NYU's Department of Chemistry, and Bogdan Olenyuk from the USC School of Pharmacy have developed a synthetic molecule, ...

The varied influence of climate change on temperature and precipitation may have an equally wide-ranging effect on the spread of West Nile virus, suggesting that public health efforts to control the virus will need to take a local rather than global perspective, according to a study published this week in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. University of Arizona researchers Cory Morin and Andrew Comrie developed a climate-driven mosquito population model to simulate the abundance across the southern United States of one type of mosquito ...

A team of University of Montreal and McGill University researchers have devised a method to identify how signaling molecules orchestrate the sequential steps in cell division. In an article published online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientists explain how they could track the relationship between signaling molecules and their target molecules to establish where, when and how the targets are deployed to perform the many steps necessary to replicate an individual cell's genome and surrounding structures. Breakdowns in individual ...

Subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH) is one of the most devastating cerebrovascular catastrophes causing death in 40 to 50% of the cases. The most common cause of SAH is a rupture of an intracranial aneurysm. If the aneurysm is found, it can be treated before the possible rupture. However, some intracranial aneurysms will never rupture – the problem is that the doctors don't know which aneurysms will and which will not. So, they don't know which patients should be treated and who can safely be left untreated. A long-term, population-based Finnish study on SAH, which is based ...

As the Tobacco End Game conference takes place in New Delhi, India, this week, The World Heart Federation today calls on countries worldwide to follow the example set by nations such as Finland, New Zealand, and Scotland to set a target year to end tobacco use in their populations. Ending tobacco use in this sense means reducing population smoking levels to 5% or below, as well as implementing further measures in the international tobacco control treaty 'The Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.' Finland (2030), Scotland (2034), New Zealand (2025), and other nations ...

Mercenary soldiers are notoriously unreliable because their loyalty is as thin as the banknotes they get paid, and they may turn against their employers before moving on to the next dirty job. Not so in fungus-farming ants, where a new study reports that permanent parasites that are normally a chronic social burden protect their hosts against a greater evil. "Our experiments show that the scouts can detect whether or not a host colony has a cohabiting guest ant colony before deciding to initiate a raid so the guest ants serve as an effective front line defense. Dr. ...

Women with ectopic pregnancies could be spared surgery if they are treated with a lung cancer drug, a study suggests. Researchers treated ectopic pregnancies – where an embryo implants inside the Fallopian tube – by combining an existing treatment with a lung cancer therapy. They found that prescribing both drugs together was more effective at helping cure an ectopic pregnancy than the conventional drug alone. The lung cancer drug – called gefitinib – helps by blocking a protein that is known to encourage cell growth, and which was found to be present in high levels ...

Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have demonstrated a new mechanism for extracting energy from light, a finding that could improve technologies for generating electricity from solar energy and lead to more efficient optoelectronic devices used in communications. Dawn Bonnell, Penn's vice provost for research and Trustee Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, led the work, along with David Conklin, a doctoral student. The study involved a collaboration among additional Penn researchers, through the ...

In summer excavations at the foot of the Temple Mount, Hebrew University of Jerusalem archaeologist Dr. Eilat Mazar made a stunning discovery: two bundles of treasure containing thirty-six gold coins, gold and silver jewelry, and a gold medallion with the menorah (Temple candelabrum) symbol etched into it. Also etched into the 10-cm medallion are a shofar (ram's horn) and a Torah scroll. A third-generation archaeologist working at the Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology, Dr. Mazar directs excavations on the City of David's summit and at the Temple Mount's southern ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio—Commercial uses for ultraviolet (UV) light are growing, and now a new kind of LED under development at The Ohio State University could lead to more portable and low-cost uses of the technology. The patent-pending LED creates a more precise wavelength of UV light than today's commercially available UV LEDs, and runs at much lower voltages and is more compact than other experimental methods for creating precise wavelength UV light. The LED could lend itself to applications for chemical detection, disinfection, and UV curing. With significant further development, ...

Tropical Depression Nine formed yesterday, Sept. 8 in the far eastern Atlantic, and NASA's Aqua satellite saw it strengthen into Tropical Storm Humberto today, Sept. 9 at 5 a.m. EDT. As that storm strengthened, the remnants of the once-tropical-storm Gabrielle continued to struggle near the Bahamas as NASA's HS3 mission investigated. Tropical Storm Humberto is affecting the Cape Verde Islands, so there's a tropical storm warning in up for the southern islands of Maio, Santiago, Fogo, and Brava. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Tropical Storm Humberto hours before ...

Inciweb.org updates the Rim Fire with this information: "Firefighters will face continued hot and extremely dry conditions. Shifting winds coupled with low humidity will provide conditions for active fire behavior. Pockets of unburned vegetation within the fire perimeter will continue to burn creating the potential for spot fires across containment lines. Today's top priority is to contain all spot fires especially along Tioga Road. Firefighters will continue to patrol mop up and monitor lines while maintaining structure defense. Yesterday firefighters responded to a new ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — A University of California, Riverside assistant professor of electrical engineering and several colleagues have created a new measurement tool that could help avoid an energy crisis like the one California endured during the early 2000s and better prepare the electricity market for the era of the smart grid. The tool also unifies existing measures that assess "market power," which is the ability of power generating companies to alter energy prices. It also incorporates smart grid concepts such as large-scale storage, renewable power generation and ...

Now that California's greenhouse gas cap-and-trade policy is law, attention is shifting to recognizing industry efficiency. Driven by that goal, a team of researchers from Northwestern University, the University of California, Berkeley and the international consulting company Ecofys has spent the last year and a half developing science-based methods to determine the amount of free allowances California facilities are eligible to receive based on the products they manufacture. The research team was hired by the state to assist with cap-and-trade design for several key ...

For many of us, it's the fuel that wakes us up and gets us started on our day. Now, University of Cincinnati researchers are discovering that an ingredient in our old coffee grounds might someday serve as a cheaper, cleaner fuel for our cars, furnaces and other energy sources. Yang Liu, a graduate student in environmental engineering in UC's College of Engineering and Applied Science (CEAS), presents a summary of early-but-promising discoveries on his team's research at the American Chemical Society's (ACS) 246th National Meeting & Exposition this week in Indianapolis. Liu ...

A new reconstruction of climate in the South Pacific during the past 446 years shows rainfall varied much more dramatically before the start of the 20th century than after. The finding, based on an analysis of a cave formation called a stalagmite from the island nation of Vanuatu, could force climate modelers to adjust their models. The models are adjusted to match the current levels of climate variability that are smaller now than they were in the recent past for this region. "In this case, the present is not the key to the past, nor the future," says Jud Partin, a research ...

Augusta, Ga. – A little STING could go a long way in helping treat or even avoid autoimmune diseases such as arthritis, type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis, researchers report. With some prompting, the protein STING can turn down the immune response or even block its attack on healthy body constituents like collagen, insulin and the protective covering of neurons, all targets in these debilitating diseases, said Dr. Andrew L. Mellor, immunologist at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University. MCG researchers saw STING's critical role play out after ...

Waves breaking over sandy beaches are captured in countless tourist photos. But enormous waves breaking deep in the ocean are seldom seen, although they play a crucial role in long-term climate cycles. A University of Washington study for the first time recorded such a wave breaking in a key bottleneck for circulation in the world's largest ocean. The study was published online this month in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. The deep ocean is thought of as dark, cold and still. While this is mostly true, huge waves form between layers of water of different density. ...

SAN ANTONIO (Sept. 9, 2013) — Research from the School of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio suggests the exciting possibility of using cell transplants to treat schizophrenia. Cells called "interneurons" inhibit activity within brain regions, but this braking or governing function is impaired in schizophrenia. Consequently, a group of nerve cells called the dopamine system go into overdrive. Different branches of the dopamine system are involved in cognition, movement and emotions. "Since these cells are not functioning properly, ...