What treatment a doctor recommends for advanced cancer not only depends on medical aspects. His relationship to the individual patients and his own view of their life situation at their age play a role. This was found out by a research team led by Dr. Jan Schildmann of the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) together with colleagues from the University of Oxford. The RUB researchers also explored how patients perceive and evaluate the information they receive for clarification and decision making. The medical ethicists report in the journals "The Oncologist" and "Annals of Oncology". One ...

A new study reveals that Southeast Asian monitor lizards, representing the world's largest lizards, are harvested and traded for their skins and as pets in intangible volumes despite existing legislation – and much of this trade is illegal. Germany plays a major role in the international trade with live reptiles. On June 8th, 2013, the world's largest reptile fair will take place in Germany (Hamm, Westphalia). A team of German and Indonesian scientists recently published a first comprehensive study on the conservation and threat status of all SE-Asian species of monitor ...

The European Perinatal Health Report released by the EURO-PERISTAT project is the most comprehensive report on the health and care of pregnant women and babies in Europe and brings together data from 2010 from 26 European Union member states, plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. EURO-PERISTAT takes a new approach to health reporting. Rather than simply comparing countries on single indicators such as infant mortality, our report paints a fuller picture by presenting data about mortality, low birthweight and preterm birth alongside data about health care and maternal characteristics ...

If the climate continues to evolve as predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United States stands little to no chance of satisfying its current biofuel goals, according to a new study by Rice University and the University of California at Davis. The study published online in the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science and Technology suggests that in 40 years, a hotter planet would cut the yield of corn grown for ethanol in the U.S. by an average of 7 percent while increasing the amount of irrigation necessary by 9 percent. That ...

Scientists have taken a vital step forward in understanding how cells from skin tissue can be reprogrammed to become stem cells. New research could pave the way to generate these stem cells efficiently to better understand and develop treatments for diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and muscular degeneration. The study of how these cells – known as induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) – were reprogramed was led by the University of Edinburgh and is published in the journal Nature. Scientists found that the process by which iPSCs are created ...

Intestinal bacteria may have a greater influence on us than was previously thought. In a study published in the prestigious journal Nature on 29 May, researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden and Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, show that patients with type 2 diabetes have an altered gut microbiota. Their findings have led to a new model to identify patients at increased risk of developing diabetes. The human body contains ten times more bacteria than human cells. Most of these bacteria comprise the normal gut microbiota. Our bodies ...

This news release is available in German. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Jena, Germany, discovered that the ability of Manduca sexta moths to recognize changes in the profile of volatile compounds released by plants being attacked by Manduca caterpillars allows them to lay their eggs on plants that are less likely to be attacked by insects and other predators, and to avoid competing against other caterpillars of the same species for resources. The results of field experiments and neurobiological studies were now published in the open ...

PULLMAN, Wash. - Lindsay Ellsworth is prescribing a new, mood-boosting therapy for teenagers in drug and alcohol treatment: shelter dogs. On Friday afternoons, about four dogs from the Spokane Humane Society take a field trip to Excelsior Youth Center as a group of teenage boys eagerly await their arrival. Ellsworth, a doctoral candidate in animal sciences at Washington State University, organizes the meet-ups where participants can help brush, feed and play with the dogs. "We found one of the most robust effects of interacting with the dogs was increased joviality," ...

Some research has shown that the effects of changes in the climate may be weak or even non-existent. This makes it easy to conclude that climate change will ultimately have less impact than previous warnings have predicted. But it could also be explained as direct and indirect effects cancelling each other out, as scientists from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, show in a paper recently published in PNAS, the esteemed US scientific journal. To investigate how different climate impacts interact, an experiment was conducted at Kristineberg Marine Research Station. ...

Oil palm plantations in Malaysia are causing threatened forest frogs to disappear, paving the way for common species to move in on their turf, scientists have revealed. The study, carried out by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) describes how forests converted to palm oil plantations are causing threatened forest dwelling frogs to vanish, resulting in an overall loss of habitat that is important for the conservation of threatened frog species in the region. Scientists travelled to Peninsular Malaysia where they spent two years studying communities of frog species ...

In four out of ten cases, long-term stress suffered by women leads to some form of physical complaint. This is shown by a study of 1,500 women carried out at the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Within the Population Study of Women in Gothenburg, researchers at the University of Gothenburg's Sahlgrenska Academy have followed around 1,500 women since the late 1960s. The latest study within the project, which focuses primarily on stress linked to psychosomatic symptoms, showed that one in five middle-aged women had experienced constant or frequent ...

More time in front of the TV set and higher exposure to TV adverts may lead to increased consumption of sweetened beverages among children. This is the conclusion of a new study from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. The parents of more than 1,700 two- to four-year-olds in Sweden responded to questions about their children's TV and screen habits and consumption of sweetened drinks. About one parent in seven indicated that they tried to reduce their children's exposure to TV adverts; the same parents stated that their children were less prone to drink soft drinks ...

Laser researchers in Munich are challenging a basic assumption of engineering: "You can't have it all." They have shown that for certain kinds of laser applications in biomedical imaging, material processing, and communications, a new approach could deliver the desired capabilities with no problematic tradeoffs: in compact, inexpensive, efficient and long-lived devices that produce ultrashort, high-energy light pulses. This research is a close collaboration between members of the Electrical Engineering and Information Technology Department at the Technische Universitaet ...

In his article, "Pathoetiology of multiple sclerosis: are we barking up the wrong tree?", Peter K. Stys of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, argues that while the majority of the medical research community currently approaches MS as an autoimmune disease (much like Lupus and Rheumatoid Arthritis), for which the trigger is the immune system attacking a particular part of the nervous system, the features of the disease are equally well explained by approaching MS as a neurodegenerative disease (such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's), which is followed by ...

A new approach may be able to reduce by more than half the time it takes health officials to identify Salmonella strains, according to researchers in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. The finding may significantly speed up the response to many outbreaks of foodborne illness, allowing epidemiological investigators to identify the exact strains of Salmonella that make people sick and to more quickly find -- and eliminate -- the source of the disease. "There are more than a million estimated cases of salmonellosis annually in the United States, resulting in ...

A multi-institutional team of researchers have pinpointed the genetic traits of the cells that give rise to gliomas – the most common form of malignant brain cancer. The findings, which appear in the journal Cell Reports, provide scientists with rich new potential set of targets to treat the disease. "This study identifies a core set of genes and pathways that are dysregulated during both the early and late stages of tumor progression," said University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) neurologist Steven Goldman, M.D., Ph.D., the senior author of the study and co-director ...

The flora and fauna of the American west coast is generally believed to be well explored and studied. However, a new study and a taxonomic assessment of the octocorals from the north eastern Pacific Ocean proves such assumptions wrong, with two new beautiful and colourful species of soft corals alongside a new genus. The study was published in the open access journal Zookeys. "It is remarkable that in a region previously thought to be as familiar and well known as the west coast of North America – with its numerous large urban centers and major marine laboratories – revisionary ...

This news release is available in German. It is obvious from the data of the KASCADE-Grande experiment at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) that the so-called "knee" of the cosmic rays, a bend in the energy spectrum at high energies, is located at different energies for light and heavy particles. As regards light particles, the scientists have now found that the energy spectrum flattens again beyond the knee and forms a type of "ankle". This structure indicates that cosmic radiation particles with energies beyond the knee are accelerated in galaxies other ...

A new study of 365 sell-side financial analysts shows that private phone calls with managers remain an essential source of analysts' earnings forecasts and stock recommendations – even in light of regulations limiting businesses' selective disclosure of financial information. More than half of the analysts surveyed by a team of accounting researchers said they make direct contact with executives of companies they cover five or more times per year. The direct contact with management is so important that one analyst said his company hired an FBI profiler to train analysts ...

Toronto, June 3, 2013 – A mismatch between the departure schedules of songbirds and higher spring temperatures at their breeding sites is putting them at risk, according to a new study out of York University. The study, "A Trans-Hemispheric Migratory Songbird Does Not Advance Spring Schedules or Increase Migration Rate in Response to Record-Setting Temperatures at Breeding Sites", published in the journal PLOS ONE, tracked the spring migration of purple martins over five years from the Amazon basin to two breeding sites in eastern North America. Researchers outfitted the ...

While psychologists have long debated the core personality dimensions that define humanity, primate researchers have been working to uncover the defining personality traits for humankind's closest living relative, the chimpanzee. New research, published in the June 3 issue of American Journal of Primatology provides strong support for the universal existence of five personality dimensions in chimpanzees: reactivity/undependability, dominance, openness, extraversion and agreeableness with a possible sixth factor, methodical, needing further investigation. "Understanding ...

Reston, Va. (June 3, 2013) – Highly educated individuals with mild cognitive impairment that later progressed to Alzheimer's disease cope better with the disease than individuals with a lower level of education in the same situation, according to research published in the June issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. In the study "Metabolic Networks Underlying Cognitive Reserve in Prodromal Alzheimer Disease: A European Alzheimer Disease Consortium Project," neural reserve and neural compensation were both shown to play a role in determining cognitive reserve, as evidenced ...

The width of blood vessels in the retina, located at the back of the eye, may indicate brain health years before the onset of dementia and other deficits, according to a new study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Research shows that younger people who score low on intelligence tests, such as IQ, tend to be at higher risk for poorer health and shorter lifespan, but factors like socioeconomic status and health behaviors don't fully account for the relationship. Psychological scientist Idan Shalev of Duke University ...

In June's edition of Physics World Portugal's former science and technology minister, José Mariano Gago, calls for more investment in, and engagement with, national science budgets in light of the European Union's (EU) stagnated investment. Gago also proposes a totally independent and credible "observatory" that would analyse national science policies and science budgets across Europe and give early warnings to scientists and the public on their developments. The economic crisis has – at least since 2007 – divided research and development (R&D) within the EU. Large ...

The criteria used to diagnose both circulatory and brain death in a patient are subject to variability and as such can be controversial. Anaesthesiologists play an important role in procedures related to the determination of death, so should have specific knowledge about medical, ethical and legal criteria of brain death definition. Experts will call for international consensus in a presentation at Euroanaesthesia 2013, the annual congress of the European Society of Anaesthesiology (ESA). "Before the technological advances of the last century, death was diagnosed by ...