Psychiatrists and psychologists have long understood that an individual's personality can define how he or she views the world around them, reacts to situations, and interacts with others. It now appears that personality traits can be linked to the frequency with which older adults use expensive health care services. A study, published today in the journal The Milbank Quarterly, finds that certain measurable personality characteristics can be correlated to health care consumption, in some instances increasing use high cost health care services such as emergency room ...

Three new species of tiny frogs from Papua New Guinea are described in the latest issue of Zookeys. Dr Fred Kraus, University of Michigan, who in 2011 in Zookeys described the world's smallest frogs Paedophryne dekot and Paedophryne verrucosa, now adds another 3 species from the genus Oreophryne to the remarkable diversity of this region. The three new species Oreophryne cameroni, Oreophryne parkopanorum and Oreophryne gagneorum are all rather minute, with total body lengths of around 20 mm. These tiny frogs, however are still substantially larger than the species that ...

The radar on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite captured an image of Supertyphoon Usagi near the end of a 24-hour period in which Usagi intensified by 65 knots. This is more than twice the commonly used 30-knot threshold for defining rapid intensification. The TRMM data was used to create a 3-D image. The data was collected at 1035 UTC/6:35 a.m. EDT on Thursday, September 19, 2013, when Usagi was at category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane intensity scale. A few hours later, Usagi completed its lightning-fast intensification to category 5, the ...

According to a recent study published by the National Science Foundation (NSF), businesses spent more on research and development (R&D) in 2011 than they did in 2010. Companies spent $294 billion on R&D performed in the United States during 2011, compared with $279 billion during 2010. Data are from the Business and R&D and Innovation Survey (BRDIS), which is co-sponsored by NSF and the U.S. Census Bureau. BRDIS revealed that during 2011, companies in manufacturing industries performed $201 billion, or 68 percent, of domestic R&D. Companies in nonmanufacturing industries ...

Boulder, Colo., USA -- The October 2013 Lithosphere is now online. Locations studied include the Central Iberian Massif in Spain; Arctic Alaska; the Wet Mountains of Central Colorado, USA; the Basgo Formation in northwest India; Crystal Geyser in southeastern Utah, USA; Knight Inlet in the southwestern Coast Mountains Batholith, British Columbia, Canada; and three crustal-scale shear zones in the western Canadian Shield of northern Saskatchewan. Lithosphere is published bimonthly in hardcopy; articles are posted online as they become available. Abstracts are online at ...

DALLAS -- Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have identified a cellular switch that potentially can be turned off and on to slow down, and eventually inhibit the growth of the most commonly diagnosed and aggressive malignant brain tumor. Findings of their investigation show that the protein RIP1 acts as a mediator of brain tumor cell survival, either protecting or destroying cells. Researchers believe that the protein, found in most glioblastomas, can be targeted to develop a drug treatment for these highly malignant brain tumors. The study was published online ...

Alexandria, VA - The American Geosciences Institute (AGI) has released two final reports on the results of an April 2012 workshop for a cohort made up of underrepresented minority individuals seeking careers in academia. The workshop was hosted by AGI and the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) to disseminate information about opportunities available to future geoscience faculty from member societies, the federal government and by developing campus leadership. Over a 13-month period participants were polled on questions related to how they engaged these entities and what ...

Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a distinguished professor of climate and atmospheric sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, whose landmark research showed that cutting emissions of black carbon and other short lived climate pollutants can significantly lessen the impacts of regional and global climate change, improve the health of millions of rural poor, and avoid crop losses, will receive tonight a 2013 Champions of the Earth award, the United Nations's highest environmental accolade. The Champions of the Earth prize is awarded annually to leaders from ...

MINNEAPOLIS – New evidence suggests that taking vitamin B supplements may help reduce the risk of stroke. The research appears in the September 18, 2013, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. "Previous studies have conflicting findings regarding the use of vitamin B supplements and stroke or heart attack," said author Xu Yuming, with Zhengzhou University in Zhengzhou, China. "Some studies have even suggested that the supplements may increase the risk of these events." For the research, scientists analyzed 14 randomized ...

A study in the Sept. 19 New England Journal of Medicine finds that colonoscopy appears to reduce the risk of developing or dying from colorectal cancer more powerfully than does sigmoidoscopy, a similar procedure that examines only a portion of the colon. The investigation, which analyzes data from two long-term studies, also identifies molecular features that may help explain tumors that are diagnosed despite an individual's having recently undergone colonoscopy. "This study provides some of the clearest evidence to date that colonoscopy has advantages over sigmoidoscopy ...

Boston, MA — Reducing hospital readmission rates is an important clinical and policy priority but whether those rates really measure the quality of hospital care isn't clear. In a new study, researchers from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) found strong evidence of a relationship between surgical readmission rates and quality of surgical care. The finding provides an opportunity for policymakers to improve surgical quality and decrease readmission costs and supports plans by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to expand its readmission penalty program to ...

BOSTON—A team of researchers, including those from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health, will be reporting study findings that lend powerful scientific backing to the recommendation that people receive a colonoscopy screening to prevent colorectal cancer. By analyzing medical data from nearly 90,000 people in two major health studies, the researchers found that participants who received either a colonoscopy or sigmoidoscopy exam – which allows doctors to look inside the large intestine through a thin tube ...

E-readers are more effective than reading on paper for some with dyslexia, according to results published September 18 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Mathew Schneps from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and colleagues from other institutions. Their results suggest it is the use of short lines on the display, and not the device itself, that leads to the benefits observed in this study. For the study, the authors compared reading comprehension and speed on paper versus that on e-readers in over 100 dyslexic high school students. They found that those ...

Providing employees with a bonus to spend on charities or co-workers may increase job satisfaction and team sales, according to results published September 18 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Lalin Anik from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and colleagues from other institutions. In the first of three studies, some employees at an Australian bank were given a 25-dollar or a 50-dollar voucher to donate to a charity of their choice on behalf of the company. Employees who donated the larger amount to charity reported enhanced happiness and job satisfaction, ...

Taste can be classified into five flavors that we sense, but how many odors can we smell? There are likely about 10 basic categories of odor, according to research published September 18th in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Jason Castro from Bates College, Chakra Chennubhotla from the University of Pittsburgh, and Arvind Ramanathan from Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The researchers used advanced statistical techniques to develop an approach for systematically describing smells. Working with a standard set of data, Andrew Dravniek's 1985 Atlas of Odor Character Profiles, ...

Chronic infection with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii can make mice lose their innate, hard-wired fear of cats. This loss of their innate fear may persist after the parasite is no longer detectable in their brains, suggesting that initial infection may cause permanent changes in the mechanisms underlying their fear of predators. The results are published September 18 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Wendy Ingram and colleagues from the University of California, Berkeley. Even after infection with Toxoplasma has been removed from rodents' brains, they continue to ...

DURHAM, N.C. – A blood test developed by researchers at Duke Medicine showed more than 90-percent accuracy in distinguishing between viral and bacterial infections when tested in people with respiratory illnesses. The test, which detects a specific genetic "signature" that the sick person's immune system expresses as a response to the virus, demonstrates a potential new method for diagnosing the source of illnesses that have long been tough to pinpoint. Reported in the Sept. 18, 2013, issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine, the finding moves the technology ...

Embryonic stem cells have the enormous potential to treat and cure many medical problems. That is why the discovery that induced embryonic-like stem cells can be created from skin cells (iPS cells) was rewarded with a Nobel Prize in 2012. But the process has remained frustratingly slow and inefficient, and the resulting stem cells are not yet ready for medical use. Research in the lab of the Weizmann Institute's Dr. Yaqub Hanna, which appears today in Nature, dramatically changes that: He and his group revealed the "brake" that holds back the production of stem cells, and ...

A mystery in the ocean near Antarctica has been solved by researchers who have long puzzled over how deep and mid-depth ocean waters are mixed. They found that sea water mixes dramatically as it rushes over undersea mountains in Drake Passage - the channel between the southern tip of South America and the Antarctic continent. Mixing of water layers in the oceans is crucial in regulating the Earth's climate and ocean currents. The research provides insight for climate models which until now have lacked the detailed information on ocean mixing needed to provide accurate ...

A team of scientists from Canada and Australia have discovered that the decline in shark populations is detrimental to coral reefs. "Where shark numbers are reduced due to commercial fishing, there is also a decrease in the herbivorous fishes which play a key role in promoting reef health," said Jonathan Ruppert, a recent University of Toronto PhD graduate. Ruppert was part of a team engaged in long-term monitoring of reefs off Australians northwest coast. Team leader Mark Meekan of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), said that the results might, at first ...

BOULDER, Colo.- Physicists at JILA have created a crystal-like arrangement of ultracold gas molecules that can swap quantum "spin" properties with nearby and distant partners. The novel structure might be used to simulate or even invent new materials that derive exotic properties from quantum spin behavior, for electronics or other practical applications. Described in a Nature paper* posted online on Sept. 18, 2013, the JILA experiment is the first to record ultracold gas molecules exchanging spins at a distance, a behavior that may be similar to that of intriguing solids ...

Furthermore, demand is set to rise as the population's age and girth increase, both of which are risk factors for the disorder, known as obstructive sleep apnoea or OSA for short. OSA is a condition that disrupts breathing during sleep, usually as a result of the relaxation of the muscles and soft tissues in the throat which relax and collapse to block the airway for 10 or more seconds. It affects an estimated 4% of middle aged men and 2% of middle aged women, and is associated with obesity and increasing age. But it is thought that 80% of cases remain undiagnosed. Because ...

The analysis shows that in 2007, in Cardiff, where this collaborative approach was pioneered, the scheme lopped off almost £7 million from health, societal, and criminal justice costs caused by violence. The estimated individual and societal costs of violence recorded by the police in England and Wales in 2003-4 came to £14 billion. The Cardiff Violence Prevention Programme, which was set up in 2003, entails the capture of anonymised information on violent incidents treated in hospital emergency departments. This information includes exactly where the incident took ...

Boston, MA -- According to a large, long-term study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), 40% of all colorectal cancers might be prevented if people underwent regular colonoscopy screening. The new research also supports existing guidelines that recommend that people with an average risk of colorectal cancer should have a colonoscopy every 10 years. The new study helps address previous uncertainty about the effectiveness of colonoscopy in reducing colorectal cancer incidence and mortality -- particularly among people with cancer that originates in the proximal, ...

Two thirds of these occur in low and middle income countries, the figures suggest. The authors base their findings on 4000 articles written in English and published from 1976 onwards, which looked at substandard medical care given to hospital patients around the globe. The researchers focused on seven key markers for substandard care: harm from prescribed medications; urinary tract infections associated with catheters; bloodstream infections associated with catheters; pneumonia acquired in hospital; blood clots (VTEs);falls; and bed sores. They used an approach similar ...