The 2-1-1 phone information and referral system could be a key partner in efforts to reduce cancer disparities affecting low-income and racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S., finds a new study by Jason Purnell, PhD, assistant professor of public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. 2-1-1, a nationally designated three-digit telephone exchange like 9-1-1, is an information and referral system that serves millions of Americans living in poverty. Callers speak to an information and referral specialist who identifies their needs and provides ...

Are migrant berry pickers forced labourers? Their situation actually meets several of the criteria in international conventions on forced labour claims REMESO researcher Charles Woolfson and his colleagues, who have also criticised Swedish legislation in that it is ineffective. Berry pickers from Asia and Eastern Europe who are brought to the Swedish forests each year may be subjected to forced labour. Charles Woolfson is a researcher at REMESO – The Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society, at Linköping university. In conjunction with two colleagues, ...

CHICAGO --- Children living in urban centers have a much higher prevalence of food allergies than those living in rural areas, according to a new study, which is the first to map children's food allergies by geographical location in the United States. In particular, kids in big cities are more than twice as likely to have peanut and shellfish allergies compared to rural communities. The study will be published in the July issue of Clinical Pediatrics. "We have found for the first time that higher population density corresponds with a greater likelihood of food allergies ...

As part of its commitment to the community, Panter, Panter, & Sampedro, P.A. sponsors several scholarship awards each year. With the school year drawing to a close, they were proud to once again sponsor the South Miami Kendall Bar Association High School Scholarship Award. The recipient, Michael Castano, was awarded the $1,500 scholarship during the association's May luncheon. Selected because of his extraordinary academic achievements, his vast contributions to the community through service, as well as his drive to attend law school, Mr. Castano will be attending ...

WASHINGTON, June 7, 2012 — A new American Chemical Society (ACS) video explores materials that mimic the human skin's ability to heal scratches and cuts in the latest episode of its award-winning Bytesize Science series. The video is available at www.bytesizescience.com. The video takes viewers on a tour of the lab of Nancy Sottos, Ph.D., who has published articles on the self-healing plastics in a number of ACS peer-reviewed scientific journals. She is an engineering professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Inspired by human skin, the plastics repair ...

Researchers from Mount Sinai School of Medicine developed a cancer model built in the fruit fly Drosophila, then used it to create a whole new approach to the discovery of cancer treatments. The result is an investigational compound AD80 that precisely targets multiple cancer genes. Tested in mouse models, the drug proved far more effective and less toxic than standard cancer drugs, which generally focus on a single target. This is the first time that whole-animal screening has been used in a rational, step-wise approach to polypharmacology. The study appears online in ...

Ferrer Shane, PL is proud to announce that one of its founding partners, Enrique Ferrer was selected to the 2012 Florida Rising Stars list in Super Lawyers Magazine. This recognition honors Mr. Ferrer as one of the "top up-and-coming attorneys" in Florida. Super Lawyers, according to its website, is a rating service of outstanding lawyers with a high degree of peer recognition and professional achievement. Super Lawyers is published in the state of Florida and throughout the U.S. to more than 13 million readers. The Super Lawyers rating process is multi-phased, ...

Health experts agree that reducing the stigma associated with adolescent mental illness is an essential step toward increasing the number of teenagers who seek the help they need. But, say researchers at Case Western Reserve in the Journal of Nursing Measurement, the relative dearth of data regarding stigma in this age group makes tackling the topic particularly tough. Not only is adolescent mental health stigma rarely studied, but even less is known about the accuracy of measures used to assess it. Explained Melissa Pinto, PhD, RN, KL2 Clinical Research Scholar and ...

Baltimore residents may recall the headlines when, in 1999, a 14-year-old youth participated in a video store robbery in which one of the other robbers shot and killed the store clerk. Four years later, another 14-year-old and an older youth beat up a middle-aged man and set his house on fire, resulting in the man's death. Both 14-year-olds are now serving life sentences without the possibility of parole. Both of their cases were recently reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court, which will soon rule on whether sentencing young offenders to life without parole is cruel and ...

Researchers in Hawaii and the UK report that the parasitic 'Varroa' mite has caused the Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) to proliferate in honey bee colonies. This association is now thought to contribute to the world-wide spread and probable death of millions of honey bee colonies. The current monetary value of honey bees as commercial pollinators in the United States alone is estimated at about $15-$20 billion annually The research conducted in Hawaii by researchers at Sheffield University, the Marine Biological Association, FERA and University of Hawaii, and reported in the ...

Chemists at UCL have discovered a new property of flames, which allows them to control reactions at a solid surface in a flame and opens up a whole new field of chemical innovation. Published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, authors of the new study have discovered their previous understanding of how flames interact with a solid surface was mistaken. For the first time, they have demonstrated that a particular type of chemistry, called redox chemistry, can be accurately controlled at the surface. This finding has wide implications for future technology, for example ...

A controversial bill before the legislature has reignited the debate about marijuana use and the nature of its availability in communities. As written, the bill would legalize, regulate and tax the production and sale of marijuana in Massachusetts. House Bill 1371 goes beyond the bill recycled from previous sessions to legalize marijuana for medical purposes. Instead, it would allow citizens to legally grow and smoke marijuana, but would authorize the Commonwealth to tax it as it does tobacco. HB 1371 also provides for the creation of a seven-member "Cannabis Control ...

URBANA – If someone agreed to buy your home as is a year from now, you'd likely cancel the kitchen remodel. According to a study at the University of Illinois, Kentucky tobacco farmers adopted that same logic when the tobacco companies announced the buyout – also known as the Tobacco Transition Act of 2004 that ended a 66-year-old federal farm program. However, the immediate drop in productivity was followed by startling changes. Over the 10-year period of the study, the number of farms declined from just over 40,000 farms to just over 8,500 farms – but productivity increased ...

NEW YORK, June 7, 2012 – Researchers at NYU School of Medicine have made an important discovery that partially answers the long-standing question of why a mother's immune system does not reject a developing fetus as foreign tissue. "Our manuscript addresses a fundamental question in the fields of transplantation immunology and reproductive biology, namely, how do the fetus and placenta, which express antigens that are disparate from the mother, avoid being rejected by the maternal immune system during pregnancy?" explained lead investigator Adrian Erlebacher, MD, PhD, ...

On November 16, 2006, Robert Medina, a 22-year-old, active-duty marine got into an argument with his wife, left his house and started driving down the I-5 freeway. Police officers from the California Highway Patrol noticed Medina driving slowly and weaving in his own lane. What followed was a slow-speed chase involving 18 officers and 13 police cars that ended in Medina's untimely death, after police officers shot him 37 times. Medina suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and had recently come home from a tour of duty in Iraq. Post-traumatic stress disorder, ...

As landfills overflow with discarded plastics, scientists have been working to produce a biodegradable alternative that will reduce pollution. Now a Tel Aviv University researcher is giving the quest for environmentally friendly plastics an entirely new dimension — by making them tougher than ever before. Prof. Moshe Kol of TAU's School of Chemistry is developing a super-strength polypropylene — one of the world's most commonly used plastics — that has the potential to replace steel and other materials used in everyday products. This could have a long-term impact on ...

A new RAND Corporation study found an unexpected link between the reported numbers of nonfatal and fatal injuries among construction workers. The findings show that states with low fatality rates seem to report higher numbers of nonfatal injuries. Conversely, states with higher rates of fatal injuries report lower numbers of nonfatal injuries. The study compared fatal and nonfatal construction-site injury reports across all 50 states. Researchers chose to focus on the construction industry because it typically accounts for more fatal work accidents than any other ...

Developmental psychology researchers have long known that children aren't simply mini-adults – their minds and brains work in fundamentally different ways. Exploring those differences can help us understand how kids think and behave and can provide insights into how the mind and brain develop and change over time. Here is some of the latest research involving children from Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Who is Good At This Game? Linking an Activity to a Social Category Undermines Children's Achievement Can linking an activity ...

WORCESTER, MA – Degeneration of the axon and synapse, the slender projection through which neurons transmit electrical impulses to neighboring cells, is a hallmark of some of the most crippling neurodegenerative and brain diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Huntington's disease and peripheral neuropathy. Scientists have worked for decades to understand axonal degeneration and its relation to these diseases. Now, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School are the first to describe a gene – dSarm/Sarm1 – responsible for actively promoting ...

Every year, power plants in the U.S. produce about 140 million tons of coal ash. The substance, otherwise known as "fly ash," is an inorganic byproduct of burning coal, and is usually disposed of in landfills and settlement ponds. West Virginia is home to more than 20 coal ash storage sites; all of them pose a risk of exposure to hazardous substances. Yet, the debate over what to do with fly ash is not as open and closed as it may appear at first glance, and lawmakers in Washington are struggling to find common ground on the issue. Benefits and Risks of ...

Millions of pre-diabetic Americans may be at increased risk of future stroke, say researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine in a new meta-analysis of epidemiological studies, but the precise degree of that threat is confounded by differing medical definitions and factors that remain unknown or unmeasured. "The immediate implication of our findings is that people with pre-diabetes should be aware they are at increased risk of stroke, and that this condition is frequently associated with one or more major risk factors for cardiovascular disease," ...

A bill that recently passed both legislative houses in Illinois will prohibit convicted child sex offenders from participating in holiday activities involving children, if signed by the Governor. While this bill is very specific, it adds further requirements for registered sex offenders in Illinois, and puts additional limits on how they must live following a criminal conviction. Illinois Sex Offender Bill The recent bill, SB3579, was introduced in February of this year and sponsored by Senator Kirk Dillard. If signed, it will amend the Illinois Criminal Code by making ...

URBANA –Teachers learn a lot about how to teach curriculum in college, but they don't get much training in helping very young children learn to handle frustration, anger, and excitement, skills that kids need for kindergarten readiness, said Nancy McElwain, a University of Illinois professor of human development and family studies who conducted a study on the topic. "When teachers aren't trained to respond to emotional outbursts in supportive ways, they often fall back on responses that reflect the way they were raised and whether they feel comfortable with their own ...

HIV superinfection, when a person with HIV could acquire a second, new strain of HIV, may occur as often as initial HIV infection in the general population in Uganda, a study suggests. Since researchers demonstrated more than a decade ago that a person infected with HIV could subsequently acquire a second, new strain of HIV, there has been little agreement in the scientific community as to how often HIV superinfection occurs. Previous studies have found HIV superinfection to be relatively frequent among individuals who engaged in high-risk behaviors, but the rate of superinfection ...

Nursing homes are responsible for the care and comfort of those who cannot take care of themselves. Unfortunately, all too often nursing home patients become victims of abuse and neglect at the very hands of those entrusted to watch over them. The statistics on nursing home abuse are shocking, making it ever more important for family members and friends to ensure that nursing homes treat their loved ones well. Examples of Preventable Abuse Torrington Health and Rehabilitation Center in Torrington, Connecticut, was fined $510 and ordered to implement a corrective ...