For patients and their families, there are few areas in medicine more frustrating and unnerving than the issue of a misdiagnoses. To have availed themselves of the best modern medicine has to offer, and still suffer the bad result of a diagnostic error, seems supremely unfair, especially if it results in their death, leaving their family with the consolation of a wrongful death suit. Doctors are Not Infallible A recent study points out that 47 percent of doctors encounter diagnostic errors in the practice at least monthly. And these errors are not without consequence, ...

The Chicago area is reeling after yet another teenager was killed in a train accident. The fifteen year old boy was walking along the tracks early in the morning, likely on his way to school. The exact cause of death remains unknown and police continue to investigate. Unfortunately, pedestrian deaths related to train accidents are not rare. A pedestrian can be killed when walking along the tracks or can be pulled under a passing train. Additionally, train and car collisions at track intersections occur throughout Chicago. Whether used to ship goods or for public transportation, ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new study from the University of Illinois concludes that learning-by-doing, stimulated by increased ethanol production, played an important role in inducing technological progress in the corn ethanol industry. It also suggests that biofuel policies, which induced ethanol production beyond the free-market level, served to increase the competitiveness of the industry over time. The study, co-written by Madhu Khanna, a professor of agricultural and consumer economics at Illinois, and Xiaoguang Chen, of the U. of I. Energy Biosciences Institute, quantifies ...

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration's (FMCSA) new Compliance, Safety, Accountability (CSA) program is designed to improve overall safety performance by allowing greater scrutiny of truck companies and their drivers. The program uses "compliance, enforcement, and remediation" to improve safety on the highways. Truck companies and their drivers are required to comply with the FMCSA's regulations, when they fail, enforcement procedures are applied and remediation is used to correct drivers or companies. Need for a New Evaluation Process The CSA ...

The thought of a baby getting stuck during delivery naturally brings extreme fear to the mother and her family, and high stress for the doctor and medical staff. On rare occasions, after the baby's head has emerged from the birth canal, one or both of his or her shoulders becomes wedged behind the mother's pelvic bones, bringing the delivery to a frightening standstill. Physically, the shoulders normally rotate during delivery to pass the pelvic bones at a certain complementary angle and place. When the shoulders are too big or the mother's pelvic area is too narrow ...

URBANA -- Crop yield can be improved by ensuring adequate nutrient availability. But how should you place the fertilizer and what cropping system gives the best yields? Research conducted by University of Illinois assistant professor of crop sciences Fabián Fernández, professor of crop sciences Emerson Nafziger, and graduate student Bhupinder Farmaha looked at how tillage, and phosphorus and potassium placement and rates, affected the distribution of soybean roots and the levels of water and nutrients in the soil. "Strip-till produces higher yields than the no-till ...

Attitude may play an important role in how exercise affects menopausal women, according to Penn State researchers, who identified two types of women -- one experiences more hot flashes after physical activity, while the other experiences fewer. "The most consistent factor that seemed to differentiate the two groups was perceived control over hot flashes," said Steriani Elavsky, assistant professor of kinesiology. "These women have ways of dealing with (hot flashes) and they believe they can control or cope with them in an effective way on a daily basis." Women who ...

A 30-year old New York construction worker died and four others were injured when a crane collapsed and fell into Site J of the subway's 7 line extension project, reported the New York Post (4/3/2012). http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/mta_suspends_no_train_line_extension_BwKn6J1Hg6F6bUmcgMvnuJ#ixzz1r5klcoXe Fire Department of New York officials said the crane's boom came apart in two pieces, reported ABC News (4/4/2012). http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/nyc-officials-dead-hurt-crane-accident-16068773 This construction accident was New York City's ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — University of Florida astronomers have found compelling evidence for two low-mass planets orbiting the nearby star Fomalhaut, just 25 light years from Earth. Twice as massive as the sun and 20 times brighter, Fomalhaut is surrounded by a ring of dust and debris, making it a favorite system for astronomers to study and a natural laboratory for testing planet formation theories. In 2008, images of Fomalhaut taken by the Hubble Space Telescope led to the discovery of "Fomalhaut b," the first extra solar planet to be directly detected in visible light. ...

Scientists at the Allen Institute for Brain Science have identified similarities and differences among regions of the human brain, among the brains of human individuals, and between humans and mice by analyzing the expression of approximately 1,000 genes in the brain. The study, published online today in the journal Cell, sheds light on the human brain in general and also serves as an introduction to what the associated publicly available dataset can offer the scientific community. This study reveals a high degree of similarity among human individuals. Only 5% of the ...

A 25-year old New York construction worker died when a house collapsed in Brooklyn, reported the New York Daily News (4/3/2012). http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/brooklyn/1-worker-critically-injured-4-hurt-brooklyn-building-collapse-article-1.1055111#ixzz1qzzFF4sT "Of the many hazards that can happen on a construction site, a building collapse is one of the most catastrophic construction accidents that can take place," said David Perecman, a construction accident lawyer in New York with over 30 years of experience providing falling debris construction ...

This press release is available in German. The transmission of knowledge to the next generation is a key feature of human evolution. In particular, humans tend to copy behaviour that is demonstrated by many other individuals. Chimpanzees and orangutans, two of our closest living relatives, also socially pass on traditional behaviour and culture from one generation to another. Whether and how this process resembles the human one is still largely unknown. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and the Max Planck Institute for ...

The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and several other civil rights advocacy groups recently filed a lawsuit of great interest to New York civil rights violation lawyers at The Perecman Firm and other defenders of civil rights. The NYCLU lawsuit (No.12-CIV-2274) was filed against the New York City Police Department. It claims officers violated civil rights and challenges a controversial stop-and-frisk type program in private rental apartment buildings called "Operation Clean Halls." http://www.nyclu.org/news/class-action-lawsuit-challenges-nypd-patrols-of-private-apartment-buildings http://www.nyclu.org/files/releases/Clean_Halls_complaint_3.28.12.PDF ...

Sleep apnea, a condition in which the narrowing of the upper airway results in poor, disrupted sleep, not only results in a bad night's sleep, but also leads to fatigued drivers. In fact, some believe that when it comes to driving, sleep apnea may present as great a danger as too much alcohol. For this reason, the U.S. Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), in conjunction with the American Transportation Research Institute of the American Trucking Associations (ATA), will begin screening commercial driver's license (CDL) holders thought to be susceptible ...

Los Angeles, CA (April 12, 2012) Police officers are always trying to control the misconduct of those who are on parole in order to control crime in the community, but what types of behaviors land them back in jail and what can law enforcement officials do about it? A recent article in the Journal of Correctional Health Care (JCHC), published by SAGE, discusses how to target the most common risky behaviors among specific groups of parolees in order to lower crime in the community. Researchers David Wyatt Seal, Michelle Parisot, and Wayne DiFranceisco interviewed 126 ...

Authorities in New York are trying to crackdown on drugged driving. State legislators recently started pushing for a swab test that would allow officers to test for drug use during a traffic stop. Law officials and policymakers believe this will greatly reduce citations for driving while ability impaired by drugs. In New York State, the number of arrests of drivers operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs has increased by nearly 35 percent over the last decade. This may be an indication that law enforcement has already been getting much more aggressive ...

Baltimore, MD – A study released today by the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has identified the most feasible and impactful solutions for Nigeria's immunization program that could offer the best hope yet for scaling up vaccine access to the nation's most rural areas and taking aim at the country's precipitous number of child deaths. While the nation has made progress on child survival in recent years, Nigeria is still responsible for one out of every eight child deaths worldwide. The country is second only ...

Abandoned army bunkers along the Jordan River have become a habitat for 12 indigenous bat species, three of which are already designated as endangered and two that are on the critical list. The bats were recently identified by a group of Tel Aviv University researchers who were granted access to the bunkers, spread out along a 60-mile-long stretch of land between the Sea of Galilee in the north of Israel to the Dead Sea's northern edge. According to Ph.D. student Eran Levin of TAU's Department of Zoology, the local bat population is estimated to be in the thousands. ...

The specific mechanisms by which humans and other animals are able to discriminate between disease-causing microbes and innocuous ones in order to rapidly respond to infections have long been a mystery to scientists. But a study conducted on roundworms by biologists at UC San Diego has uncovered some important clues to finally answering that question. In a paper published in this week's early online issue of the journal Cell Host & Microbe, the researchers discovered that intestinal cells in the roundworm C. elegans, which are similar in structure to those in humans, ...

Whitbread Plc. has opened a brand new Premier Inn hotel in Llanelli. The property will contribute over GBP1.7 million to the local economy whilst creating 35 new jobs for Llanelli residents. This hotel is the second Premier Inn to open in the area due to an increased demand for rooms. The brand new 28 bedroom hotel is situated on Sandpiper Road in Llanelli and has been built adjacent to the existing Sandpiper Brewers Fayre restaurant. Guests will be able to experience all the local attractions Llanelli has to offer such Pembrey Country Park and the Millennium Costal ...

(Boston) – Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have identified a gene that plays a key role in regulating inflammatory response and homeostasis. These findings could help lead to the development of innovative methods to reduce the inflammation associated with cancer, type 2 diabetes and other diseases. The study, which was led by Valentina Perissi, PhD, assistant professor of biochemistry at BUSM, was done in collaboration with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at the University of California, San Diego. The results are published online ...

Billboard.com and Chevrolet announced today that six finalists in the "Cruze-ing to Vegas" competition have won a road trip to Las Vegas and the chance to compete for the gig of a lifetime: a live performance at the 2012 Billboard Music Awards, to be televised on ABC, 8 p.m. ET, on Sunday, May 20. The finalists were selected from a field of 18 up-and-coming young artists competing from six regions across the country. They are: Northwest: Savannah Outen, pop vocalist, Hillsboro, Oregon Southwest: Saints of Valory, rock, Austin, Texas Midwest: Take the ...

Spring rains in the eastern Horn of Africa are projected to begin late this year and be substantially lower than normal. From March - May, the rains are expected to total only 60 to 85 percentage of the average rainfall in this region. This is a significant deterioration compared to earlier forecasts. Lower rain amounts would have significant impacts on crop production, rangeland regeneration for livestock, and replenishment of water resources. This would put greater stress on the region, particularly Somalia which is still recovering from a famine declared last year, ...

URBANA – With the global recession and the food price spike of 2008, one would expect migrants to be particularly affected, but a recent University of Illinois study revealed migrants in at least one Central Illinois county to be surprisingly resilient in their ability to control their environment through work, particularly women. "Women appear to be more flexible and resourceful. When they lose their jobs, they start looking for other options," said Gale Summerfield, U of I community development and gender specialist. "They took jobs in child care, cleaning houses ...

Global Banking and Finance Review today announced it has named BMO Harris Private Banking the Best Private Bank in Canada 2012 for the second consecutive year. The awards honour companies that stand out in particular areas of expertise in the banking and finance industry. BMO Harris Private Banking ranked first in the Best Private Bank in Canada category by the judging panel of industry analysts. Criteria considered by the panel included detailed research on quality, performance and strong banking ability of management team and staff. "We are very pleased to ...