Washington D.C., September 7, 2012 – Every year 100 million people are pushed into poverty because they have to pay for health services directly. With support from the Rockefeller Foundation, Results for Development Institute has partnered with the world's premier global health journal, The Lancet, on a special collection of papers exploring the social, political, and economic issues around the global movement towards universal health coverage (UHC) – defined by the World Health Organization as everyone in a population having access to appropriate, promotive, preventive, ...

Antibiotic treatment with amoxicillin/clavulanate improves moderate exacerbations in patients with mild-to-moderate chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and significantly prolongs the time between exacerbations, according to a new study from researchers in Spain. "The existing evidence for antibiotic therapy in non-severe exacerbations of COPD is weak," said lead author Carl Llor, MD, PhD of the University Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain. "The results of our multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial show that antibiotic treatment is ...

Researchers in Aalto University have developed a new concept for computing, using water droplets as bits of digital information. This was enabled by the discovery that upon collision with each other on a highly water-repellent surface, two water droplets rebound like billiard balls. In the work, published in the journal Advanced Materials, the researchers experimentally determined the conditions for rebounding of water droplets moving on superhydrophobic surfaces. In the study, a copper surface coated with silver and chemically modified with a fluorinated compound was ...

Today the drilling starts for a seismic monitoring network on the Marmara Sea near Istanbul. Specially designed seismic sensors in eight boreholes on the outskirts of Istanbul and around the eastern Marmara Sea will monitor the seismic activity of the region with high precision. In each of the respective 300 meter deep holes several borehole seismometers will be permanently installed at various depths. These detect even barely perceptible earthquakes with very small magnitudes at a high resolution and can thus provide information about the earthquake rupture processes associated ...

TORONTO, ON – Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, formulated by the theoretical physicist in 1927, is one of the cornerstones of quantum mechanics. In its most familiar form, it says that it is impossible to measure anything without disturbing it. For instance, any attempt to measure a particle's position must randomly change its speed. The principle has bedeviled quantum physicists for nearly a century, until recently, when researchers at the University of Toronto demonstrated the ability to directly measure the disturbance and confirm that Heisenberg was too ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Tiny sea creatures called rhabdopleurids reside on the ocean floor, building homes of collagen on the shells of dead clams. Rhabdopleurid colonies are small, and the critters are by no means the dominant animals in their ecosystem. But they have lived this way -- and survived -- for more than 500 million years. And in doing so, they have outlasted more elaborate species that also descended from a common ancestor, according to a new study in the journal Lethaia. Though rhabdopleurids' age and modern existence are well-documented, the paper breaks new ground ...

New research offers a possible strategy for treating central nervous system diseases, such as brain and spinal cord injury, brain cancer, epilepsy, and neurological complications of HIV. The experimental treatment method allows small therapeutic agents to safely cross the blood-brain barrier in laboratory rats by turning off P-glycoprotein, one of the main gatekeepers preventing medicinal drugs from reaching their intended targets in the brain. The findings appeared online Sept. 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and is the result of a study from ...

Hurricane Michael's eye was so clear on new satellite imagery from NASA that the surface of the Atlantic Ocean could be seen through it. NASA satellites have provided visible, infrared and microwave imagery of Hurricane Michael as it tracks north in the eastern Atlantic. A stunning visible image of Hurricane Michael was taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite on Sept. 6 at 12:20 p.m. EDT. In the image, Michael's eye was so clear that the ocean surface is visible through it. Since that time infrared ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – When stressed, about 30 percent of blacks hold onto too much sodium, the equivalent of eating a small order of fast food French fries or a small bag of potato chips, researchers say. "This response pattern puts you under a greater blood pressure load over the course of the day and probably throughout the night as well, increasing your risk of cardiovascular disease," said Dr. Gregory Harshfield, hypertension researcher at the Institute of Public and Preventive Health at Georgia Health Sciences University. In response to stress, they hold onto about 160 ...

At an airport, many people are essential for planes to take off. Gate staffs, refueling crews, flight attendants and pilots are in constant communication with each other as they perform required tasks. But it's the air traffic controller who talks with every plane, coordinating departures and runways. Communication must run through her in order for an airport to run smoothly and safely. In computational terms, the air traffic controller is the "betweenness centrality," the most connected person in the system. In this example, finding the key influencer is easy because ...

WASHINGTON — The nation's collection of climate models should advance substantially to deliver more detailed, smaller scale climate projections, says a new report from the National Research Council. To meet this need, the report calls for these assorted climate models to take a more integrated path and use a common software infrastructure while adding regional detail, new simulation capabilities, and new approaches for collaborating with their user community. From farmers deciding which crops to plant next season, to mayors preparing for possible heat waves, to insurance ...

Chevy Chase, MD—The Endocrine Society today issued a Clinical Practice Guideline (CPG) for the diagnosis and treatment of hypertriglyceridemia. Triglycerides are a type of fat found in the blood and are associated with cardiovascular risk. The CPG, entitled "Evaluation and Treatment of Hypertriglyceridemia: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline" appears in the September 2012 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism (JCEM), a publication of The Endocrine Society. The most common reasons for high triglycerides include being overweight, lack ...

A racial quota system at one of the leading universities in Brazil raised the proportion of black students from low-income families, without decreasing their efforts to succeed in school, a major new study finds. "Critics of affirmative action policies often argue that making it easier for people to get into college lowers their incentive to try hard academically. That argument doesn't stand up to our data," says Andrew Francis, an economist at Emory University and co-author of the study. Francis conducted the research with Maria Tannuri-Pianto, an economist at the ...

Northwestern University researchers have broken a world record by creating two new synthetic materials with the greatest amount of surface areas reported to date. Named NU-109 and NU-110, the materials belong to a class of crystalline nanostructure known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) that are promising vessels for natural gas storage for vehicles, catalysts, and other sustainable materials chemistry. The materials' promise lies in their vast internal surface area. If the internal surface area of one NU-110 crystal the size of a grain of salt could be unfolded, ...

DETROIT – Using a novel surgical approach, it's possible to rebuild a functional lower jaw and mouth, and preserve a patient's ability to eat and speak after removing an invasive facial tumor, according to a new report from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. This case study not only documents a successful surgical technique to create a fully functional lower jaw, but also reports the rare occurrence of a bone cancer (osteosarcoma) that spread from the patient's right femur to his jaw bone. Most commonly, osteosarcoma is found in the long bones of the leg and does not ...

New research led by researchers at North Carolina State University shows that exposure to the chemical bisphenol A (BPA) early in life results in high levels of anxiety by causing significant gene expression changes in a specific region of the brain called the amygdala. The researchers also found that a soy-rich diet can mitigate these effects. "We knew that BPA could cause anxiety in a variety of species, and wanted to begin to understand why and how that happens," says Dr. Heather Patisaul, an associate professor of biology at NC State and lead author of a paper describing ...

Molybdenum is an essential metal required in all living beings from bacteria to plants to humans. But as vital as this metal is, no one understood the importance of its structure until the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry's Joel Weiner and his team jumped on the case. Molybdenum plays critical roles in human health. It does not act alone but is found attached to certain proteins, called molybdenum enzymes, by a very large organic molecule. The organic molecule that holds the molybdenum in place in a protein is extraordinarily complex. and "expensive" for the cell to make, ...

People who have had kidney stones are twice as likely to need dialysis or a kidney transplant later in life, demonstrates recently published findings by medical researchers at the University of Alberta. Their article was recently published in the British Medical Journal. Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry researchers Todd Alexander and Marcello Tonelli tracked data of more than three million Albertans over an 11-year period from 1997 to 2009. They discovered those with a history of kidney stones were twice as likely to have serious kidney problems later in life when compared ...

The Atlantic Ocean hurricane season spawned two hurricanes this week and NASA satellites have been monitoring them and providing valuable data to forecasters. NASA's TRMM satellite saw very heavy rainfall and powerful towering thunderstorms in Michael when the storm became a hurricane. Michael's wind speeds more than doubled in 24 hours and it is now a major hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Tropical Storm Michael became a hurricane on Sept. 5 and NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) satellite passed by and collected data on rainfall and cloud heights. ...

Sorting good data from bad is critical when analyzing microscopic structures like cells and their contents, according to researchers at Rice University. The trick is to find the right window of time through which to look. A new paper by the Rice lab of Angel Martí, an assistant professor of chemistry and bioengineering, offers a methodology to optimize the sensitivity of photoluminescent probes using time-resolved spectroscopy. Martí and co-author Kewei Huang, a graduate student in his group, found their technique gave results nearly twice as good as standard fluorescence ...

Adding the monoclonal antibody bavituximab to docetaxel chemotherapy doubles overall response rate and improves progression-free survival and overall survival in late-stage non-squamous, non-small cell lung cancer (NS-NSCLC) patients who have already received one prior chemotherapy regimen, according to research presented at the 2012 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology. This symposium is sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), the International Association for the Study of Lung ...

This press release is available in French.Researchers from the Guy Rouleau Laboratory affiliated with the CHUM Research Centre and the CHU–Sainte-Justine Research Centre have discovered the genetic cause of a rare disease reported only in patients originating from Newfoundland: hereditary spastic ataxia (HSA). This condition is characterized by lower-limb spasticity (or stiffness) and ataxia (lack of coordination), the latter leading to speech and swallowing problems, and eye movement abnormalities. The disease is not deadly, but people start developing gait problems ...

Stage I, non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients who received radiation therapy have an increased median survival of 21 months compared to 16 months, and the percentage of patients who receive no treatment declined from 20 percent to 16 percent, respectively, when comparing the two eras evaluated, 1999-2003 and 2004-2008, according to detailed analysis of the SEER-17 (Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results, National Cancer Institute) national database presented at the 2012 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology. This symposium is sponsored by the ...

Stage III non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients treated with surgery and/or radiation therapy have a significantly reduced risk of developing brain metastases if they also receive prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI); however, this study did not show an improvement in overall survival with PCI, according to research presented at the 2012 Chicago Multidisciplinary Symposium in Thoracic Oncology. This symposium is sponsored by the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), the International Association for the ...

TORONTO, Sept. 6, 2012 – Imagine that the players on your favourite football team were smaller than their opponents, and had to play without helmets or pads. Left defenseless, they would become easy prey for other teams. Similarly, changes in Canadian lake water chemistry have left small water organisms vulnerable to their predators, which may pose a serious environmental threat, according to a new study. "At low calcium levels the organisms grow slower and cannot build their armour," says study lead author Howard Riessen, professor of biology, SUNY College at Buffalo. ...