A Queen's University professor is helping standardize practices for healthcare ethicists who consult and give guidance on medical ethics issues to doctors, nurses and patients across the country. "It's time for healthcare ethicists to have some formal practice guidelines, a governing code of ethics, and uniform education and certification standards," says Cheryl Cline, Director of the Office of Bioethics in the Faculty of Health Sciences and Clinical Ethicist at Kingston General Hospital. "Our job is to provide Canadian patients and their families with high quality ethics ...

How do people who speak more than one language keep from mixing them up? How do they find the right word in the right language when being fluent in just one language means knowing about 30,000 words? That's what science has wondered about for decades, offering complicated theories on how the brain processes more than one language and sometimes theorizing that bilingualism degrades cognitive performance. But University of Kansas psycholinguist Mike Vitevitch thinks that complicated explanations of how the brain processes two or more languages overlook a straightforward ...

Alexandria, VA –Next week marks the 67th anniversary of D-Day, when the Allies stormed the beaches at Normandy, France, and changed the face of World War II. Not much evidence of the war remains in Normandy: a few dilapidated relics, a cemetery, a war memorial. But something else was left behind that cannot be seen by the naked eye: shrapnel and iron and glass beads left over from the D-Day invasions in 1944. Two geologists visited Omaha Beach in 1988 and collected samples of the sand. Upon returning to their labs, they examined the sand under microscopes and discovered ...

In the 30 years since the first reported cases of a mysterious illness now known as AIDS, researchers have made extraordinary advances in understanding, treating and preventing the disease. Now the challenge, according to experts at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, is to build on those successes to control and, ultimately, end the HIV/AIDS pandemic. In an article published online today by the Annals of Internal Medicine, Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., NIAID Director, and Carl W. Dieffenbach, Ph.D., ...

Each time you see a person that you know, your brain rapidly and seemingly effortlessly recognizes that person by his or her face. Until now, scientists believed that only a couple of brain areas mediate facial recognition. However, Carnegie Mellon University's Marlene Behrmann, David Plaut and Adrian Nestor have discovered that an entire network of cortical areas work together to identify faces. Published in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), their findings will change the future of neural visual perception research and ...

The following highlights summarize research papers that have been recently published in Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (G-Cubed), Geophysical Research Letters (GRL), the Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres (JGR-D), the Journal of Geophysical Research-Biogeosciences (JGR-G), the Journal of Geophysical Research-Space Physics (JGR-A), Paleoceanography (PA), and Water Resources Research (WRR). 1. Analyzing subsurface oil and gas intrusions from Gulf spill After the Deepwater Horizon blowout in 2010, hydrocarbons were released into the Gulf of Mexico. These ...

CAMDEN – If you think that you're using humanely produced eggs for your omelets or deviled eggs, think again. Egg companies recognize that most Americans care about the welfare of farmed animals and many market their eggs with labels claiming the hens were treated well. But a Rutgers–Camden law professor warns that many of the animal welfare claims on egg cartons aren't all that they're cracked up to be. Sheila Rodriguez, a clinical associate professor at the Rutgers School of Law–Camden, asserts that food consumers have a right to know how farm animals are raised and, ...

CHAMPAIGN, lll. — Blood clotting is a complicated business, particularly for those trying to understand how the body responds to injury. In a new study, researchers report that they are the first to describe in atomic detail a chemical interaction that is vital to blood clotting. This interaction – between a clotting factor and a cell membrane – has baffled scientists for decades. The study appears online in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. "For decades, people have known that blood-clotting proteins have to bind to a cell membrane in order for the clotting reaction ...

A team of Scripps Research Institute scientists has found a key biological mechanism underpinning the transition to alcohol dependence. This finding opens the door to the development of drugs to manage excessive alcohol consumption. "Our focus in this study, like much of our lab's research, was to examine the role of the brain's stress system in compulsive alcohol drinking driven by the aversive aspects of alcohol withdrawal," said Scripps Research Associate Professor Marisa Roberto, Ph.D., senior author of the study. "A major goal for this study," added Research Associate ...

In the treeless, flat Prairie, you'd think a city would provide a good home for bats who like to snuggle up and roost in trees and buildings. But researchers at the University of Calgary made the surprising discovery that the urban landscape is far from ideal for these animals. "I was really surprised," says Dr. Joanna Coleman, a sessional lecturer and recent PhD graduate in biological sciences at the University of Calgary and lead author of the study. "I fully expected bats to benefit from the expected increase in availability of roosts and food – insects -- in the city. ...

PHILADELPHIA — Engineering structures on the smallest possible scales — using molecules and individual atoms as building blocks — is both physically and conceptually challenging. An interdisciplinary team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania has now developed a method of computationally selecting the best of these blocks, drawing inspiration from the similar behavior of proteins in making biological structures. The team was led by postdoctoral fellow Gevorg Grigoryan and professor William DeGrado of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics in Penn's Perelman ...

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Researchers at the University of California, San Diego, the Medical University of South Carolina and American Life Science Pharmaceuticals of San Diego have demonstrated that oral administration of a cysteine protease inhibitor, E64d, not only reduces the build-up of β-amyloid (Aβ) in the brains of animal models for Alzheimer's disease, but also results in a substantial improvement in memory deficit. A paper detailing the findings has been published as an early online version and is scheduled for publication in the September 6 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer's ...

Product designers harness time-consuming procedures in prototype construction. Only then are they able to assess the results of their work in a comprehensive manner. In a three-dimensional model world, they are able to do so instantly and can experience how the product fits into its natural surroundings. Design alterations can be visualized immediately, saving time and cutting the costs associated with the development process. Up to now, the so-called CAVE has been used. This consists of between three and six projection surfaces that create a walk-in space. Video projectors ...

The America Chamber of Commerce is pleased to announce that Jack Miller, President and CEO; Ely Miller, EVP and COO; Lorin Morar, VP Software Development were elected to the Executive Board which offers all local, regional, national and international companies to create a free user account at AmericaChamber.com. About America Chamber America Chamber was created to drive unique traffic between entrepreneurs throughout America so that they can do business with each other on a local, regional, national and international basis. We are neither a buyers club nor just a website ...

(Garrison, NY) In a feature article in The New Republic, Daniel Callahan and Sherwin Nuland propose a radical reinvention of the American medical system requiring new ways of thinking about living, aging, and dying. They argue that a sustainable—and more humane— medical system in the U.S. will have to reprioritize to emphasize public health and prevention for the young, and care not cure for the elderly. An interesting twist on their argument, which would aim to bring everyone's life expectancy up to an average age of 80 years but give highest priority for medical treatment ...

Cutting back on sleep drastically reduces a healthy young man's testosterone levels, according to a study published in the June 1 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Eve Van Cauter, PhD, professor in medicine and director of the study, found that men who slept less than five hours a night for one week in a laboratory had significantly lower levels of testosterone than when they had a full night's sleep. Low testosterone has a host of negative consequences for young men, and not just in sexual behavior and reproduction. It is critical in building ...

This release is available in Spanish. Laboratory hamsters that were fed rations spiked with blueberry peels and other blueberry-juice-processing leftovers had better cholesterol health than hamsters whose rations weren't enhanced with blueberries. That's according to a study led by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) chemist Wallace H. Yokoyama. Yokoyama pointed out that further research is needed to confirm whether the effects observed in hamsters hold true for humans. He works at the Western Regional Research Center operated in Albany Calif., by the Agricultural ...

AUGUSTA, Ga. – A facelift incision and robotics can help surgeons safely remove a portion of a diseased thyroid from some patients without the characteristic neck scar. Georgia Health Sciences University surgeons developed the technique utilizing the remote access capabilities of robots, experience gained from another no-neck-scar approach through the armpit and earlier success removing the largest salivary gland from the lower jaw region. "It is outpatient, it doesn't require a surgical drain and it has the advantage of no neck scar," said Dr. David Terris, Chairman ...

The company's expert staff is well-versed in various cleaning methods, including spot cleaning, brush cleaning, dry cleaning, bonnet cleaning, extraction and hot water extraction. The Omega Janitorial Service representative will conduct an inspection and present the client with a detailed plan of the work to be done, after which there will be a preliminary spot cleaning and deodorizing followed by the main cleaning. It's all part of Omega's system of complete commercial carpet cleaning and floor tile maintenance. Most commercial carpet cleaning services do just that ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – New research proves that a change in a particular gene can identify which patients with a specific kind of brain cancer will respond better to treatment. Testing for the gene can distinguish patients with a more- or less-aggressive form of glioblastoma, the most common and an often-fatal type of primary brain cancer, and help guide therapy, the researchers say. The prospective study looked at a gene called MGMT in tumors removed from 833 glioblastoma patients. It showed that when the gene promoter is altered by a chemical change called methylation, patients ...

HOUSTON — A lymphoma vaccine uniquely tailored for each patient extends disease-free survival by 14 months, with signs of an even better response for patients with a specific biological marker, a team led by scientists at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center reported today in the online version of Journal of Clinical Oncology. "The study continues to show that the vaccine increases the usual time until relapse for follicular lymphoma by about 14 months. That's significant because most cancer drugs are approved on the basis of extending survival only a few ...

An appeals court has recently sided with the Republican-dominated Florida legislature. The court upheld the cap on damages that injured patients can be awarded in medical malpractice cases. Specifically, the cap limits noneconomic damages - pain and suffering - to $500,000 per doctor, as reported by the Miami Herald. Looking at the issue broadly, the existence of a cap on damages arising out of harm from negligence and medical mistakes effectively discredits pain and suffering. Caps send a clear message: that there is no such thing as pain and suffering in medical malpractice ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Yellow starthistle already causes millions of dollars in damage to pastures in western states each year, and as climate changes, land managers can expect the problem with that weed and others to escalate. When exposed to increased carbon dioxide, precipitation, nitrogen and temperature ╨ all expected results of climate change ╨ yellow starthistle in some cases grew to six times its normal size while the other grassland species remained relatively unchanged, according to a Purdue University study published in the early online edition ...

It is the scenario no patient ever wants to endure: having an illness or injury, going to the hospital only to have the condition worsen because of a doctor's mistake. Unfortunately, thousands of patients across the country unwittingly become part of this vicious cycle. Take the case of Ryan and Leah Jeffers, whose two-year-old daughter nearly died while waiting five hours for care in a Sacramento hospital's emergency room; or the case of Ana Jimenez Salgado, a Los Angeles woman who had both of her breasts removed after she was mistakenly diagnosed with breast cancer. While ...