Monmouth Junction, NJ (September 12, 2011): A new study finds that infections following cardiac device implantations or replacement result in extremely high costs, both financially and in terms of patient mortality, even months after affected patients return home. Infections associated with pacemakers and defibrillators led to 4.8 to 7.7-fold increases in admission mortality, 1.6 to 2.1-fold increases long term mortality, 2.5 to 4.0-fold increases in hospital length of stay, and 1.4 to 1.8-fold increases in cost compared to pacemaker and defibrillator implantations without ...

According to a study published this week in the September/October 2011 issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion (Vol. 26, No. 1, pp. 56-60), people with consistently high health care costs experienced a 28 percent cumulative decrease in physician fees after an average of five years practicing the stress-reducing Transcendental Meditation technique compared with their baseline. Both between and within group comparisons were statistically significant. This study has major policy implications. In most populations, a small fraction of people account for the majority ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- An airplane's digital flight-data recorder, or "black box," holds massive amounts of data, documenting the performance of engines, cockpit controls, hydraulic equipment and GPS systems, typically at regular one-second intervals throughout a flight. Inspectors use such data to reconstruct the final moments of an accident, looking for telltale defects that may explain a crash. More recently, analysts have probed black-box data in an effort to prevent such accidents from ever occurring. Using software tools that can rapidly search data, operators can ...

Among the many ways that participation in Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) helps its members stay sober, two appear to be most important – spending more time with individuals who support efforts towards sobriety and increased confidence in the ability to maintain abstinence in social situations. In a paper that will appear in the journal Addiction and has been released online, researchers report the first study to examine the relative importance to successful recovery of the behavior changes associated with participation in AA. "AA is the most commonly sought source of help ...

CHICAGO – Lifestyle modifications and pharmaceutical treatment of risk factors for cardiovascular disease are associated with improvement in sexual function among men with erectile dysfunction (ED), according to a meta-analysis posted Online First today in Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "Erectile dysfunction shares modifiable risks factors with atherosclerosis and coronary artery disease (CAD), including hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, cigarette smoking, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and sedentary behavior," according to background ...

This press release is available in Spanish. A commercial enzyme could reduce overall costs linked with producing ethanol from grain, and also reduce associated emissions of greenhouse gases, according to a study by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists and colleagues. The researchers found that the enzyme helps extract water from an ethanol byproduct used to make dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS), which can be used as feed supplements for cattle, swine and poultry. This could significantly reduce the amount of electricity, natural gas, energy and ...

CHICAGO – Repeated exposure of the eye to ophthalmic antibiotics appears to be associated with the emergence of resistant strains of microbes among patients undergoing intraocular injection therapy for neovascular retinal disease, according to a report in the September issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. According to background information in the article, more than 8 million people in the United States are affected by age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness among individuals older than 65 years in this country. ...

Berkeley – Engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, have shown that it is possible to reduce the minimum voltage necessary to store charge in a capacitor, an achievement that could reduce the power draw and heat generation of today's electronics. "Just like a Formula One car, the faster you run your computer, the hotter it gets. So the key to having a fast microprocessor is to make its building block, the transistor, more energy efficient," said Asif Khan, UC Berkeley graduate student in electrical engineering and computer sciences. "Unfortunately, a transistor's ...

Quebec City, September 12, 2011—A study presented today by Université Laval researchers at the 4th World Congress on Sleep Medicine currently underway in Quebec City revealed that the risk of insomnia is 67% higher in people from families in which at least one member is an insomniac. The research team, directed by Dr. Charles M. Morin of Université Laval's School of Psychology, came to these conclusions following a study involving 3,485 people. The participants were asked to answer a telephone survey on their sleep quality and that of their immediate families. On three ...

Heart attack patients with psoriasis are 26 per cent more likely to die from cardiovascular disease, or suffer from recurrent heart attacks or strokes, and are 18 per cent more likely to die from all causes than those without the inflammatory skin disease. That's the key finding of a Danish study published in the September issue of the Journal of Internal Medicine. Researchers studied nearly 50,000 patients who had experienced their first heart attack between 2002 and 2006, following the 462 patients with psoriasis for an average of 19.5 months and the 48,935 controls ...

Bochum's physicists led by Prof. Dr. Hartmut Zabel have demonstrated the spin pumping effect in magnetic layers for the first time experimentally. The behaviour of the spin pumping had previously only been predicted theoretically. The research team at the RUB has now succeeded in measuring the effect using ultrafast X-ray scattering with picosecond resolution. Through their rotation of the magnetic moments, the so-called magnetic precession, single electrons can mutually influence each other's rotation (spin) through a non-magnetic intermediate layer. This is a crucial ...

Jerusalem, Sept. 11, 2011 -- Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have identified the key signal that prompts production of insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas -- a breakthrough discovery that may ultimately help researchers find ways to restore or increase beta cell function in people with type 1 diabetes. The work on the multi-year project was led by Prof. Yuval Dor of the Institute for Medical Research Israel-Canada of the Hebrew University, researchers from the Hadassah University Medical Center and researchers from the diabetes section of the ...

Choosing the sex of our offspring may seem totally beyond our control, but some animals have a remarkable capacity to manipulate this. The female eclectus parrot, for example, has been known to produce 20 sons in a row before switching to producing only daughters. Now, a team of evolutionary biologists has found that tight control over offspring sex ratios can have disastrous consequences for sexual selection. Led by Dr Tim Fawcett, a research fellow at the University of Bristol, the team used mathematical models and computer simulations to investigate how sex-ratio ...

A common chemotherapy drug has been successfully delivered to cancer cells inside tiny microparticles using a method inspired by our knowledge of how the human immune system works. The drug, delivered in this way, reduced ovarian cancer tumours in an animal model by 65 times more than using the standard method. This approach is now being developed for clinical use. The research was funded by, among others, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) Follow-on Fund - funding for 'proof of concept' at the very early stage of turning research outputs ...

This press release is available in French. Toxin proteins are genetically engineered into our food because they kill insects by perforating body cell walls, and Professor Rikard Blunck of the University of Montreal's Group for the study of membrane proteins (GÉPROM) has detected the molecular mechanism involved. In recognition of his breakthrough, he received the Traditional Paul F. Cranefield Award of the Society of General Physiologists yesterday evening. "This study is about gaining a better understanding of the basic functioning of the toxin proteins in order to judge ...

The second Human Rights and Science symposium of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina was held in Strasbourg. At the event scientists and scholars, representatives of human rights organisations, and delegates from European academies of sciences and humanities came together to discuss human rights violations in academic work. The ethics of biosciences were the main focus of the public symposium. Researchers regularly face human rights issues in their work. In some countries – including those in Europe – they repeatedly come against state repression if they ...

San Diego, September 12, 2011 - The Journal of Emergency Medical Services (JEMS) today announces the publication of a special 150-page four-volume digital issue featuring first-person accounts of responders who were thrust into the world spotlight the morning of September 11, 2001, when terrorists invaded their response districts – and their lives – and changed the way they, and most responders throughout the world, think, train, respond and live their lives. A.J. Heightman, Editor-in-Chief of JEMS, and Teresa McCallion, Editor of the EMS Insider newsletter – both published ...

This press release is available in Spanish. "From the point of view of efficiency, establishing one sole format for a European patent in which English is the language used for the procedure seems obvious, even though the diffusion of the innovation is translated into other EU languages," the researchers asserted. This would simplify the current system, they explained, in which the inventor can decide whether to present a European patent in English or to request the patent in the government office of his/her country and in its official language. In addition, it would ...

PHILADELPHIA (September 12, 2011) – The Academy of Natural Sciences today announced the discovery of a new species of large predatory fish that prowled ancient North American waterways during the Devonian Period, before backboned animals existed on land. Drs. Edward "Ted" Daeschler and Jason Downs of the Academy and colleagues from the University of Chicago and Harvard University describe the new denizen of the Devonian they named Laccognathus embryi in the current issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. The 375-million-year-old beast was discovered by the ...

Earth's coral reefs have not been faring well in recent decades, facing multiple threats from pollution, disease, elevated water temperatures, and overfishing. Often referred to as the "rainforests of the Sea," coral reefs support a wide variety of marine life, help protect shorelines, and contribute significantly to tourism and the fishing industry. A new study looks at a rare but catastrophic impact on reefs: the damage caused by natural disasters such as an earthquakes. In May of 2009, a powerful, magnitude-7.3 earthquake shook the western Caribbean, causing lagoonal ...

Since 2001, New York has restricted cellphone use while driving. Drivers could receive traffic citations, with up to a $185 fine, for using handheld cellphones while driving. Law enforcement officials, however, have found that the possibility of a ticket is not enough of a deterrent as drivers continue to talk on handheld cellphones and text while driving -- and, even worse, continue to cause accidents. In 2008, more than 45,000 motor vehicle accidents in New York -- about 18 percent of the state's accidents that year -- involved driver distraction or inattention. In ...

The risk of gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding needs to be considered when determining the potential preventive benefits associated with low-dose aspirin for cardiovascular disease and cancer. According to a new study in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology, the use of low-dose aspirin increases the risk for GI bleeding, with the risk being increased further with accompanying use of cardiovascular disease-preventing therapies, such as clopidogrel and anticoagulants. In patients who took proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), bleeding risk decreased. Clinical Gastroenterology and ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The first transgenic mouse model of a rare and severe type of autism called Timothy Syndrome is improving the scientific understanding of autism spectrum disorder in general and may help researchers design more targeted interventions and treatments. The research is described in a paper published last week by scientists at the University at Buffalo and Stanford University in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The transgenic mouse developed at UB exhibits the repetitive physical behaviors, altered social behaviors and impaired communication ...

TORONTO, ON – A University of Toronto-led team of astronomers has observed extreme brightness changes on a nearby brown dwarf that may indicate a storm grander than any seen yet on a planet. Because old brown dwarfs and giant planets have similar atmospheres, this finding could shed new light on weather phenomena of extra-solar planets. As part of a large survey of nearby brown dwarfs – objects that occupy the mass gap between dwarf stars and giant planets – the scientists used an infrared camera on the 2.5m telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile to capture repeated ...

Fayrell Furr Jr., of Furr & Henshaw, Attorneys at Law, has been named the best medical malpractice attorney in the Myrtle Beach area for 2011 by the Myrtle Beach Herald. Mr. Furr has also been named to the list of South Carolina Super Lawyers for 2008, 2009 and 2010. He is board-certified as a civil trial attorney by the National Board of Trial Advocacy. Furr & Henshaw has offices in Myrtle Beach and Columbia. The firm represents injured people statewide, as well as out-of-state visitors who were hurt in South Carolina, and has a well-established record of helping ...