BOSTON, MA—A new study by Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) researchers found significant variation in the use of head computed tomography (CT) exams among doctors within the emergency department (ED). The study will be published in the April 2012 issue of The American Journal of Medicine. With advanced imaging as a driver of increasing health care costs, strategies to reduce variation in head CT use and other high-cost imaging studies may reduce cost and improve quality of care. This study is part of an effort by researchers at BWH to develop strategies for achieving ...

Lady@OUT is a top-up insurance product that provides female clients with a host of value-added benefits at a small additional premium. "Even though it's a much debated and somewhat controversial topic, statistics prove that women are in fact safer and more responsible drivers than men" says Ernst Gouws, Chief Executive of OUTsurance. "So, even though our female clients are already enjoying the benefit of lower insurance premiums, we realized that in order for us to stay ahead of the game, we'd have to think up a truly impressive product with benefits ...

Beliefs about nature and nurture can affect how patients and their families respond to news about their diagnosis, according to Penn State health communication researchers. Understanding how people might respond to a health problem, especially when the recommendations for adapting to the condition may seem contradictory to their beliefs, is crucial to planning communication strategies, said Roxanne Parrott, Distinguished Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences and Health Policy and Administration. People affected with known genetic or chromosomal disorders, such ...

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that 92 percent of more than 1,000 gastroenterologists responding to a survey believed that pressures to increase the volume of colonoscopies adversely impacted how they performed their procedures, which could potentially affect the quality of colon cancer screening. The findings, based on responses from members of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE), are published in the March 2012 issue of Gastrointestinal Endoscopy. "The number of colonoscopies has risen dramatically over the past fifteen ...

For the red pigmentation to develop, blood oranges normally require a period of cold as they ripen. The only place to reliably grow them on a commercial scale is in the Sicilian area of Italy around Mount Etna. Here, the combination of sun and cold/sunny days and warm nights provides ideal growing conditions. Scientists have identified the gene responsible for blood orange pigmentation, naming it Ruby, and have discovered how it is controlled. "Blood oranges contain naturally-occurring pigments associated with improved cardiovascular health, controlling diabetes and ...

A recent study led by Gergely Lukacs, a professor at McGill University's Faculty of Medicine, Department of Physiology, and published in the January issue of Cell, has shown that restoring normal function to the mutant gene product responsible for cystic fibrosis (CF) requires correcting two distinct structural defects. This finding could point to more effective therapeutic strategies for CF in the future. CF, a fatal genetic disease that affects about 60,000 people worldwide, is caused by mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR), a ...

A novel study of honey bee genetic diversity co-authored by an Indiana University biologist has for the first time found that greater diversity in worker bees leads to colonies with fewer pathogens and more abundant helpful bacteria like probiotic species. Led by IU Bloomington assistant professor Irene L.G. Newton and Wellesley College assistant professor Heather Mattila, and co-authors from Wellesley College and the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, the new work describes the communities of active bacteria harbored by honey bee colonies. The ...

A study of cervical cancer incidence and mortality in North Carolina has revealed areas where rates are unusually high. The findings indicate that education, screening, and vaccination programs in those places could be particularly useful, according to public health researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who authored the report. "In general the rates of incidence and mortality in North Carolina are consistent with national averages," said Jennifer S. Smith, Ph.D., associate professor of epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Advances in fuel-cell technology have been stymied by the inadequacy of metals studied as catalysts. The drawback to platinum, other than cost, is that it absorbs carbon monoxide in reactions involving fuel cells powered by organic materials like formic acid. A more recently tested metal, palladium, breaks down over time. Now chemists at Brown University have created a triple-headed metallic nanoparticle that they say outperforms and outlasts all others at the anode end in formic-acid fuel-cell reactions. In a paper published in the ...

Could parental exposure to solvents at work be linked to autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in their children? According to an exploratory study by Erin McCanlies, a research epidemiologist from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and colleagues, such exposures could play a role, but more research would be needed to confirm an association. Their pilot study is published online in Springer's Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. The experts' assessment indicated that exposures to lacquer, varnish and xylene occurred more often in the ...

A program that helps obese patients improve healthy behaviors is associated with modest weight loss and improved blood pressure control in a high-risk, low-income group, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Duke University, Harvard University and other institutions. The research is published March 12 in Archives of Internal Medicine. Obesity treatments are not widely available in the U.S. primary care setting, particularly for low-income patients who seek care at community health centers, according to the study's authors. ...

A study by the Children's Oncology Group (COG) reported that five-year survival for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL, the most common type of pediatric cancer) among children treated through COG clinical trials increased from 83.7 percent during the period 1990-1994 to 90.4 percent in the period 2000-2005. The improvements in survival were observed among all children over age 1 regardless of age, sex, ethnicity, or subtype of ALL. This analysis, which is the largest study to date of ALL survival, showed similar gains in 10-year survival. The findings are published March ...

Kandy Magazine announced today that it is now available as a FREE iPad App in Apple's Newsstand and in less than a week has attained a top 100 ranking. To commemorate the release of the Kandy Magazine iPad app in the App Store, the first 100,000 downloads of the newest iPad edition featuring the World's Sexiest DJ Colleen Shannon are complimentary. The Kandy App features in-app social media integration, in-app media libraries, notes, pinch-to-zoom, vertical scroll and easy navigation menus. "As an independent publisher we took a look at the different options ...

For children aged 14 and under, delaying reconstructive surgery for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries may raise their risk of further injury, according to a new study by pediatric orthopaedic surgeons. If surgery occurs later than 12 weeks after the injury, the injury may even be irreparable. "Treating ACL injuries in these children is controversial, because they are still growing and the surgery has a small risk of causing a growth disturbance," said study leader J. Todd Lawrence, M.D., Ph.D., an orthopaedic surgeon at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. ...

A wooden statue of a king, a private offering chapel, a monumental building and remains of over 80 animal mummies found by a University of Toronto-led team in Abydos, Egypt reveal intriguing information about ritual activity associated with the great gods. Professor Mary-Ann Pouls Wegner of the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations presented her team's findings at a recent meeting of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities. The wooden statue is one of very few existing royal wooden statues, and may represent the female king Hatshepsut. She was ...

InfoChem GmbH - a market leader in structure and reaction handling and retrieval - and Eidogen-Sertanty, Inc. - a pioneer in chemical applications for mobile devices - have released SPRESImobile a new, jointly developed application for Apple iPod, iPhone and iPad devices. The application, featuring an innovative user interface, provides researchers and students worldwide access to InfoChem's ChemReact: a database containing over 410,000 chemical reactions and related information. ChemReact is a representative subset of SPRESI, InfoChem's structure and reaction database ...

The experienced Orlando auto accident lawyers of Jaspon & Armas, P.A. obtained a jury verdict of $116,000 for a client in a case against State Farm Insurance. Before filing a lawsuit, State's Farm's top offer was $3,5000 for our client. After being forced to file a lawsuit and just before trial, State Farm's top offer for our client was $25,000. State Farm turned down a counter settlement offer from the firm for $75,000.00, so the attorneys at Jaspon & Armas fought for their client in the Miami-Dade Court. The end result was an award by the jury for the client ...

PHILADELPHIA -- More than 90 percent of humans have antibodies to the Epstein Barr virus. Best known for causing mononucleosis, or "the kissing disease," the virus has also been implicated in more serious conditions, including Hodgkin's, non-Hodgkin's and Burkitt's lymphomas. Yet little is known about exactly how EBV triggers these diseases. Now a team of researchers from the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine and Penn's Perelman School of Medicine has the first evidence that an Epstein Barr-like virus can infect and may also be responsible for ...

Although high levels of narcissism can impair ethical judgment regardless of one's religious orientation or orthodox beliefs, narcissism is more harmful in those who might be expected to be more ethical, according to a Baylor University study published online in the Journal of Business Ethics. Read the article using this link http://www.springerlink.com/content/u0k76hw8x37h7562/ "Devout people who are narcissistic and exercise poor ethical judgment would be committing acts that are, according to their own internalized value system, blatantly hypocritical," said Marjorie ...

TEMPE (March 12, 2012) - Maybe you've had a reoccurring sore throat or frequent headaches. Perhaps the pain in your leg won't go away. In the past, you might have gone to a doctor's office to diagnose symptoms. Today, people are more likely to go online to punch in their symptoms. Details of a new study examining how symptoms presented online influence people's reactions to possible medical conditions will be presented in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. Researchers found that identifying symptoms in "streaks" - sequences ...

KINGSTON, R.I. – March 12, 2012 – University of Rhode Island marine biologist Jacqueline Webb gets an occasional strange look when she brings fish to the Orthopedics Research Lab at Rhode Island Hospital. While the facility's microCT scanner is typically used to study bone density and diseases like osteoporosis, it is also providing new insights into the skull structure and sensory systems of fish. A professor of biological sciences and director of the marine biology program at URI, Webb studies the lateral line system, a sensory system in all fishes that enables them ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A team of scientists has documented for the first time that animals can and do consume Archaea – a type of single-celled microorganism thought to be among the most abundant life forms on Earth. Archaea that consume the greenhouse gas methane were in turn eaten by worms living at deep-sea cold seeps off Costa Rica and the West Coast of the United States. Archaea perform many key ecosystem services including being involved with nitrogen cycling, and they are known to be the main mechanism by which marine methane is kept out of the atmosphere. The finding ...

The earth's structure can be compared to an orange: its crust is the peel supported by the earth's heavy mantle. That peel is made up of a continental crust 30 to 40 kilometers thick. It is much lighter than the thinner oceanic crust and protrudes from the earth's mantle because of its lower density, like an iceberg in the sea. "According to the current theory, the first continental crusts were formed when tectonic plates would collide, submerging oceanic crusts into the earth's mantle, where they would partially melt at a depth of approximately 100 kilometers. That molten ...

A new study by researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy of The Research Institute at Nationwide Children's Hospital found that from 1999 through 2008, more than 93,000 children younger than 5 years of age were treated in U.S. emergency departments for stair-related injuries. On average, this equates to a child younger than 5 years of age being rushed to an emergency department for a stair-related injury every six minutes in the U.S. The study, which is being released online March 12, 2012 and appearing in the April 2012 print issue of Pediatrics, noted ...

Many premature infants throughout the United States continue to receive inhaled nitric oxide (iNO) during their NICU stay, despite the lack of evidence to support its use. Whether or not a preemie will receive iNO treatment, when and for how long, varies greatly throughout the country, as its use in premature infants appears to be unstandardized. These are the findings of a Nationwide Children's Hospital study appearing in the journal Pediatrics. Inhaled nitric oxide (iNO) is a selective pulmonary vasodilator approved for use in term and near-term infants with hypoxic ...