PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — For the 26 million Americans with diabetes, drawing blood is the most prevalent way to check glucose levels. It is invasive and at least minimally painful. Researchers at Brown University are working on a new sensor that can check blood sugar levels by measuring glucose concentrations in saliva instead. The technique takes advantage of a convergence of nanotechnology and surface plasmonics, which explores the interaction of electrons and photons (light). The engineers at Brown etched thousands of plasmonic interferometers onto a fingernail-size ...

Leading podiatrist in East Haven, CT, Dr. Sean Lazarus, invites patients to bring their children into one of the five office locations for Center Podiatry, Advanced FootCare Center for superior pediatric foot care. Drs. Gary Grippo and Sean Lazarus urge parents to be cautious of the health of their children's feet to help maintain a healthy, active life style. "Children with strong, healthy feet avoid many kinds of lower extremity problems later in life. That is why it is important to inspect your children's feet periodically. If a problem is suspected, I encourage ...

Esteemed Roswell cosmetic dentist, Dr. Wyman Martin, increases the accessibility of The Martin Dental Center for Oral Health and Aesthetics through the launch of a mobile website. In today's busy world, Dr. Martin takes into consideration that time is of the essence. With the launch of the mobile website for The Martin Dental Center for Oral Health and Aesthetics, patients can easily view the practice's website while on-the-go without having to scroll through multiple pages. Every month more and more people begin using the Internet on their phone to access an array ...

OAK BROOK, Ill. – January 23, 2012 – Researchers in the Netherlands assessed the quality of colonoscopy reporting in daily clinical practice and evaluated the quality of colonoscopy performance. They found that colonoscopy reporting varied significantly in clinical practice. Colonoscopy performance met the suggested standards, however, considerable variability between endoscopy departments was found. Researchers concluded that the results of the study underline the importance of the implementation of quality indicators and guidelines, and that by continuous monitoring of ...

NEW YORK, January 23, 2012 – When it comes to taking prescribed medications for hypertension, a patient's self confidence could be as important as doctor's orders. A new study by researchers at NYU School of Medicine reveals that positive affirmation, when coupled with patient education, seems to help patients more effectively follow their prescribed medication regimen. The study, funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, appears online ahead of print today in the Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "As doctors, we're always ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Land and marine iguanas and giant tortoises living close to human settlements or tourist sites in the Galápagos islands are more likely to harbor antibiotic-resistant bacteria than those living in more remote or protected sites on the islands, researchers report in a new study. Feces collected at several different sites from free-living reptiles harbored Escherichia coli bacteria that were resistant to ampicillin, doxycycline, tetracycline, and trimethoprin/sulfamethoxazole. Another bacterial species collected from the feces, Salmonella enterica, was ...

URBANA – Could preventing colon cancer be as simple as developing a taste for yerba mate tea? In a recent University of Illinois study, scientists showed that human colon cancer cells die when they are exposed to the approximate number of bioactive compounds present in one cup of this brew, which has long been consumed in South America for its medicinal properties. "The caffeine derivatives in mate tea not only induced death in human colon cancer cells, they also reduced important markers of inflammation," said Elvira de Mejia, a U of I associate professor of food chemistry ...

Dr. Mark Tripp, dentist in South Charlotte, NC, is pleased to welcome 2012 with new, improved changes to his practice. The new year of 2012 brings new beginnings to Drs. Mark Tripp, Armen Balasanyan and Andre Brun, as they are pleased to announce the recent name change for Richards and Tripp Dentistry. "I am pleased to announce that with the New Year comes a new change at our practice. We have formally changed our name from Richards and Tripp Dentistry to LandMark Dentistry. Even though our name has changed, we still maintain the same commitment and dedication ...

CHICAGO (January 23, 2012) – A new study published online today in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons finds hospitals participating in a regional collaborative of the American College of Surgeon's National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®), achieved substantial improvements in surgical outcomes, such as reducing the rates of acute renal failure and surgical site infections. The collaborative also saved $2,197,543 per 10,000 general and vascular surgery cases when comparing results from 2010 with results from 2009. ACS NSQIP is the leading nationally ...

INDIANAPOLIS — An Indiana University School of Medicine study has determined that a patient's socioeconomic status has more influence than race on physician diagnosis of whether a child's injury was accidental or caused by abuse. When presented with scenarios that could possibly but not obviously indicate child abuse, 2,109 physicians from across the United States who participated in the study were most likely to suspect maltreatment rather than accident for white children from families with low socioeconomic status than for black children with low socioeconomic status ...

Drs. Helene T. Nguyen, DPM, Vilayvanh Sysounthone, DPM and Yong J. Zhu, DPM, podiatrists in Hackettstown, NJ, are pleased to announce the recent merging of their Parsippany office with Feet 'N Beyond of New Jersey, P.A. Medical and surgical podiatric services are now available during clinical hours or by appointment at the two New Jersey locations convenient to Essex, Morris, Passaic, Warren and Sussex County residents and businesses. "With our recent merger, I look forward to providing our patients with superior quality foot and ankle care. Growing the practice ...

Troy, N.Y. – Graphene is the thinnest material known to science. The nanomaterial is so thin, in fact, water often doesn't even know it's there. Engineering researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Rice University coated pieces of gold, copper, and silicon with a single layer of graphene, and then placed a drop of water on the coated surfaces. Surprisingly, the layer of graphene proved to have virtually no impact on the manner in which water spreads on the surfaces. Results of the study were published Sunday in the journal Nature Materials. The findings ...

Chicago -- U.S. states that enacted unilateral divorce laws saw substantial increases in violent crime in the years following the reform, according to research in the Journal of Labor Economics. But the ill-effects of the new laws appear to be largely temporary. The research found an average 9 percent increase in violent crime after a state enacted a unilateral divorce law, which allows one spouse to end a marriage without the consent of the other. The increase in crime was mainly confined to the first two decades after the reform and was mostly attributable to individuals ...

Nurturing mothers have garnered accolades for rescuing skinned knees on the playground and coaxing their children to sleep with lullabies. Now they're gaining merit for their offspring's physical health in middle age. In a recent study published in the journal Psychological Science, Brandeis psychologist Margie Lachman with Gregory Miller and colleagues at the University of British Columbia and the University of California, Los Angeles reveal that while children raised in families with low socioeconomic status (SES) frequently go on to have high rates of chronic illness ...

WASHINGTON, DC – A Georgetown University Medical Center professor says the voluntary action taken by two research teams to temporarily halt work involving the highly pathogenic avian influenza H5N1 is "laudable." In the researchers' statement, published today by Science and Nature, the authors stated that they "recognize that we and the rest of the scientific community need to clearly explain the benefits of this important research and the measures taken to minimize its possible risks." The statement comes in the wake of a debate following the U.S. government's request ...

Leading Saginaw dentist, Dr. Greg Herzler, remains up-to-date with technology through the launch of his practice's mobile website. At the current rate of growth, most people will own a smart-phone by 2013 and be capable of browsing the web. A mobile website is designed to load quickly, preferably in about four seconds, while a desktop site can take much longer on a mobile phone because of connection speeds. Dr. Herzler, dentist in Saginaw, MI, is also aware that patients want their information now - they don't want to wait. Patients are often on-the-go, and need to ...

Graphene is largely transparent to the eye and, as it turns out, largely transparent to water. A new study by scientists at Rice University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) has determined that gold, copper and silicon get just as wet when clad by a single continuous layer of graphene as they would without. The research, reported this week in the online edition of Nature Materials, is significant for scientists learning to fine-tune surface coatings for a variety of applications. "The extreme thinness of graphene makes it a totally non-invasive coating," ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – For more than 40 years, scientists and physicians have thought eating a high-fiber diet lowered a person's risk of diverticulosis, a disease of the large intestine in which pouches develop in the colon wall. A new study of more than 2,000 people reveals the opposite may be true. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine , found that consuming a diet high in fiber raised, rather than lowered, the risk of developing diverticulosis. The findings also counter the commonly-held belief that ...

In California's Death Valley, death is looking just a bit closer. Geologists have determined that the half-mile-wide Ubehebe Crater, formed by a prehistoric volcanic explosion, was created far more recently than previously thought—and that conditions for a sequel may exist today. Up to now, geologists were vague on the age of the 600-foot deep crater, which formed when a rising plume of magma hit a pocket of underground water, creating an explosion. The most common estimate was about 6,000 years, based partly on Native American artifacts found under debris. ...

This press release is available in French. Montreal -- Elderly patients who have visited an emergency department (ED) are three times more likely to develop respiratory or gastrointestinal infections in the week following their return to a long-term care facility, such as a Centre d'Hébergement de Soins de Longue Durée (CHLSD). These are the findings of a new Canadian study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal today. "There certainly seems to be a benefit to isolating residents in the 7 days following their return to a long-term care facility, said ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Greenhouse bedding plant growers can save themselves time, money or possibly both by giving cuttings in propagation more light, according to a Purdue University study. Flower growers use cuttings from Central America and Africa to start spring bedding plants in greenhouses during winter and early spring. Those cloudy days and cool temperatures make propagation time- and energy-intensive. Roberto Lopez, an assistant professor of horticulture, and horticulture graduate students Chris Currey and Veronica Hutchinson study ways to minimize inputs and ...

If you think a Chihuahua doesn't have much in common with a Rottweiler, you might be on to something. An ancient dog skull, preserved in a cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia for 33,000 years, presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication and, together with equally ancient dog remains from a cave in Belgium, indicates that domestication of dogs may have occurred repeatedly in different geographic locations rather than with a single domestication event. In other words, man's best friends may have originated from more than one ancient ancestor, contrary ...

Dr. Scott Peters, leading dentist in Carlsbad, understands that injuries can be prevented, but not all injuries can be avoided. To accommodate patients who require immediate dental attention, Dr. Carlsbad offers responsive dental emergency care for his patients in Carlsbad. "When teeth are chipped, cracked or lost, patients need to act quickly in order to preserve the tooth and prevent additional complications. We're here to help patients in a time of an emergency, so we offer emergency care that allows a patient to get in to our office right away for the immediate ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Might a penguin's next meal be affected by the exhaust from your tailpipe? The answer may be yes, when you add your exhaust fumes to the total amount of carbon dioxide lofted into the atmosphere by humans since the industrial revolution. One-third of that carbon dioxide is absorbed by the world's oceans, making them more acidic and affecting marine life. A UC Santa Barbara marine scientist and a team of 18 other researchers have reported results of the broadest worldwide study of ocean acidification to date. Acidification is known to be a direct ...

Our Valleys publications will be marking its first anniversary in Santa Clarita Valley to celebrate a revolutionary year of service to both the English and Spanish communities in Santa Clarita Valley. The event is to be hosted at their offices located in 17960 Sierra Hwy, Santa Clarita, CA and local businesses and the public are welcome. When the magazine started, the concept was that of a great magazine. In just one year, there has been tremendous growth and metamorphosis that has made it the best advertisement concept with sharp appeal. Its use of digital technology ...