The statistic is breathtaking: "More Americans filed for bankruptcy last year in the United States than in the entire decade of the 1960s," reports an article on MSN Money. The slowness of the recovery combined with the mountain of debt has put more people in the position of filing for bankruptcy than ever. With the recession, more people have had problems paying their bills, in part, due to the fact they have more debt. From 1990 to 2003, credit card lending increased from $173 to $683 billion. Much of the lending was for subprime credit cards, which grew even faster ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Children were the victims in more than half of the emergency room visits for eye injuries related to aerosol cans between 1997 and 2009, according to a new study by researchers at Brown University. More could be done, they said, to prevent injury from the pressurized and often harsh chemical contents of the common products. The youngest children, ages 0 to 4, were the most likely to be hurt with an estimated 2,830 emergency room visits during the study timeframe, according to the study published in advance online March 30 in the American ...

"Preparing a coffee in a drip coffee maker is not the same as making one in an espresso machine or from capsules, because these give rise to differing levels of furan", Javier Santos, a professor at the Department of Analytical Chemistry at the University of Barcelona and lead author of the study, tells SINC. Concern has risen over recent years about the presence of this compound in foods, because of its toxic and carcinogenic effects in animals, as well as the fact that the International Agency for Research on Cancer has listed it as a possible carcinogen in humans. Against ...

The stigma of a sex crime is something that can follow someone around for years, if not a lifetime. If a conviction results, many different punishments may be handed down. Not only may there be extensive prison time, but offenders will also be required to demonstrate that they have been rehabilitated. Additionally, those convicted will also need to register as a sex offender. Once someone is on this list it becomes very difficult to be removed. Some sexual offenses require lifetime registration. All of this costs a lot of money for states. Many jurisdictions have embraced ...

Researchers at North Carolina State University have developed software that helps Android smartphone users prevent their personal information from being stolen by hackers. "There are a lot of concerns about potential leaks of personal information from smartphones," says Dr. Xuxian Jiang, an assistant professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the research. "We have developed software that creates a privacy mode for Android systems, giving users flexible control over what personal information is available to various applications." The ...

A Los Angeles Superior Court trial judge has rejected a motion for a new trial in a case against defendants Paul Revere Life Insurance Company and UNUM Group involving a disability insurance policy. The jury had previously found the defendants liable for bad faith and breach of an insurance disability contract before awarding $4.2 million in damages to the insured. The plaintiff, a dental hygienist, first purchased an individual disability insurance policy from Paul Revere in 1988. After she began to suffer from several disabling medical conditions in 1996, including ...

The United States Department of Justice continues its vigorous efforts to open up foreign secret bank accounts. In its latest move, the United States Department of Justice, on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service has filed suit in San Francisco, California against HSBC India to require the disclosure of United States tax payers accounts. The Justice Department is committed to ensuring that all US tax payers meet their obligations to declare and pay taxes on foreign bank accounts. The IRS has announced that it is continuing to focus its attention on international tax evasion. The ...

Tel Aviv — Human beings are well aware that hindsight is 20/20 — and the product of this awareness is often what we call "regret." Could this hindsight be programmed into a computer to more accurately predict the future? Tel Aviv University computer researchers think so — and the Internet giant Google is anxious to know the answer, too. Prof. Yishay Mansour of Tel Aviv University's Blavatnik School of Computer Science launched his new project at the International Conference on Learning Theory in Haifa, Israel, earlier this year. His research will help computers minimize ...

Animal cell membranes are a bilayer of phospholipids (charged fat molecules) made up to various degrees of fatty acids that must be acquired from the diet. The essential polyunsaturated fatty acids have been shown to be important in resistance to a variety of diseases and in coping with changes in body temperature. It is generally believed that mammals are unable to alter the proportions of essential fatty acids in their cell membranes except by changing their diets. Furthermore, mammals are unlikely candidates for extensive temperature-induced alteration, known to occur ...

BOSTON (April 13, 2011) — In the first study investigating the origins of a little-known condition called chronic ulcerative stomatitis (CUS), researchers at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine provide evidence that an autoimmune response contributes to the painful oral sores that characterize the disease. The study findings support the classification of CUS as a new autoimmune disease. Chronic ulcerative stomatitis is characterized by painful, recurring sores in the mouth. Thus far, it has been diagnosed most frequently in white women in their 40's and 50's and ...

High school graduation ceremonies are typically called "commencement" for a good reason. Life goes on after high school. The pomp and circumstances marks an end, but also a beginning. A transitional moment like this involves more than just putting on a nice reception. It is a good time for parents to review the status of their graduates' health care arrangements. This starts with making sure there is coverage under an appropriate insurance policy. But you should also realize that, once your child turns 18, you will not have the same ability to direct his or her medical ...

This release is available in Spanish and French. Women feel their emotions more intensively than men when a conflict arises within the couple. Conversely, it is men –who mostly express "powerful emotions" as wrath or despise– who cause conflicts more frequently. This is the conclusion described in an article published in the journal Intervención Psicosocial prepared by professors from the Department of Social Psychology of the University of Granada, Inmaculada Valor Segura, Francisca Expósito y Miguel Moya. This study analyzed the type of interpersonal emotions than ...

Boston, MA - Some 25 million people in the United States alone suffer from rheumatoid arthritis or its cousin osteoarthritis, diseases characterized by often debilitating pain in the joints. Now researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) report an injectable gel that could spell the future for treating these diseases and others. Among its advantages, the gel could allow the targeted release of medicine at an affected joint, and could dispense that medicine on demand in response to enzymes associated with arthritic flare-ups. "We think that this platform could ...

President Obama recently acknowledged he is willing to contemplate reforms to the medical malpractice structure and look at options other than the repeal of his health care bill to bring down health care costs. He has placed medical malpractice reforms on the table in order to "rein in frivolous lawsuits," says the LA Times. Previously, House Republicans proposed legislation with a $250,000 cap on pain and suffering damages caused by "any health care goods or services or any medical product." Damage Caps vs. Addressing Medical Errors Many patients' rights advocates ...

A newly discovered magnetic phenomenon could accelerate data storage by several orders of magnitude. With a constantly growing flood of information, we are being inundated with increasing quantities of data, which we in turn want to process faster than ever. Oddly, the physical limit to the recording speed of magnetic storage media has remained largely unresearched. In experiments performed on the particle accelerator BESSY II of Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin, Dutch researchers have now achieved ultrafast magnetic reversal and discovered a surprising phenomenon. In magnetic ...

A Short Comparative Genomic Hybridisation (CGH) method has been developed to carry out preimplantation genetic screening (PGS) by analysing all chromosomes and transferring selected embryos to the recipient uterus in the same in vitro fertilisation cycle. This eliminates the need to freeze them. The technique has been applied to the screening of chromosomal anomalies in cases of advanced maternal age, recurrent miscarriages or repeated implantation failures. Short-CGH achieved, as part of a PGS programme, the pregnancy of a woman whose partner is carrier of two chromosomal ...

The most serious consequences of a motor vehicle accident, construction accident or other traumatic event can leave a family facing steep financial challenges. Traumatic brain injuries, horrific burns or other catastrophic injuries can require a lifetime of expensive medical treatment and lost income. One common result of the violent forces that accompany a serious accident is a spinal cord injury. Injuries to the spinal cord, the body's central conduit for delivery of pain and mobility impulses, frequently result in paraplegia or quadriplegia. The disabling harm caused ...

ESA's Herschel space observatory has revealed that nearby interstellar clouds contain networks of tangled gaseous filaments. Intriguingly, each filament is approximately the same width, hinting that they may result from interstellar sonic booms throughout our Galaxy. The filaments are huge, stretching for tens of light years through space and Herschel has shown that newly-born stars are often found in the densest parts of them. One filament imaged by Herschel in the Aquila region contains a cluster of about 100 infant stars. Such filaments in interstellar clouds have ...

Surgical approaches that reduce incision size and recovery time from thyroid surgery work well in children, physician-scientists report. "It brings parents comfort to know it's going to be a small incision, an outpatient surgery with no drains or staples on the skin. We just use some glue for the skin and the recovery is very rapid," said Dr. David Terris, Chairman of the Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at Georgia Health Sciences University. The results should bring comfort as well with complication rates of minimally invasive thyroid surgery on par ...

The central role in the probate administration process after a person's death is the personal representative, often referred to as an executor or administrator. The personal representative has a series of fiduciary responsibilities, from initiating probate to paying creditor claims and distributing assets as outlined in a will. But a personal representative's duties do not extend to people not named in the decedent's will. Florida law allows for interested parties, including family members and creditors, to file "caveats" with the probate court to ensure that the estate ...

PHILADELPHIA—A widely-available yet expensive radiotherapy technique used to treat prostate cancer patients after surgery has promising benefits—higher dose and less damage to the rectum and bladder—compared to a less precise technique, Thomas Jefferson University researchers document for the first time in a new study published in Practical Radiation Oncology. A team of radiation oncologists and medical physicists, including lead author Amy Harrison, M.S., the medical physics clinical supervisor at Jefferson, show that intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) allows a ...

In low-risk pregnant women, high induction and first-cesarean delivery rates do not lead to improved outcomes for newborns, according to new research published in the April issue of The Journal of Maternal-Fetal and Neonatal Medicine. The finding that rates of intervention at delivery – whether high, low, or in the middle – had no bearing on the health of new babies brings into question the skyrocketing number of both inductions and cesarean deliveries in the United States. "Like virtually all medical therapies and procedures, these interventions entail some risk for ...

Tiny crustaceans called copepods rule the world, at least when it comes to oceans and estuaries. The most numerous multi-cellular organisms in the seas, copepods are an important link between phytoplankton and fish in marine food webs. To understand and predict how copepods respond to environmental change, scientists need to know not only how many new copepods are born, but how many are dying, say biological oceanographers David Elliott of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), and Kam Tang of ...

Driving while under the influence doesn't just mean that you've exceeded the allowable blood-alcohol threshold. In Arizona, you can be arrested even if you had a drink but are not legally intoxicated. Typically, a driver can be charged with a DUI offense if his blood-alcohol content (BAC) is .08 percent or higher. In Arizona, however, two provisions in the state's criminal traffic law allow police to charge drivers with DUI even if their BAC is less than the legal limit. According to the provisions, a driver can be charged with lower BAC levels if seen driving erratically. ...

TORONTO, April 13, 2011 – The role of family in ending youth homelessness is largely ignored in Canada, according to a report released today by York University, though there is evidence that family reconnection works in Australia and the United Kingdom and in one exceptional program in Toronto. Some 65,000 young people are homeless or at risk of homelessness across Canada. In Toronto, approximately 1,700 youth are on the streets on any given night, about half of them in emergency shelters. "In Canada, we really need to radically reform our approach to youth homelessness," ...