Health Canada's cancellation of plans to renew tobacco warning labels on cigarette packages may lead to increased smoking rates and smoking-related illnesses and deaths, states an editorial in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj101583.pdf. Ten years ago, Canada was a leader in warning labels and other effective tobacco policies. Abandoning this labeling policy may be a set back for efforts in Canada, particularly as labels are now the government's only remaining mass communication initiative warning of the ...

The findings are based on comparisons of virtual imprints of the developing brain and surrounding structures (known as endocasts) derived from the skulls of modern and fossilized humans, including that of a newborn Neanderthal. Philipp Gunz of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology explained that the differences researchers observe in early brain development likely reflect changes in the underlying brain circuitry. It is that internal organization of the brain that matters most for cognitive ability. "In modern humans, the connections between diverse ...

### These new findings will be presented in three invited talks at the American Physical Society, Division of Plasma Physics 52nd annual meeting on November 8-12 in Chicago. END ...

Researchers at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory have successfully used Coaxial Helicity Injection (CHI) to generate plasma current and couple it to a conventional current generation method at the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) fusion experiment. After coupling, the combined process generated 1 million amperes of current using 40 percent less energy than needed to generate this current using the conventional means by itself, thus demonstrating that a high-quality initial magnetic configuration was produced by CHI. Plasma confinement devices based on ...

Fusion plasmas in the laboratory typically reach 100 million degrees. These high temperatures are required to ignite the hydrogen plasma and maintain the fusion burn by the production of high-energy alpha particles. One challenge for a fusion reactor is how to contain the alpha particles in the vessel long enough for the particles to efficiently heat the hydrogen plasma. One way that these alpha particles can escape the fusion chamber prematurely is by exciting high frequency Alfvén waves and riding these waves to the vessel walls, like a surfer rides a wave to the beach. While ...

When physicists probe the mysteries of plasma, the fourth state of matter, they often discover phenomena of striking beauty. Much as when the Hubble Space Telescope sent back vivid images from space of ionized gas clouds (an interstellar plasma!), new 3D images of shear Alfvén waves are delighting both scientists and a new generation of science enthusiasts. Plasmas support a large variety of waves. Some of these are familiar, such as light and sound waves, but a great many exist nowhere else. One of the fundamental waves in magnetized plasma is the shear Alfvén wave, ...

Just like an electrical switch allows the flow of electricity into electrical circuits, relativistic transparency in plasma can act like a fast optical switch allowing the flow of light through otherwise opaque plasma. Modern day lasers, such as the Trident laser in Los Alamos National Laboratory delivers a 200 terawatt power pulse (roughly 400 times the average electrical consumption of the United States) in half a trillionth of a second (picosecond) time. As shown in Fig. 1, when the laser power reaches a threshold limit, relativistic transparency in plasma turns the ...

The Sun sporadically expels trillions of tons of million-degree hydrogen gas in explosions called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Such clouds—an example is shown in Figure 1a—are enormous in size (spanning millions of miles) and are made up of magnetized plasma gases, so hot that hydrogen atoms are ionized. CMEs are rapidly accelerated by magnetic forces to speeds of hundreds of kilometers per second to upwards of 2,000 kilometers per second in several tens of minutes. CMEs are closely related to solar flares and, when they impinge on the Earth, can trigger spectacular auroral ...

Physicists working on the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory are now one step closer to solving one of the grand challenges of magnetic fusion research—how to reduce the effect that the hot plasma has on fusion machine walls (or how to tame the plasma-material interface). Some heat from the hot plasma core of a fusion energy device escapes the plasma and can interact with reactor vessel walls. This not only erodes the walls and other components, but also contaminates the plasma—all challenges for practical fusion. One method ...

Whenever two pieces of metal at different voltages are brought near each other, as when an appliance is plugged into a live socket, there is a chance there will be an arc between them. Most of the arcs people see are a breakdown of the gas between the metal surfaces, but this type of breakdown can also occur in a vacuum. This vacuum breakdown, which until recently has not been well understood, has implications for applications from particle accelerators to fusion reactors. As part of an effort to understand the maximum accelerating field in particle accelerators, scientists ...

The outlook for patients with breast cancer is determined in part by whether or not their tumor has spread to other sites in the body. A team of researchers, led by Roman Perez-Fernandez and colleagues, at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, has now identified in a subset of patients with breast cancer, a marker associated with the occurrence of tumors at distant sites; a finding that they hope might help predict a patient's outlook more accurately. Specifically, the team found that in patients with breast cancer that was accompanied by the presence of tumor ...

EDITOR'S PICK: PIT(-1)ting good and bad outcomes against each other in breast cancer The outlook for patients with breast cancer is determined in part by whether or not their tumor has spread to other sites in the body. A team of researchers, led by Roman Perez-Fernandez and colleagues, at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, has now identified in a subset of patients with breast cancer, a marker associated with the occurrence of tumors at distant sites; a finding that they hope might help predict a patient's outlook more accurately. Specifically, the team ...

Females are more likely to have an unprotected first sexual encounter than their male counterparts. This finding was a surprise to Nicole Weller, an Arizona State University graduate student working toward her doctoral degree in sociology, who presented preliminary findings on research she is conducting on the relationship between early sex education and the onset of sexual activity at the 138th annual American Public Health Association Social Justice Meeting and Expo in Denver on Monday, Nov. 8. Weller is a student in the School of Social and Family Dynamics in the College ...

Using proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) and antiplatelet drugs (thienopyridines) together is an appropriate way of treating patients with cardiovascular (CV) disease who are at high risk of upper gastrointestinal (GI) bleeds, despite recent concerns about an adverse interaction between these two types of drugs, according to an Expert Consensus Document released jointly today by the American College of Cardiology Foundation (ACCF), the American College of Gastroenterology (ACG), and the American Heart Association (AHA). The potential benefits of antiplatelet therapy for patients ...

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Older people who are leading active, healthy lifestyles often have silent vascular disease that can be seen on brain scans that affect their ability to think, according to a new study led by UC Davis researchers and published online today in the Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA Archives journals. "This study shows that silent vascular disease is really common as we get older and it influences our thinking abilities," said Charles DeCarli, professor of neurology in the School of Medicine at UC Davis and director of the UC Davis Alzheimer's ...

A new survey finds that, while the number of physicians who report having relationships with pharmaceutical manufacturers or other industrial companies has dropped in recent years, the vast majority of them still maintain such relationships. The study, conducted by the Mongan Institute for Health Policy (IHP) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), appears in the Nov. 8 Archives of Internal Medicine and also documents changes in the frequency of particular types of relationships. "While physician-industry relationships have decreased significantly since 2004, they ...

In a comparison of treatments for maintaining remission of a certain type of vasculitis (inflammation of blood vessels), the immunosuppressant mycophenolate mofetil, regarded as an alternative to the drug often used to prevent relapse, azathioprine, was less effective, according to a study that will appear in the December 1 print edition of JAMA. The study is being released early online to coincide with its presentation at the American College of Rheumatology annual scientific meeting. "Relapses of antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (ANCA)-associated vasculitis (AAV) ...

Relationships with drug manufacturers, device companies and other medical companies appear to be have decreased since 2004 but remain common among physicians, according to a report in the November 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "The medical profession has embraced the importance of placing patient welfare ahead of financial benefits to physicians in clinical decision making," the authors write as background information in the article. "One tenet of medical professionalism is managing conflicts of interest related to physician-industry ...

Beginning dialysis therapy earlier in the development of advanced kidney disease appears to be associated with a greater risk of death for some patients in the following year, according to a report posted online today that will be published in the March 14 print issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Dialysis—a procedure in which a machine performs the blood-filtering functions of the kidneys—should help patients with advanced kidney disease live longer, reduce their illness burden and improve their quality of life, according to background ...

Potential gender differences in clinical management are under-researched. A systematic analysis of the incorporation of sex and gender into research design, published in the open access journal BMC Medicine, has found that, although there has been a progressive improvement since the 90s, there exists a striking under-representation of research about gender differences in patient management. Sabine Oertelt-Prigione, from the Institute of Gender in Medicine, Berlin, worked with a team of researchers to study almost 9000 research articles, looking for evidence of sex and ...

Long delays between developing symptoms and going to the hospital are common among patients with a certain type of heart attack, according to a report in the November 8 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Professional guidelines recommend that patients call 9-1-1 if symptoms suggestive of a heart attack do not improve within five minutes, according to background information in the article. Medical treatment is most urgent in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI; a certain pattern on an electrocardiogram ...

A new cognitive assessment tool with 16 items appears potentially useful for identifying problems in thinking, learning and memory among older adults, according to a report posted online today that will be published in the March 14 print issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. An estimated 3.4 million older adults in the United States have dementia, and an additional 5.4 million have milder forms of cognitive impairment, according to background information in the article. "For many older adults, cognitive impairment contributes to loss ...

Patients with stroke who experience improvement within one hour of receiving the clot-dissolving medication tissue plasminogen activator appear more likely to do well three months later, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Neurology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Only one effective therapy has been approved for acute ischemic stroke (in which blood flow to an area of the brain is blocked or reduced), according to background information in the article. Within 4.5 hours of developing symptoms, patients receive an intravenous (IV) dose of the ...

Long-term, regular use of vitamins E and C has no apparent effect on the risk of age-related cataract in men, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. "An estimated 20.5 million persons 40 years and older in the United States show some evidence of age-related cataract," the authors write as background information in the article. "Because oxidative damage is a prominent feature of cataracts, one focus of nutrition research has been the link between dietary intake of nutrients with antioxidant potential, ...

Corneal arcus, a condition in which a ring of lipids builds up around the cornea, appears common among middle-age and older adults and may be associated with elevated eye pressure, according to a report in the November issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. Intraocular pressure (the pressure inside the eye) is the only treatable risk factor for glaucoma, the leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide, according to background information in the article. "The accuracy of intraocular pressure measurement is crucial in the diagnosis ...