Montreal, May 10, 2010 – As people face a terminal illness and are confined to a hospital bed or hospice room, music can provide a great source of solace. North American healthcare professionals have increasingly recognized the benefits of music therapy in palliative care, since end-of-life treatment is designed to meet the psychosocial, physical and spiritual needs of patients. Sandi Curtis, a music therapy professor in the Concordia University Department of Creative Arts Therapies, has published a new study on the topic in the journal Music and Medicine. Her findings ...

UPTON, NY - In a step toward engineering ever-smaller electronic devices, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have assembled nanoscale pairings of particles that show promise as miniaturized power sources. Composed of light-absorbing, colloidal quantum dots linked to carbon-based fullerene nanoparticles, these tiny two-particle systems can convert light to electricity in a precisely controlled way. "This is the first demonstration of a hybrid inorganic/organic, dimeric (two-particle) material that acts as an electron donor-bridge-acceptor ...

On September 11, 2001, the air was sizzling with anger—and the anger got hotter as the hours passed. That, anyway, was one finding of a 2010 analysis by Mitja Back, Albrecht Küfner, and Boris Egloff of 85,000 pager messages sent that day. The researchers employed a commonly used tool called Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count, or LIWC, which teases out information from the frequency of word usages in texts. But were Americans really so angry? Clemson University psychologist Cynthia L. S. Pury wasn't out to answer that question when she made the discovery that was just published ...

While the disturbing act of self-injury is nothing new to adolescents, researchers and physicians at Nationwide Children's Hospital have identified a more severe type of behavior that is raising some concern among medical professionals. Often misdiagnosed, ignored and under-reported, Self-Embedding Behavior (SEB) is a form of self-injurious behavior that involves inserting foreign objects into soft tissue – either under the skin or into muscle. A recent study, published in the June issue of Pediatrics, stresses the importance of quickly identifying this dangerous behavior ...

WASHINGTON, May 10, 2011 — A two-in-one material that can both detect and neutralize explosives of the type favored by Richard Reid, the notorious shoe bomber who tried to blow-up a commercial airliner in 2001, is the topic of the latest episode in the American Chemical Society's (ACS) award-winning "Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions" podcast. The podcast explains that the detector/neutralizer is a material made of metal oxide nanoparticles so small that 50,000 could fit across the width of a single human hair. It changes color in the presence of certain explosives, ...

While many 16-year-olds are content with PlayStation, Toronto-area student Marshall Zhang used the Canadian SCINET supercomputing network to invent a new drug cocktail which could one day help treat cystic fibrosis. The Grade 11 student at Bayview Secondary School in Richmond Hill so impressed eight eminent scientists at the National Research Council of Canada laboratories in Ottawa they awarded him first prize today in the 2011 Sanofi-Aventis BioTalent Challenge. Jonathan Khouzam, Simon Leclerc, Francis Marcogliese, all 19, of Montreal's CÉGEP Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf, ...

WASHINGTON -- People who have a good peer support system at work may live longer than people who don't have such a support system, according research published by the American Psychological Association. This effect of peer social support on the risk of mortality was most pronounced among those between the ages of 38 and 43. Yet similar support from workers' supervisors had no effect on mortality, the researchers found. In addition, men who felt like they had control and decision authority at work also experienced this "protective effect," according to the study, published ...

HOUSTON — A new genomic test combining multiple signatures – a patient's estrogen receptor status, endocrine therapy response, chemotherapy resistance and sensitivity – shows promise as a predictor of chemotherapy response and survival benefit in women with invasive breast cancer, according to research led by The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The findings, published in the May 11 issue of JAMA, also may determine those for whom standard therapy alone might not offer enough, and/or for whom an appropriate clinical trial in the adjuvant setting could provide ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have defined a new class of software, calling it "surrogate interaction," which enables designers and video gamers to more easily change features of complex objects like automotive drawings or animated characters. The new interactive approach is being used commercially and in research but until now has not been formally defined, and doing so could boost its development and number of applications, said Ji Soo Yi, an assistant professor of industrial engineering at Purdue University. Conventional computer-aided design programs often ...

Sudden cardiac death is always a shocking, tragic event, especially when it occurs at a young age. But, for the first time, scientists are unraveling how genetic defects can help predict the risk of dying suddenly in individuals with one of the leading causes of this unfortunate phenomenon. This knowledge could guide treatment and potentially lessen the occurrence of sudden cardiac death in patients with Long QT syndrome, a rare, inherited heart rhythm disorder. It could also provide insight into the assessment and treatment of the millions of people who experience cardiac ...

DETROIT — A landmark study by scientists at Wayne State University published in the May 6, 2011, issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, the most prestigious journal in the field, has revealed a new way to distinguish children with major depressive disorder (MDD) from not only normal children, but also from children with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). MDD is a common, debilitating disease prevalent in childhood and adolescence. Examination of cortical thickness in patients with MDD has not been widely studied, and WSU's team of researchers set out to determine ...

Two decades after Brazil's constitution recognized health as a citizen's right and a duty of the state, the country has vastly expanded health care coverage, improved the population's health, and reduced many health inequalities, but universal and equitable coverage remains elusive, experts from four major Brazilian universities and New York University have concluded. According to their analysis—one of six articles published in the medical journal The Lancet as a special series on health in Brazil—while federal expenditures have nearly quadrupled over the past 10 years, ...

This release is available in Spanish. High-tech tactics to carefully examine apples and other fresh produce items as they travel along packinghouse conveyor belts will help ensure the quality and safety of these good-for-you foods. U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists in Beltsville, Md., have developed and patented an experimental, cutting-edge optical scanning system that would use two different kinds of lighting, a sophisticated camera and other pieces of equipment to scrutinize produce-section favorites while they are still at the packinghouse. The ...

This release is available in German. Marianne has constant pain in her right knee at the moment – she hurt it when she took a tumble skiing in the Swiss Alps. Everything happened so quickly: The searing pain, the helicopter ride to hospital, the operation the following day, and then a week later the return home with crutches to rest in a reclining chair. Her aim now is to mobilize the operated knee and regain full mobility of the joint – something she'll achieve by following a targeted machine-based training plan drawn up by a physiotherapist. In order to be able ...

People who are depressed are less likely to adhere to medications for their chronic health problems than patients who are not depressed, putting them at increased risk of poor health, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Researchers found that depressed patients across a wide array of chronic illnesses such as diabetes and heart disease had 76 percent greater odds of being non-adherent with their medications compared to patients who were not depressed. The findings were published online by the Journal of General Internal Medicine. The study is the largest systematic ...

DETROIT – Lowering the cost of hearing aids isn't enough to motivate adults with mild hearing loss to purchase a device at a younger age or before their hearing worsens, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital. A new study shows that simply lowering the cost of hearing aids – even by as much as 40% – does not improve hearing aid purchase for patients with partial insurance coverage or those who need to cover the entire cost out of pocket. Only patients with full insurance coverage for hearing aids get them at a younger age and with significantly less hearing ...

SALT LAKE CITY—Leukemia is the most common childhood cancer; it also occurs in adults. Now researchers working with zebrafish at Huntsman Cancer Institute (HCI) at the University of Utah have identified previously undiscovered high-risk genetic features in T-cell acute lymphocytic leukemia (T-ALL), according to an article published online May 9, 2011, in the cancer research journal Oncogene. When compared to samples from human patients with T-ALL, these genetic characteristics allowed scientists to predict which patients may have more aggressive forms of the disease that ...

According to two new policy briefs from the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, the majority of state residents likely to be eligible for federally mandated health insurance coverage initiatives in California in 2014 are also those who may be least likely to excessively use costly health services: men, singles and those of working age. As a result of last year's passage of the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), up to 4.57 million previously uninsured or underinsured Californians may be eligible for coverage, either through an expansion of ...

TORONTO, Ont., May 11, 2011 — Disease-modifying drugs (DMDs) are injected medications used to slow the progression of multiple sclerosis (MS), and have been shown to reduce the frequency and severity of relapses. But according to a new study led by St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), adherence to all DMDs is low, with less than half of patients, or 44 per cent, continually adherent after two years. "There are a number of reasons why adherence to therapies of proven value might be low," says Dr. Paul O'Connor, director of the ...

This discovery will make it possible to improve photoelectrochemical cells. In the same way that plants use photosynthesis to transform sunlight into energy, these cells use sunlight to drive chemical reactions that ultimately produce hydrogen from water. The process involves using a light-sensitive semi-conducting material such as cuprous oxide to provide the current needed to fuel the reaction. Although it is not expensive, the oxide is unstable if exposed to light in water. Research by Adriana Paracchino and Elijah Thimsen, published May 8, 2011 in the journal Nature ...

LIVERMORE, Calif. --Skin cells shed from livestock infected with foot and mouth disease could very well spread the disease. In a new paper appearing in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory scientist Michael Dillon proposed that virus-infected skin cells could be a source of infectious foot and mouth disease virus aerosols. His proposal is based on the facts that foot and mouth disease virus is found in skin and that airborne skin cells are known to transmit other diseases. The proposal could lead to new methods for surveillance ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Whether they know it or not, anyone who's ever gotten a speeding ticket after zooming by a radar gun has experienced the Doppler effect – a measurable shift in the frequency of radiation based on the motion of an object, which in this case is your car doing 45 miles an hour in a 30-mph zone. But for the first time, scientists have experimentally shown a different version of the Doppler effect at a much, much smaller level – the rotation of an individual molecule. Prior to this such an effect had been theorized, but it took a complex experiment with a ...

Even the merest of microbes must be able to talk, to be able to interact with its environment and with others to not just survive, but to thrive. This cellular chatter comes in the form of signaling molecules and exchanged metabolites (molecules involved in the process of metabolism or living) that can have effects far larger than the organism itself. Humans, for example, rely upon thousands of products derived from microbially produced molecules, everything from antibiotics and food supplements to ingredients used in toothpaste and paint. Remarkably, most of what's known ...

Halfpricesoft.com (http://www.halfpricesoft.com) announces that ezCheckPrinting users can get the popular check writing software or blank check stock for free when they check out through TrialPay offer from halfpricesoft.com site. "It's a win-win-win-win situation: the customer gets free product, we make sales, the TrialPay advertiser makes sales, and TrialPay gets commissions," said Dr Ge, the founder of halfpricesoft.com. "In a down economy, companies need to streamline and increase efficiency, so they can be more productive with every minute and every ...

A new study by researchers in Hong Kong suggests that systemic sclerosis is an independent determinant for moderate to severe coronary calcification or atherosclerosis. Conventional cardiovascular risk factors such as age and hypertension predispose patients with systemic sclerosis to plaque build-up in the heart arteries similar to the general population. Details of this study are now available in Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR). Systemic sclerosis, also known as scleroderma, is a ...