Major progress has been made in reducing the burden of infectious diseases in Brazil as part of a "remarkable" success story for health in the South American country, according to researchers on a series of papers published in The Lancet. After decades of marked social change, including the introduction of unified healthcare for all, Brazil can also celebrate a reduction in mortality from chronic diseases and huge inroads into improving maternal and child health. But the nation still faces problems – including some infectious diseases such as dengue and leishmaniasis, ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – A new study of U.S. veterans ages 70 and older finds that the healthiest get the most benefit from current colon cancer screening methods. However, for many less healthy veterans the burdens of screening may outweigh the benefits. "This study shows that we really need to target screening in older adults, so that those who will benefit do get screened and followed-up while those who won't benefit aren't exposed to unnecessary burdens," said Christine E. Kistler, MD, assistant professor of Family Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel ...

Steganography is a form of security through obscurity in which information is hidden within an unusual medium. An artist might paint a coded message into a portrait, for instance, or an author embed words in the text. A traditional paper watermark is a well-known example of steganography in action. At first glance, there would appear to be nothing unusual about the work, but a recipient aware of the presence of the hidden message would be able to extract it easily. In the computer age, steganography has become more of a science than an art. Those intent on hiding information ...

Flying the EU flag on public buildings on Europe Day (Monday, 9th May) has no impact on public attitudes to the EU. But EU symbols used in practical ways such as at airport passport controls can polarise attitudes to the EU amongst the Scots and Welsh, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Strathclyde, but have little impact on people in England. The research suggests that a split in the UK Coalition on whether to fly the EU flag over public buildings in Whitehall ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13321460) would be based on unfounded ...

Positech Corporation, the leading manufacturer of material handling equipment in North America is pleased to announce they have launched a brand-new design for their website. The website address www.positech.com remains the same, but has been completely reworked to make it more user-friendly and far more comprehensive in its offerings. Positech Corporation's new site features a video library of their products, enhanced search capabilities and a variety of case studies to view. The goal of the new site is educating end-users seeking material handling solutions that will ...

The creation of a post-mortem tissue archive for a study of the human form of mad cow disease failed because of a "misguided" refusal by coroners to participate. The Coroners' Society of England and Wales (CSEW) did not recognise its "moral obligation to protect public health" from potential new risks associated with variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) when it decided not to allow the collection of tissue from autopsies. That is the conclusion of a paper co-written by a researcher at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, which has been published online ...

This release is available in Spanish. This study, published in the journal El Profesional de la Información by the Universidad Complutense de Madrid professor, Antonia Salvador and the UC3M professor, Maria Estrella Gutiérrez, deals with how traditional communication media are implementing applications based on Internet, built upon the ideological and technological basics of the Web 2.0, which allows forms of interaction based on collaborative participation and on the contents generated by the user himself. "Using these social media is a way to capture an audience ...

RakeTheRake.com has today re-branded and re-launched its website to offer its online poker players a highly improved user experience and a wealth of new features and functionality. The new site provides players with a simplified sign up process, an enhanced Your Account area, in-depth rakeback and referral statistics, video tutorials to key areas of the site, and launches two brand new functions; the RakeTheRake forum and free poker training. RakeTheRake, founded seven years ago, has always prided itself on providing the highest levels of customer service in conjunction ...

Are clothing manufacturers helping to turn young girls into sex objects? According to a new study, up to 30 percent of young girls' clothing available online in the US is 'sexy' or sexualizing. The study was carried out by Samantha Goodin, a former Kenyon College (Ohio, USA) student and a research team led by Dr. Sarah Murnen, Professor of Psychology at Kenyon College. In their view, this has serious implications for how girls evaluate themselves according to a sexualized model of feminine physical attractiveness. It makes them confront the issue of sexual identity at a ...

WHAT: Scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), report that they have developed a method—10,000 times more sensitive than other methods—to detect variant Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (vCJD) in blood plasma. vCJD is a type of prion disease in humans that leads to brain damage and death. The NIAID researchers also used the test to rapidly detect scrapie, a prion disease of sheep, in infected hamsters, some pre-symptomatic. Prion diseases, also known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, ...

"At present, it can take up to a year before a patient is diagnosed with SLE. This is because the symptoms are diffuse and are often mistaken for other diseases. However, with this blood-based test, it is possible to determine quickly whether someone has the disease or not", says Christer Wingren, associate professor in Immunotechnology at CREATE Health, Lund University. The test can also determine how far the disease has progressed. There are three different variants of SLE, and all require different treatment. With current methods, it is often difficult to find out ...

ESA's Herschel infrared space observatory has detected raging winds of molecular gas streaming away from galaxies. Suspected for years, these outflows may have the power to strip galaxies of gas and halt star formation in its tracks. The winds that Herschel has detected are extraordinary. The fastest is blowing at a speed of more than 1000 km/s, or about 10 000 times faster than the wind in a terrestrial hurricane. This is the first time that such molecular gas outflows have been unequivocally observed in a sample of galaxies. This is an important discovery because ...

'Healthy' smokers experience changes in the gene expression of their lungs similar to that suffered by smokers who have developed Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). This is the conclusion of a new study, led by Catalan researchers, which confirms the crucial role that smoking plays in causing these alterations. "Our objective was to analyse the expression of a range of genes in the pulmonary tissue samples of patients with COPD, whether smokers or not, and people who had undergone operations for cancer or lung transplants", Ricardo Bastos, lead author of the ...

A Roberts Law Group PLLC client was facing a serious statutory rape charge when attorney Patrick Roberts stepped in to defend against the charge. By challenging the credibility of the accuser, criminal lawyer Roberts was able to negotiate a reduction in the statutory rape charge to indecent liberties with a minor. This reduction led to a decrease in the amount of possible prison time from nearly 25 years to 10 to 12 months. The facts of the case aren't all that uncommon in North Carolina because many don't realize the consequences stemming from sex with a minor. In this ...

Although most commonly associated with military combat, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) can occur in civilians, too – and with consequences that are just as serious, according to a new review article in the Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (JAAOS). PTSD is a type of anxiety disorder that occurs after a person experiences a traumatic event involving physical injury, and occurs in 20 to 51 percent of patients with an orthopaedic injury. "PTSD occurs with a significant frequency in civilian patients who have sustained an orthopaedic trauma, and ...

Children have poor quality sleep. A new study carried out in Valencia shows that 37.4% of children aged from 6 to 8, 25.3% of those aged between 9 and 11, and 31.8% of those aged from 12 to 15 wake up feeling refreshed only once a week, or even not at all. The results also show that 4.26% of them fall asleep in class more than three times per week. "It is important to point out that the way we sleep throughout our lives depends on how we learn to sleep as children", Gonzalo Pin Arboledas, lead author of this study and a doctor at the Valencian Sleep Unit at the Quirón ...

PITTSBURGH—Digital imagery, Facebook updates, online music collections, email threads and other immaterial artifacts of today's online world may be as precious to teenagers as a favorite book that a parent once read to them or a t-shirt worn at a music festival, Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) researchers say. The very fact that virtual possessions don't have a physical form may actually enhance their value, researchers at Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) and School of Design discovered in a study of 21 teenagers. A fuller appreciation of ...

Taking on significant debt has become "normal"—and even patriotic—to some consumers, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "How did America, a country once so indelibly marked with Puritan principles of self-discipline and thrift, become a nation so awash in personal debt?" ask authors Lisa Peñaloza (École des Hautes Études Commerciales du Nord—EDHEC) and Michelle Barnhart (Oregon State University). The researchers interviewed 27 white, middle-class Americans before the 2008 financial crisis and found that even though consumers believe that ...

People who read vivid print advertisements for fictitious products actually come to believe they've tried those products, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. "Exposing consumers to imagery-evoking advertising increases the likelihood that a consumer mistakenly believes he/she has experienced the advertised product, and subsequently produces attitudes that are as strong as attitudes based on genuine product experience," write authors Priyali Rajagopal (Southern Methodist University) and Nicole Montgomery (College of William and Mary). In one ...

DETROIT – Nurse-driven, open-access colonoscopy programs are as effective and safe as colonoscopy following a consultation with a gastroenterologist, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital. "Our results showed no significant differences in safety outcomes related to perforation rate, emergent surgery, post-polypectomy bleed, overall lower gastrointestinal bleed, or death," says Gregory Olds, M.D., chief of interventional gastroenterology and director of endoscopy at Henry Ford Hospital and co-author of the study. With a nurse-driven open access program, a ...

Consumers who set conservative goals have a harder time achieving satisfaction than those who set ambitious goals, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. When cautious consumers meet their goals, they tend to raise the bar and compare themselves to the highest possible standards. Authors Cecile K. Cho (University of California, Riverside) and Venkataramani Johar (Columbia University) compared people who set conservative goals with people who set ambitious goals. They focused on situations in which goals were achieved, and measured the level of satisfaction ...

Technologies for removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are unlikely to offer an economically feasible way to slow human-driven climate change for several decades, according to a report issued by the American Physical Society and led by Princeton engineer Robert Socolow. "We humans should not kid ourselves that we can pour all the carbon dioxide we wish into the atmosphere right now and pull it out later at little cost," said Socolow, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering. The report, issued by a committee of 13 experts, was co-chaired by Socolow ...

Every time consumers spend money on a purchase, they are giving up other consumption down the road. A new study in the Journal of Consumer Research looks at the factors that lead consumers to consider these "opportunity costs." "Rather than viewing a decision as 'Do I buy or do I not buy?' consumers feeling constrained view the decision as 'Do I buy or do I use my money on something else instead?'" writes author Stephen Spiller (UCLA). Feeling constrained is one major factor that leads consumers to consider how purchasing something now will affect what they can purchase ...

Innovative ads can help creative consumers break away from their existing thought patterns, according to a new study in the Journal of Consumer Research. These creative stimuli can affect the way consumers process information about different products. "Creative marketing stimuli are pervasive in the marketplace as marketers and advertisers scramble to break through the clutter to attract consumers' attention and win their approval," write authors Xiaojing Yang (University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee), Torsten Ringberg (Copenhagen Business School), Huifang Mao (University of ...

EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends routine HIV testing for everyone between the ages of 13-64 as part of their regular medical care, testing rates remain low among adolescents. However, a new study from the Bradley Hasbro Children's Research Center suggests teens who are offered free or low-cost rapid HIV testing are often willing to accept the test. According to findings published in the May 2011 issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health, more than half of all adolescents accepted a free rapid HIV test immediately ...