With a push to make hospitals and doctors more accountable for health care quality, more attention must be paid to the accuracy and reliability of measures used to evaluate caregivers, says a prominent Johns Hopkins patient safety expert. Writing in the April issue of the journal Health Affairs, Peter J. Pronovost, M.D., Ph.D., a professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, argues that as the desire to evaluate and improve health care intensifies, there remains little consensus as to which measures are scientifically ...

The animals on the earth have adapted themselves to the environmental temperature changes such as hot in deserts, or cold in the glacial epochs. However, the molecular mechanism for adaptation to thermal environments in the evolutionary process involving temperature sensors was not well understood. Professor Makoto Tominaga and Assistant Professor Shigeru Saito at The National Institute for Physiological Sciences (Okazaki Institute for Integrative Bioscience) demonstrate that the molecule called TRP channels, serve as temperature sensors in animals, sense different temperature ...

Since the double disaster of the 9.0 magnitude earthquake and tsunami that affected hundreds of thousands of people and seriously damaged the Fukushima Daichi power plant in Japan on 11 March 2011, minute traces of radioactive emissions from Fukushima have spread across the entire northern hemisphere. A monitoring network designed to detect signs of nuclear explosions picked up these traces from the stricken power plant. To date, more than 30 radionuclide stations that are part of the International Monitoring System (IMS) have provided information on the spread of radioactive ...

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Swift, Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory have teamed up to study one of the most puzzling cosmic blasts yet observed. More than a week later, high-energy radiation continues to brighten and fade from its location. Astronomers say they have never seen anything this bright, long-lasting and variable before. Usually, gamma-ray bursts mark the destruction of a massive star, but flaring emission from these events never lasts more than a few hours. Although research is ongoing, astronomers say that the unusual blast likely arose when ...

[April 7, 2011, WASHINGTON] – To head off a health care disaster, the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has developed a plan to combat deadly antibiotic-resistant "super bugs" and is rolling out the multi-pronged plan today, on World Health Day 2011. Infections are becoming increasingly resistant to existing antibiotics, while the number of new antibiotics being developed has plummeted. IDSA warns that unless sweeping actions are taken now, the future could resemble the days before these miracle drugs were developed. People will die of common infections and ...

This release is available in Spanish. A newly identified chemical sex attractant, or pheromone, of the emerald ash borer could mean improved traps for monitoring and controlling the tree-killing beetle. That's the goal of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) entomologist Allard Cossé and his colleagues. Cossé has been searching for such attractants since 2007 as part of a multidisciplinary team of scientists from USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Forest Service (FS) and Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS). Early success came with the identification ...

AMES, Iowa – A newly discovered gene introduced into soybean plants has increased the amount of protein in the plant's seed and could hold promise for helping meet nutritional needs of a hungry world. Eve Wurtele, professor of genetics, development and cell biology; and Ling Li, an adjunct assistant professor and an associate scientist working in her laboratory, have placed a gene found only in Arabidopsis plants into soybean plants and increased the amount of protein in the soybean seeds by 30 to 60 percent. The results were a pleasant surprise to the researchers as ...

Australian-themed online casino operators, the CasinoAUS.com Network, have awarded their registered patron KB with the sum of EUR22,409.30 on the player's having won on the Progressive Jackpot slots game LotsaLoot, a highly popular gaming title on the Network. The CasinoAUS.com Network boasts a gaming portfolio of 24 separate titles, 18 of which fall under the online casino slots gaming subcategory. The popularity of Progressive Jackpot games in the online arena - specifically of the online slots variety - is undisputed in the online gaming industry. The reason for this ...

TORONTO, Ont., April 7, 2011 – Virtual reality and other video games can significantly improve motor function in stroke patients, according to research from St. Michael's Hospital. Patients who played video games, such as Wii and Playstation, were up to five times more likely to show improvements in arm motor function compared to those who had standard therapy. "Virtual reality gaming is a promising and potentially useful alternative to enhance motor improvement after stroke," said Dr. Gustavo Saposnik, the lead author of the study and the director of the Stroke Outcomes ...

Doren in the Austrian Bregenzerwald, February 2007: a slope 650 meters long breaks, resulting in a massive slide into the valley below. The nearest residential buildings are very close to the 70-meter-high rim. This barely avoided catastrophe is not the only incident. Geologists have been monitoring increasingly unstable masses of earth over the past few years in the Alps and other Alpine regions, which have slipped down slopes and on slid unchecked down valleys to more stable substrates. The scientists are primarily looking at heavy rainfall and snowmelt caused by climatie ...

Border states from California to Texas have been the site of some of the most heated rhetoric over U.S. immigration policy in recent years. After Arizona's passage of its notorious state law dominated American headlines for weeks in 2010, politicians in many states around the country followed suit by introducing similar legislation. Recent legislation approved by the Utah legislature and awaiting its governor's signature is receiving praise as a rare example of "sane" immigration policy. Key features of the Utah immigration reform bill include enhanced law enforcement, ...

A University of Iowa study finds that patients treated with a short course of antidepressants after a stroke have significantly greater improvement in physical recovery than patients treated with a placebo. Moreover, the study is the first to demonstrate that this physical recovery continues to improve for at least nine months after the antidepressant medication is stopped. "The idea that antidepressants might benefit early recovery from stroke has been around for a couple of years," said Robert Robinson, M.D., UI professor and head of psychiatry and senior study author. ...

Patients with a temporary surgical implant have used regions of the brain that control speech to "talk" to a computer for the first time, manipulating a cursor on a computer screen simply by saying or thinking of a particular sound. "There are many directions we could take this, including development of technology to restore communication for patients who have lost speech due to brain injury or damage to their vocal cords or airway," says author Eric C. Leuthardt, MD, of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Scientists have typically programmed the ...

The Florida foreclosure crisis has created distress across the state. Government officials are now pursuing people who may have contributed to the crisis through deceptive or unlawful practices. The Office of the Attorney General of Florida has announced that it is investigating all aspects of the foreclosure crisis and prosecuting cases involving fraud or misrepresentation. For example, in March 2011, three people were charged with conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud and mortgage fraud in a mortgage-fraud case. Two of them were also charged with conspiracy to commit ...

New Rochelle, NY, April 7, 2011—New recommendations from the American Thyroid Association (ATA) on outpatient radioiodine (131I) treatment aim to minimize unintended radiation exposure and maximize the safety of patients, their families, and the public. The new ATA recommendations are presented in the April issue of Thyroid, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. (www.liebertpub.com). The ATA recommendations are available free online at www.liebertpub.com/thy The ATA convened a task force to update radiation safety information related to outpatient ...

Discussions of tax evasion often focus on individual and corporate taxpayers. Perhaps this is because people and corporations responsible for paying taxes have direct incentives to misrepresent their income or otherwise provide inaccurate information on their tax returns. When investigating tax evasion, however, the Internal Revenue Service does not limit its inquiries to those who are responsible for paying taxes. Since 1996, the IRS Criminal Investigation Return Preparer Program has investigated and prosecuted tax preparers suspected of breaking tax-preparation laws ...

Workers exposed to welding fumes may be at increased risk of damage to the same brain area harmed by Parkinson's disease, according to a new study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Fumes produced by welding contain manganese, an element that scientists have linked to neurological problems including Parkinson's disease-like symptoms. "In the United States alone, there are more than 1 million workers who perform welding as a part of their jobs," says Brad Racette, MD, professor of neurology at Washington University School of Medicine. ...

PORTLAND, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University's Oregon National Primate Research Center may have good news for women at high-risk for ovarian cancer who also want to have children. The research suggests that a layer of cells, which serve as the "breeding ground" for ovarian cancer, may be removed yet allow the women to have children. This would be a vast improvement over the current prevention strategy for women at high risk for ovarian cancer: Removal of the ovaries entirely. The research is published in the current online edition of the journal Human ...

(Edmonton) Ian Colman, an epidemiologist in the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta, recently completed a study that suggests that treatment of depression may have long-term benefits. The data Colman reviewed came from the National Population Health Survey, a longitudinal Canadian study, and showed depressed adults who use antidepressants are three times less likely to be depressed eight years later, compared to depressed adults who don't use antidepressants. To date, research into the effects of antidepressant treatments for individuals with major ...

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, across the nation at least 1.7 million people suffer a traumatic brain injury (TBI) every year. Of those injured, 52,000 die. There are more then 5.3 million people living in the United States with disabilities caused by TBI. These figures may underreport instances of TBI, since those the number of people who receive no hospital or emergency room care is currently unknown. Traumatic Brain Injury Symptoms TBI occurs when trauma causes damage to the brain, frequently a result of a sudden and violent blow to ...

Warning labels on junk food would be more effective than a "fat" tax for deterring overweight people from making unhealthy purchases, a new University of Alberta study has found. A survey of 364 shoppers in random Alberta grocery stores showed that while price alone wouldn't deter people from reaching for junk food, shoppers—including those with the heaviest body mass index—did heed a label that warned of high fat content and included a note that the item was being taxed because of it. The study asked shoppers to choose between high-fat and healthier snacks in the ...

WASHINGTON -- A new supercomputer simulation shows the collision of two neutron stars can naturally produce the magnetic structures thought to power the high-speed particle jets associated with short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The study provides the most detailed glimpse of the forces driving some of the universe's most energetic explosions. The state-of-the-art simulation ran for nearly seven weeks on the Damiana computer cluster at the Albert Einstein Institute (AEI) in Potsdam, Germany. It traces events that unfold over 35 milliseconds -- about three times faster than ...

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine released a report indicating that medical mistakes accounted for more than one million injuries and as many as 98,000 deaths every year in the United States. The report spawned a national movement to reduce medical errors, but a new study published by The New England Journal of Medicine shows bleak results. The first large study in a decade to analyze and track harm resulting from medical care shows that the number of patients suffering harm from medical errors or inadvertent problems persists at a steady pace. Remedial Efforts Falling ...

If someone entered your apartment -- because the front door locks were broken -- and physically assaulted you, it may be possible to hold the landlord legally responsible. The same is true for management in a restaurant or other public place, if an attack occurs there. Under traditional laws of negligence, one private person has no duty to another private person to protect him or her from an assault or other violent act. For many years, landlords, innkeepers, and other property owners used this quirk of the common law to avoid liability. But across the country, courts ...

Florida remains near the top in the country in foreclosure filings.Florida remains near the top in the country in foreclosure filings. A recent report released by Florida's Office of the State Court's Administrator (OSCA) showing a marked decrease in its backlog of court foreclosure cases does not mean that the crisis is easing. South Florida experienced a drop of 8.9 percent in its foreclosure case load in the final three months of 2010, while Miami-Dade and Broward Counties saw a drop of 44.2 percent from the last quarter in the disposition of foreclosure cases. None, ...