Washington, DC, (September 14, 2010) — A new study released today by the American Lung Association, and conducted by researchers at Penn State University, finds that helping smokers quit not only saves lives but also offers favorable economic benefits to states. The study, titled Smoking Cessation: the Economic Benefits, provides a nationwide cost-benefit analysis that compares the costs to society of smoking with the economic benefits of states providing cessation (quit-smoking) coverage. The study comes at an important time, as important cessation benefit provisions ...

Antibiotics can work miracles, knocking out common infections like bronchitis and tonsillitis. But according to the Center for Disease Control, each year 90,000 people in the U.S. die of drug-resistant "superbugs" ― bacteria like Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), a deadly form of staph infection resistant to normal antibiotics. Although hospital patients are particularly susceptible as a result of open wounds and weakened immune systems, the bacteria can infect anyone. Dr. Micha Fridman of Tel Aviv University's Department of Chemistry is now developing the next generation ...

NEW YORK (Embargoed until September 14, 2010: 5:00 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time)— A new peer-reviewed paper by the Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups reveals an ominous finding: most of the world's last remaining tigers—long decimated by overhunting, logging, and wildlife trade—are now clustered in just six percent of their available habitat. The paper identifies 42 'source sites' scattered across Asia that are now the last hope and greatest priority for the conservation and recovery of the world's largest cat. The securing of the tiger's remaining source sites ...

Did I turn off the stove, or did I just imagine it? Memory isn't always reliable. Psychological scientists have discovered all sorts of ways that false memories get created, and now there's another one for the list: watching someone else do an action can make you think you did it yourself. The team of psychological scientists who found the new way to create false memories weren't setting out to make a big discovery. They were trying to learn more about imagination, another way that false memories get created. But then in an experiment, they found that people who had watched ...

NASA satellites provide infrared images to forecasters that show temperature, and today's imagery of powerful Hurricane Igor showed the storm's perfect form and the warm ocean waters around it that are keeping it fueled. NASA's infrared data also revealed a huge difference of 170 degrees between the cold cloud tops in Hurricane Igor and the warm sea surface temperatures powering it below. When NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Igor on Sept. 14 at 14:47 UTC (10:47 a.m. EDT) the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument captured icy cold cloud top temperatures in ...

New research findings from the Université de Montréal reveals that children as young as four are able to understand and use irony. This study, published recently in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, may impact the way parents communicate with their family. "Previous studies concluded that irony wasn't understood before the age of eight or ten," says Stephanie Alexander, a postdoctoral student at the Université de Montréal's Department of Social and Preventive Medicine and senior author of the study. "However, these studies were mostly done in a laboratory ...

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Sept. 14, 2010 -- As industries and consumers increasingly seek improved battery power sources, cutting-edge microscopy performed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory is providing an unprecedented perspective on how lithium-ion batteries function. A research team led by ORNL's Nina Balke, Stephen Jesse and Sergei Kalinin has developed a new type of scanning probe microscopy called electrochemical strain microscopy (ESM) to examine the movement of lithium ions through a battery's cathode material. The research, "Nanoscale mapping ...

(Garrison, NY) The most politically charged feature of the health reform law is the mandate that legal residents have health insurance. Within weeks of the law's passage, twenty states had filed lawsuits charging that the mandate is unconstitutional because it gives the federal government more power than it actually has. The state lawsuits are widely expected to reach the Supreme Court next year. Legal scholar Lawrence O. Gostin writes that the health insurance mandate rests on firm legal ground. Under the mandate, which goes into effect in 2014, the federal government ...

Students who enter medical school with high debt levels, low scores on the Medical College Admissions Test (MCAT) or who are non-white are more likely to face difficulties that may prevent graduation or hinder acceptance into a residency program if they do graduate, according to a nationwide study of students enrolled in MD programs. The research, from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is reported Sept. 15 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study of more than 84,000 students who entered U.S. medical schools from 1994-1999 showed ...

Data and research on what it really takes for seniors to make ends meet in each of California's 58 counties will be released today at the state Capitol in Sacramento. The release is the latest update of the Elder Economic Security Standard Index (Elder Index), a tool that measures the actual costs of basic necessities for older adults. The Elder Index is quickly replacing federal poverty level (FPL) guidelines as a new standard for evaluating and meeting the needs of seniors across California. "This year, the federal government officially acknowledged it's time ...

NEW YORK, September 14, 2010 – A blood test at the age of 60 can accurately predict the risk that a man will die from prostate cancer within the next 25 years, according to researchers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in New York, and Lund University, in Sweden. The findings, published today online in the British Medical Journal, could have important implications for determining which men should be screened after the age of 60 and which may not benefit substantially from continued prostate cancer screening. The study analyzed blood samples from 1,167 men born ...

VIDEO: A cavefish (left) and surface fish (right) swimming in assay chambers in the presence of a 50 Hz vibrating rod. When the rod is vibrated, the cavefish, but not surface... Click here for more information. University of Maryland biologists have identified how changes in both behavior and genetics led to the evolution of the Mexican blind cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus) from its sighted, surface-dwelling ancestor. In research published in the August 12, 2010 online edition ...

In an article published in the Sept. 15 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association, (JAMA), author Edward H. Shortliffe, MD, PhD, points out that although information underlies all clinical work, and despite the growing role that information management and access play in healthcare delivery and clinical support, there is a dearth of informatics competency being developed in America's future corps of physicians. Formalized education in the application of informatics and the use and methodologies of health information technology and exchange, Dr. Shortliffe ...

Pre-kindergartners who spend much of their classroom day engaged in so-called free-choice play with little input from teachers make smaller gains in early language and math skills than children who receive input from teachers in a range of different activity settings. Low-income children benefit particularly when a higher proportion of their time is spent in individual instruction settings. Those are the findings of a new study that appears in the September/October 2010 issue of Child Development. "If early childhood education is to level the playing field by stimulating ...

If someone near you yawns, do you yawn, too? About half of adults yawn after someone else does in a phenomenon called contagious yawning. Now a new study has found that most children aren't susceptible to contagious yawning until they're about 4 years old—and that children with autism are less likely to yawn contagiously than others. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Connecticut, appears in the September/October 2010 issue of the journal Child Development. To determine the extent to which children at various stages of social development are likely ...

People with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are thought to have a specific profile of cognitive strengths and weaknesses—difficulties appreciating others' thoughts and feelings, problems regulating and controlling their behavior, and an enhanced ability to perceive details—but few studies have tracked children's cognitive skills over time. Now new longitudinal research provides clues that can inform our understanding of ASD. "Parents and clinicians already know that the behavioral signs of ASD wax and wane throughout development," notes Elizabeth Pellicano, senior lecturer ...

Barriers to children's achievement in the areas of science, math, and engineering have become a particular concern as policymakers focus on America's economic competitiveness. A gender difference in girls' spatial abilities emerges very early in development, and researchers have suggested that this difference may be a source of gaps in achievement in math and science for girls. A new study just published in Child Development describes an intervention that is effective in eliminating the gender gap in spatial abilities. While the research doesn't yet show that the intervention ...

More than 12 million U.S. children under age 6 attend child care or preschool programs. A new longitudinal study of low-income children has found that children in high-quality preschool settings had fewer behavior problems in middle childhood, and that such settings were particularly important for boys and African American children. The study, carried out by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Boston College, Universidad de Los Andes, Loyola University Chicago, and Northwestern University, appears in the September/October 2010 issue of the journal Child Development. "This ...

SEATTLE – It is well known that exposure to radiation has multiple harmful effects – including causing cancer – but until now, it has been unclear to what extent such exposure increases a person's risk of developing more than one cancer. The first large-scale study of the relationship between radiation dose and risk of multiple cancers among atomic bomb survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan reveals a similar risk in the development of first and second subsequent cancers. Christopher I. Li, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center led ...

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A joint study by Indiana University and Columbia University researchers found no change in prejudice and discrimination toward people with serious mental illness or substance abuse problems despite a greater embrace by the public of neurobiological explanations for these illnesses. The study, published online Sept. 15 in the American Journal of Psychiatry, raises vexing questions about the effectiveness of campaigns designed to improve health literacy. This "disease like any other" approach, supported by medicine and mental health advocates, had ...

Animal flocks, be it honeybees, fish, ants or birds, often move in surprising synchronicity and seemingly make unanimous decisions at a moment's notice, a phenomenon which has remained puzzling to many researchers. New research published today, Wednesday 15 September, in New Journal of Physics (co-owned by the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society), uses a particle model to explain the collective decision making process of flocks of birds landing on foraging flights. Using a simple self-propelled particle (SPP) system, which sees the birds represented by ...

Arnhem, 15 September 2010 – A recent TNS NIPO survey, on behalf of the Dutch Association of Urology (NVU) and the European Association of Urology (EAU), showed that almost four out of 10 Dutch men of 50 years and older suffer, or have suffered, from urinary complaints. The same number of men also said in the same survey they are worried that they may have prostate cancer. The TNS NIPO survey also indicated that a significantly larger number of men that suffer, or have suffered, from urinary complaints expressed the concern of having prostate cancer as compared to men ...

PHILADELPHIA –- A collaboration led by a periodontal researcher from the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine has found a possible link between the success of gum-disease treatment and the likelihood of giving birth prematurely, according to a study published in the journal BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. While a number of factors are associated with an increased rate of preterm birth, such as low body-mass index, alcohol consumption and smoking, the study adds to the body of research that suggests oral infection may also ...

Jennifer McGrath received key public safety endorsements in her campaign for re-election as Huntington Beach City Attorney. The Huntington Beach Police Officers Association and the Huntington Beach Firefighters Association have both officially endorsed Jennifer McGrath as the right choice for Huntington Beach City Attorney. "I am honored to receive the endorsement of our local firefighters and police. I applaud the efforts of our police and firefighters in ensuring our community is a better and safer place to live," said Jennifer McGrath. "I have been the City Attorney ...

Lizellen La Follette, MD, has announced that her obstetrics and gynecology medical practice will heighten its patient services through the addition of an associate, Emily E. Binkley, MD. The La Follette practice provides healthcare to women of all ages. Dr. Binkley graduated from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, with a BA in Earth and Planetary Sciences. A John Harvard Scholar for maintaining an A average, Dr. Binkley studied medicine at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee. She completed her residency at Pennsylvania Hospital ...