Research on the quality of US resident physician performance levels has often been limited by lack of a comparison group or strict focus on specific diseases and geographical areas. In order to gain insight on differences in quality of care provided by resident physicians versus staff physicians, Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Palo Alto Medical Foundation researchers investigated performance of physicians in 33,900 hospital-based outpatient visits throughout the US. The researchers collected data from the 1997-2004 National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and ...

HOMESTEAD, FL—Florida's lucrative avocado industry could face a serious blow from a duo of deadly new invaders. Together, the invasive fungus called "laurel wilt disease" and the redbay ambrosia beetle, which carries laurel wilt, represent a significant economic threat to the industry. According to a report published in HortTechnology, direct losses from the invasion could range from $183 million to a remarkable high of $356 million. "The impact on the local economy would be catastrophic", noted Dr. Edward A. Evans of the University of Florida's Tropical Research and Education ...

NEW YORK, 20 September 2010 – Immunizing children against preventable diseases is critical to achieving United Nations-led goals to reduce child deaths, global health and development chiefs said in New York today. At an event hosted by UNICEF, the Republic of Kenya and the GAVI Alliance, health ministers, donors and the heads of UN agencies called for the introduction of new vaccines that can dramatically reduce deaths due to diarrhoea and pneumonia, the two biggest killers of children under five. Kenya's Minister of Public Health and Sanitation, Dr Rose Mugo, said her ...

TORONTO, ON – Talking to yourself might not be a bad thing, especially when it comes to exercising self control. New research out of the University of Toronto Scarborough – published in this month's edition of Acta Psychologica – shows that using your inner voice plays an important role in controlling impulsive behaviour. "We give ourselves messages all the time with the intent of controlling ourselves – whether that's telling ourselves to keep running when we're tired, to stop eating even though we want one more slice of cake, or to refrain from blowing up on someone ...

Anti-malarial drugs are being used inappropriately for sick children in Zambia with fevers and difficulty breathing – a problem that can be addressed by arming community health workers with a simple rapid-diagnostic test and a supply of antibiotics, a study led by a team of Boston University School of Public Health [BUSPH] researchers has found. In the study, published online Sept. 21 in PLoS Medicine, the research team from the Center for Global Health and Development at BUSPH addressed the widespread practice of treating children with fevers with anti-malarial drugs, ...

GAINESVILLE, FL—A new trend shows native wildflowers are becoming more popular with consumers. The wildflower seed industry has experienced gains in popularity over the past 30 to 40 years and is considered to be a maturing, highly competitive market. In Florida, for example, a 2005 survey estimated sales of native plants in the state totaled almost $316 million. College students do not fit the traditional demographic profile of gardening and landscaping consumers, but today's horticulture students are tomorrow's decisionmakers—those who will determine how and if native ...

The brain uses biochemical signal molecules Nowadays the biochemical language of the nerve cells is the subject of intensive research right down at the molecular level, and for the first time researchers, some from the University of Copenhagen, have described just how nerve cells are capable of transmitting signals practically simultaneously. The cells of the nervous system communicate using small molecule neurotransmitters such as dopamine, serotonin and noradrenalin. Dopamine is associated with cognitive functions such as memory, serotonin with mood control, and ...

Solomons, Md. (September 21, 2010) – In an era when fisheries management is rife with controversy, new research led by a team of University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science fisheries scientists shows that a new, stakeholder-driven process can improve the way we manage fisheries targeted by both commercial and recreational interests. In the September issue of the journal Fisheries, the team documents how this innovative process resulted in more content stakeholders while implementing more conservative harvest measures for the king mackerel fishery in the ...

Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine have found that the naturally-occurring hormone oxytocin selectively improves social cognitive abilities for less socially proficient individuals, but has little effect on those who are more socially proficient. The study was published today in Psychological Science. Researchers at the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Columbia University wanted to determine if oxytocin, popularly dubbed the "hormone of love," could have widespread benefit in making us more understanding ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — In the last two weeks, news media have covered stories on an Angus beef recall, oil-tainted Gulf shrimp and salmonella-infected eggs. Anecdotal evidence suggests that such headlines affect consumer spending. New research from Michigan State University demonstrates how these announcements indeed cause consumers as well as food industry professionals to make purchasing decisions. Consumers are not only quite attuned to food safety issues, but they also have significantly changed their shopping habits because of them, according to Chris Peterson, ...

BOULDER--The biblical account of the parting of the Red Sea has inspired and mystified people for millennia. A new computer modeling study by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) shows how the movement of wind as described in the book of Exodus could have parted the waters. The computer simulations show that a strong east wind, blowing overnight, could have pushed water back at a bend where an ancient river is believed to have merged with a coastal lagoon along the Mediterranean Sea. With the ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Mixed-use neighborhoods that combine residential and business development may help lead to lower levels of some types of violent crime, a new study suggests. The results were just as true in impoverished neighborhoods as they were in more affluent areas, offering one possible way of improving blighted areas, according to the researchers. But the findings come with an important caveat. In a sparsely populated neighborhood, increases in business-residential density actually leads to higher levels of violent crimes, at least for a while. However, after ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The presidents of six leading research universities and two higher-education associations joined Vice President Joe Biden and White House science advisor Dr. John Holdren this morning to discuss the scientific research and related activities that have been made possible by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Participating in the event held in the Roosevelt Room of the White House were France Córdova, president, Purdue University; Ron Daniels, president, The Johns Hopkins University; Elson Floyd, president, Washington State University; ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Using digital evolution techniques that give scientists the ability to watch evolution in action, Michigan State University researchers have shed new light on what it is that makes species altruistic. Defined as the ability to sacrifice yourself for the sake of others, altruism has been a bit of a genetic mystery. Understanding why altruism evolves is one of the fundamental challenges in evolutionary theory. However, a paper published online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B by researchers affiliated with MSU's BEACON Center for ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. --- Unlike Vegas, what happens in China doesn't stay in China. The country's environmental challenges have worldwide implications, so more developed nations, such as the United States, need to help China adopt integrated solutions for the sake of global sustainability, a Michigan State University environmental scientist argues. "What happens in China affects the rest of the world," said Jianguo "Jack" Liu, University Distinguished Professor of fisheries and wildlife. Liu is known around the world for his work on environmental sustainability and coupled ...

BEAUMONT - Figuring out how a rice crop was faring used to be a head-scratching exercise with predictably unpredictable results. But now a few punches on a keyboard can yield a pretty close forecast for a rice crop and tell a farmer what changes could improve the outcome at harvest. The program, Rice Development Advisory, stems from extensive data collected over the years by researchers at the Texas AgriLife Research Center in Beaumont. They methodically accumulated reams of data in the course of studying and creating improved varieties of rice. As technology improved, ...

(CHICAGO) – Neurological researchers at Rush University Medical Center have found a new therapeutic target that can potentially lead to a new way to prevent the progression of Alzheimer's disease. The target called neutral sphingomyelinase (N-SMase) is a protein that when activated, can cause a chain of reactions in the cell leading to neuronal death and memory loss. Results from the study funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Alzheimer's Association will be published in the September 22 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience. "There are multiple, neurotoxic, ...

At a time when new transfer arrangements mean children in Northern Ireland will no longer be formally assessed in science at age 11, researchers at Queen's University have found overwhelming support for science assessment in primary schools in England and Wales. The study, which was conducted by researchers at Queen's School of Education on behalf of the Wellcome Trust, is the first study to look at the attitudes and concerns of children and parents on the way science is assessed in primary schools in England and Wales. It is hoped the findings will be used to inform ...

PORTLAND, Ore - Research conducted at Oregon Health & Science University's Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute may spur debate about the risks associated with administering a specific compound in some forms of bone-marrow transplantation. The research is published in the current edition of Cell Host and Microbe. The VGTI research team, led by institute director Jay Nelson, Ph.D., studies human cytomegalovirus, a virus that may infect up to 80 percent of the American population. The exact percentage of infected citizens is unknown due to the fact that the virus causes minor ...

Washington, DC – In order for targeted therapies against cancer to be effective, scientists need to understand upfront what related proteins in a signaling "network" makes a cancer cell resistant to a drug and selectively target them as well, say researchers at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center and Fox Chase Cancer Center. In the September 21 issue of Science Signaling, the investigators discuss how cancer cells activate a network of pro-growth proteins that can bypass a molecule being therapeutically targeted. The researchers specifically found that many ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — In the complex world of ant-plant partnerships, serial monogamy can help trees maximize their evolutionary fitness, a new University of Florida study shows. Trees that sequentially partner with multi-species sets of ants produce more offspring than trees that maintain a lifelong association with any single ant — even when those sets include ant species that appear to harm the tree, said Todd Palmer, a UF biology professor. The study has broad implications because many of the world's ecosystems rely on cooperative partnerships between species, Palmer ...

Titan, one of Saturn's moons, is the only moon in the solar system with an atmosphere ― ten times denser than the atmosphere of Earth. Five years ago, the Cassini–Huygens mission to Saturn, a collaboration between the European Space Agency and NASA, sent a probe through Titan's atmosphere, revealing that Titan is home to a landscape that includes hills, valleys and most notably lakes. A researcher involved with the mission, Prof. Akiva Bar-Nun of Tel Aviv University's Department of Geophysics and Planetary Sciences, has now determined the composition of these lakes. ...

Scientists from the California Institute of Technology and UCLA have discovered evidence of "universal ubiquitous magnetic fields" that have permeated deep space between galaxies since the time of the Big Bang. Caltech physicist Shin'ichiro Ando and Alexander Kusenko, a professor of physics and astronomy at UCLA, report the discovery in a paper to be published in an upcoming issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters; the research is currently available online. Ando and Kusenko studied images of the most powerful objects in the universe — supermassive black holes that ...

Grabbing a child firmly by the arm, yelling and repeatedly punishing him or her may not be without long-terms risks, according to researchers from the Université de Montréal. They are studying how this harsh parenting can impair the emotional development of a child, possibly leading to anxiety disorders such as social phobia, separation anxiety and panic attacks. "Several studies have shown that coercive parenting practices are linked to anxiety," says Françoise Maheu a professor at the Université de Montréal's Department of Psychiatry and lead investigator of the study. ...

PHILADELPHIA (September 21, 2010)—Molecularly targeted therapies can reduce tumors rapidly. However, not all tumors respond to the drugs, and even those that do often develop resistance over time. Looking for a way to combat the problem of resistance, researchers at Fox Chase Cancer Center hypothesized that hitting already weakened cancer cells with a second targeted agent could kill them—but only if it was the right second agent. One well-validated molecular target for anti-cancer drugs is the epidermal growth factor receptor, or EGFR. Using a novel screening approach, ...