We're bombarded with information at all times, so much that if we had to try and process it all times, we'd be paralyzed. Our cerebellum does information damage control by filtering out what changes. Evolution made it possible for us to conserve energy while still processing anomalies quickly.
Bottom Line: Improved screening and detection efforts, combined with decreases in risk factors like smoking, have reduced the incidence and mortality rates from several common types of cancer in many high-income countries. However, many low-and middle-income countries have seen cancer rates rise, partially due to increases in risk factors that are typical of Western countries.
Journal in Which the Study was Published: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research
Past human factors/ergonomics studies have shown that some in-vehicle technologies intended to help with driving tasks are actually competing for drivers' attention and undermining driving safety. Human factors/ergonomics studies over the past 10-plus years have examined a variety of distractors. The December 2015 special section of Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society leads off with research proposing a method for assessing cognitive distraction while driving and elicits pro and con responses from experts in the field.
An analysis of more than 1.3 million emergency department visits found an increase in patient length of stay of approximately 5 minutes associated with the presence of medical students in the emergency department, which was statistically significant but likely too small to be of clinical relevance, according to a study in the December 8 issue of JAMA, a theme issue on medical education.
OTTAWA, Canada - December 8, 2015 - Scientists from the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) Research Institute participated in several peer-reviewed articles that published today in the International Journal of Obesity Supplements. The series (including 16 original contributions) was prepared by the International Study of Childhood Obesity, Lifestyle and the Environment (ISCOLE) research group, a global collective of leading obesity research experts from 12 countries located on five continents.
(Boston ) -- In the majority of cases, hip x-rays are not reliable for diagnosing hip osteoarthritis (OA), and can delay the treatment of this debilitating disease.
These findings are the first to evaluate the diagnostic performance of an x-ray in patients with clinical signs and symptoms of classic OA. The study appears in the British Medical Journal.
People are less willing to rely on their knowledge and say they know something when they have access to the Internet, suggesting that our connection to the web is affecting how we think.
Professor Evan F. Risko, of the Department of Psychology at the University of Waterloo, led a recent study where the team asked about 100 participants a series of general-knowledge questions, such as naming the capital of France. Participants indicated if they knew the answer or not. For half of the study, participants had access to the Internet. They had to look up the answer when they responded that they did not know the answer. In the other half of the study, participants did not have access to the Internet.
It used to be that poor people did not have enough food, and sometimes we are still told that they don't, but instead it is the case that poor people are far more likely to belief, and then the claim was that poor people had plenty of food, but it was the wrong kind.
This gave rise to the notion of "food deserts", areas in dense urban areas where large grocery stores are too expensive or regulations are too onerous to stay in business and instead only small bodegas can survive. Get rid of the food deserts and poor people would be less obese, but a new paper in PLOS Medicine disputes the notion that making another change without any evidence will cure obesity.
Adjusting a specific deep-brain circuit's firing frequency immediately and dramatically alters rats' forebrain activity and alertness levels, which could eventually take deep brain stimulation to a whole new level.
Deep brain stimulation may one day have potential for restoring consciousness in minimally conscious patients and countering other cases of impaired consciousness. The findings also highlight the importance of determining optimal stimulation frequencies for DBS devices used across a wide range of brain disorders and demonstrate a method for making those determinations.
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) have discovered the most tenuous molecular gas ever observed. They detected the absorption of radio waves by gas clouds in front of bright radio sources. This radio shadow revealed the composition and conditions of diffuse gas in the Milky Way galaxy.
Many people hold the door open for strangers. But what do people give in return?
Their responses appeared to depend on the door holder's effort, according to scientists at the Brain and Creativity Institute at USC. If the door holder made a high effort by making eye contact, smiling and holding open the door, more recipients would say "thank you," researchers found. If the door holder who made a high effort had dropped some pens while trying to hold open the door, the recipient was more likely to stop and help pick them up.
Genes that act as brakes to stop the development of an aggressive form of leukaemia have been identified by researchers.
Their findings offer fresh insights into how to tackle the disease and could lead to new therapies that prevent relapses.
Scientists have found that two molecules - Hif-1alpha and Hif-2alpha - work together to stop the formation of leukemic stem cells in an aggressive type of blood cancer called Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML).
The cancer occurs when production of new blood cells by the bone marrow goes awry. This leads to the formation of leukemic stem cells, which fuel the disease and provide a constant flow of abnormal leukaemia cells.
New Haven, Conn.--It is well documented that a healthy diet and exercise are key in cancer prevention and management, but the exact mechanism hasn't been clear. Now, Yale Cancer Center researchers have found an explanation in the tiny protective ends of chromosomes called telomeres. The findings will be presented Dec. 11 at the 2015 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium.
The researchers used a previously published Yale weight-loss intervention study called LEAN to examine how body fat and weight loss through lifestyle changes are associated with telomere length in breast cancer survivors enrolled in a weight-loss trial. Telomeres shorten with cell division and are associated with aging and increased risk of breast cancer mortality.
