After decades of public safety campaigns focused on drinking and driving, it may be time to focus on the seventh leading cause of injury-related death, according to Bureau of Occupational Health and Injury Prevention at New York State Department of Health and Columbia University scholars looking at New York State.
Scientists at the Vetmeduni Vienna investigated whether stomach ulcers in cattle are related to the presence of certain bacteria. For their study, they analyzed bacteria present in healthy and ulcerated cattle stomachs and found very few differences in microbial diversity. Bacteria therefore appear to play a minor role in the development of ulcers.
The microbial diversity present in the stomachs of cattle has now been published.
A drug commonly taken to prevent seizures in epilepsy may surprisingly protect the eyesight of people with multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 67th Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, April 18 to 25, 2015.
For the study, the researchers randomly selected 86 people with acute optic neuritis within two weeks of having symptoms to receive either the epilepsy drug phenytoin or a placebo for three months. The researchers then used medical imaging to measure the thickness of the retina, the light sensitive nerve layer at the back of the eye at the beginning of the study and then six months later. Each patient's eyesight (including sharpness and color perception) was also tested.
James Hansen, a former head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies who was one of the first scientists to raise concerns about global climate change, spoke at MIT Tuesday in the biennial David J. Rose Lecture, sponsored by the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering (NSE). Hansen came to prominence in the late 1980s, when he first testified before Congress about the perils of accumulating carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
A new wearable device turns the user’s thumbnail into a miniature wireless track pad, which could let users control wireless devices when their hands are full or enable subtle communication in circumstances that require it, such as sending a quick text to a child while attending an important meeting.Next week at the Association for Computing Machinery’s Computer-Human Interaction conference in Seoul, MIT researchers will describe the prototype of NailO.
Using technology like tablets in schools has turned into a heated political debate. Los Angeles infamously spent $1.3 billion on a program to give iPads to each student, a program that has been plagued with problems.
In the United Kingdom, the head of the National Association of Head Teachers claimed he was dubious about using tech as a teaching aid in non-IT classes.
Neuroscientists say the brain hormone oxytocin acts on individual brain cells to prompt specific social behaviors.
Until now, oxytocin - the "love" hormone - has been linked to sexual attraction and things like regulating breast feeding and promoting maternal-infant bonding, but its precise effect in social behaviors is not known.
Uninsured cancer patients are asked to pay anywhere from 2 to 43 times what Medicare would pay for chemotherapy drugs, according to a new paper. Uninsured patients who did not negotiate the billed amounts could expect to pay $6,711 for an infusion of the colorectal cancer drug oxaliplatin. However, Medicare and private health plans only pay $3,090 and $3,616 for the same drug, respectively.
Although uninsured cancer patients were asked to pay on average two times more than Medicare paid for expensive chemotherapy drugs, very high payment differences were seen for drugs that were quite inexpensive on Medicare. For example, carboplatin was estimated at $26 for one infusion with Medicare, but the estimate for uninsured patients was $1,124.
A study of college students links eating in restaurants with high blood pressure, even in young people.
Globally, high blood pressure - hypertension - is the leading risk factor for death associated with cardiovascular disease. Studies have shown that young adults with slightly elevated blood pressure are at very high risk of hypertension. Eating meals away from home has been shown to be associated with higher caloric intake, higher saturated fat intake and higher salt intake, which are thought to cause high blood pressure.
When Seattle man, Jason Padgett, walked into a bar for a drink a few years ago, he was an ordinary man with seemingly average intelligence leading an unremarkable life. He worked contentedly in his father's furniture shop and had never done well academically or ever cared to do so. On exiting the bar that night, he was viciously mugged, hit on the head and knocked out.
Evolution has endowed females of certain species of amphibians, reptiles and fish with the ability to clone themselves and perpetuate offspring without males. It has even happened more recently but these virgin births don't mean males are unneeded. Fertilization is still ensuring the survival of the maximum number of healthy offspring.A species can increase its numbers faster in harsh environments when its females do not have to find worthy males and scientists have speculated that this ability arose independently in certain species, either due to conflict between the sexes or to ensure survival when mates were scarce. Many of these species now consist entirely of females.
Breast cancer patients often display mild cognitive defects even before chemotherapy and doctors are attributing that to a kind of preemptive post-traumatic stress disorder induced by diagnosis of the disease.Studies have shown that cancer patients often exhibit mild attention deficit and some decrease in memory and other basic cognitive functions. The phenomenon has generally been attributed to putative side-effects of chemotherapeutic drugs on the brain, and the condition is therefore popularly referred to as chemobrain - but more recent investigations have detected symptoms of chemobrain in patients who had not yet embarked on a course of chemotherapy.
A survey of California doctors found that a majority of the 525 who responded believe the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA, also called Obamacare) will steer the country's health care in the right direction, but California has only 28 percent Republicans so that isn't a huge surprise. Doctors were on the side of their political affiliations but were also distinctly divided by medical specialties.
Private practices are on the decline and independent business owners are strongly Republicans. In California, more doctors work for institutions but even with that partisan divide 39 percent thought their practice would be hurt by the legislation and only 36 percent thought it would have no effect. 25 percent believe it will help.
