In a groundbreaking national study, Brown University researchers have traced the connections between state nursing home policies and resident hospitalization rates. The team found that state policies unwittingly create financial incentives for nursing homes to hospitalize their frail elderly residents, even though hospital stays can be disorienting or dangerous. Results are published in Health Services Research.
A University of Illinois at Chicago study has been stopped early due to dramatic preliminary results indicating that medical circumcision reduces the risk of acquiring HIV during heterosexual intercourse by 53 percent.
Could low-level heavy metal pollution be combining with warm water temperatures to fatally weaken sea life? A study examining the joint effects of cadmium and temperature on mitochondrial metabolism in oysters finds a combined effect that is potentially lethal and could be a significant contributor to recent oyster declines. The research has broad implications for cold-blooded marine organisms.
Kids with dyslexia can’t block out distractions, say a group of new studies. The results cast doubt on an influential neurological model of dyslexia developed in the 1970s.
Anti-smoking advertising sponsored by tobacco companies not only has no negative effect on teen smoking, it may actually encourage youngsters to smoke, a new study suggests. Prevention ads aimed at parents also tend to backfire.
University of Minnesota tobacco researchers have found that heavy smokers who reduce their number of daily cigarettes still take in two to three times more total toxins per cigarette than light smokers.
Rice University physicist Michael Deem is taking zeolite design into the 21st Century using a combination of supercomputers at the University of Texas at Austin and disused computing cycles from more than 4,300 idling desktop PCs at Purdue University to create a database containing more than 3.4 million atomic formulations of the porous silicate minerals. Zeolites — there are 50-odd naturally occurring ones and about 180 synthetics — are heavily used by chemical manufacturers.
Researchers have completed drilling a 1,948-foot deep, four-inch diameter borehole for instruments to measure seismic activity in the central United States.
Two Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) research teams working independently have discovered new information about how the botulinum neurotoxin shuts down neurons with deadly efficiency. By providing detailed views of the toxin plugged into its neuronal receptor, the new studies could aid efforts to engineer specialized versions of the powerful neurotoxin that is used to treat a wide array of medical problems.
Hundreds of millions of city dwellers breathe air so polluted with chemicals, smoke and particles that it dramatically exceeds World Health Organization limits with major impacts on health and the environment.