Body
The transition from light bulbs to LEDs has drastically cut the amount of electricity we use for lighting. Most of the electricity consumed by incandescent bulbs was, after all, dissipated as heat. We may now be on the verge of a comparable breakthrough in electronic computer components. Up to now, these have been run on electricity, generating unwanted heat. If spin current were employed instead, computers and similar devices could be operated in a much more energy-efficient manner. Dr.
BOSTON - Every year, more than 330,000 people are diagnosed with kidney cancer worldwide. More than 80 percent of those new cases are renal cell carcinomas (RCC). When caught early, the five-year survival rate is more than 90 percent. Patients diagnosed with more invasive tumors, however, have dramatically poorer prognoses, with five-year survival rates of 50 percent and 10 percent for patients diagnosed at stages III and IV respectively. Early detection could improve the overall survival rate in patients at high risk for death from RCC.
A blood test conducted as early as the 10th week of pregnancy may help identify women at risk for gestational diabetes, a pregnancy-related condition that poses potentially serious health risks for mothers and infants, according to researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions. The study appears in Scientific Reports.
PHILADELPHIA--Parkinson's disease affects more than 4 million people worldwide, with numbers projected to double in the next few decades. With no known cure, there is a race for treatments to slow or stop the progression of the disease. Key to the research and discovery of treatments for Parkinson's is the identification of biomarkers--a measureable biological indicator, such as proteins found in blood, which can help diagnose disease.
Eating breakfast before exercise may "prime" the body to burn carbohydrates during exercise and more rapidly digest food after working out, University of Bath researchers have found.
Scientists from the University's Department for Health, working with colleagues at the universities of Birmingham, Newcastle and Stirling, were studying the effect of eating breakfast versus fasting overnight before an hour's cycling. In a control test breakfast was followed by three hours' rest. The volunteers ate a breakfast of porridge made with milk two hours before exercise.
Half as many women in labour who were given a drug called remifentanil to help manage their pain needed a subsequent epidural, compared to the women given pethidine - the current standard of care, according to an open-label randomised controlled trial of 400 women from 14 maternity units in the UK published in The Lancet.
A pioneering study into myeloma, a rare cancer, could lead to GPs using simple blood tests to improve early diagnosis.
The study investigated the best combination of blood tests that could be used to diagnose myeloma in GP practices.
The research was a collaboration between the University of Oxford, the University of Exeter and Chiddenbrook Surgery, Crediton, funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and is published in the British Journal of General Practice.
Women's Preventive Services Initiative says screen all women annually for urinary incontinence
A Kaiser Permanente study of more than 80,000 children born over a 4-year period showed that the prenatal Tdap vaccination (tetanus, diphtheria, acellular pertussis) was not associated with increased risk of autism spectrum disorder in children. The study was published today in Pediatrics.
Early childhood seizures result from a rare disease that begin in the first months of life. Researchers at University of Utah Health have developed high-tech tools to uncover the genetic cause of the most difficult to diagnose cases. The results are available online on August 13 in the journal Nature Genomic Medicine.
A major new study has shown that rotavirus vaccination reduced infant diarrhoea deaths by 34% in rural Malawi, a region with high levels of child deaths.
The study led by scientists at the University of Liverpool, UCL, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and partners in Malawi provides the first population-level evidence from a low-income country that rotavirus vaccination saves lives.
PHILADELPHIA -- About one in five college students reported in a survey that they knew someone who was addicted to pain medications, and nearly a third said they knew somebody who overdosed on painkillers or heroin, according to a team of undergraduate Penn State Lehigh Valley researchers.
This secondary exposure to opioid abuse may shine a light on the collateral damage that is often left out of the current debate about the epidemic, said Jennifer Parker, associate professor of sociology, Penn State Lehigh Valley.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Our digital lives may be making us more distracted, distant and drained, according to research presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association.
For instance, even minor phone use during a meal with friends was enough to make the diners feel distracted and reduced their enjoyment of the experience, one study found.
A critical biomarker of kidney disease may help predict clear cell kidney cancer - the most common form of kidney cancer - years before clinical diagnosis. Kidney-injury-molecule-1 (KIM-1) can be detected in the urine and blood and is generally present at low levels in healthy individuals. Prior research by leaders at Brigham and Women's Hospital has shown that KIM-1 is an important and highly predictive marker for kidney injury.
Kaiser Permanente members in Northern California are 52 percent less likely to die from colorectal cancer since the health care system launched a comprehensive, organized screening program, according to a new study in the specialty's top journal, Gastroenterology.