In political campaigns, timing is almost everything. Candidates communicate with voters over a long period of time before voters actually vote. What candidates say to these voters is, of course, important, but it turns out that when they say it also influences voter preferences.
Body
How the body regulates blood pressure in response to daily stress is the focus of a study geared toward helping people whose pressure is out of control.
"Research shows that two-thirds of patients' high blood pressure is not controlled despite the best efforts of their doctors. That is terrible," says Dr. Gregory Harshfield, director of the Georgia Prevention Institute at the Medical College of Georgia.
For high-risk patients, stroke-prevention surgical procedure does not equate with high surgical risk
CHICAGO (August 14, 2008) – New research published in the August issue of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons shows that "high-risk" patients with multiple medical conditions, including high blood pressure and coronary artery disease, can safely undergo carotid endarterectomy – a stroke-preventing surgical procedure that clears blockages from the neck's carotid arteries.
All countries should take steps to govern organ donation and transplantation, thereby ensuring patient safety and prohibiting unethical practices, according to an article appearing in the September 2008 issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN). The document is a consensus of more than 150 representatives of scientific and medical bodies from around the world, government officials, social scientists, and ethicists, who met in Istanbul, Turkey, this spring.
As athletes from around the world compete in the Beijing Olympics, many are on alert for respiratory problems caused by air pollution. They should also be concerned about its toxic effects on the heart and cardiovascular system, mounting research shows.
According to an article published in the August 26, 2008, issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), air pollution has both short- and long-term toxic effects that injure the heart and blood vessels, increase rates of hospitalization for cardiac illness, and can even cause death.
The discovery of "complementary" antibodies against plasminogen in patients with blood vessel inflammation caused by anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic autoantibodies (ANCAs) may lead to new approaches to research, testing, and treatment of ANCA vasculitis and other autoimmune diseases, suggests a paper in the December Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN).
Common tree species in the Amazon will survive even grim scenarios of deforestation and road-building, but rare trees could suffer extinction rates of up to 50 percent, predict Smithsonian scientists and colleagues in the Aug. 12 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.
How resilient will natural systems prove to be as they weather the next several decades of severe, human-induced global change? The debate is on between proponents of models that maximize and minimize extinction rates.
The largest study to date of testing errors reported by family physician offices in the United States found that problems occur throughout the testing process and disproportionately affect minority patients.
In the June 2008 issue of Quality & Safety in Health Care, the researchers report that medical testing errors led to lost time, lost money, delays in care, and pain and suffering for patients, with adverse consequences affecting minority patients far more often.
Former child soldiers in Nepal are more than twice as likely to suffer from symptoms of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as Nepali children who experienced war trauma as civilians, according to a study led by Brandon Kohrt, an Emory University graduate student. It is the first published study of the mental health of child soldiers that includes comparative data with children who were not coerced into military service.
Consumers with hearing loss might think they are saving significantly more by purchasing over- the-counter hearing aids, but they most likely will be disappointed – or could be taking risks – when purchasing such aids, according to MSU research.
Professor Jerry Punch of the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders and Susanna Love Callaway, a lifelong education alumna and international student from Denmark, published their study on over-the-counter hearing aids in a recent issue of the American Journal of Audiology.
CLEMSON –– Electronic devices get smaller and more complex every year. It turns out that fragility is the price for miniaturization, especially when it comes to small devices, such as cell phones, hitting the floor. Wouldn't it be great if they bounced instead of cracked when dropped?
DURHAM, N.C. – Researchers at Duke University Medical Center and at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) have shown how broken sections of chromosomes can recombine to change genomes and spawn new species.
Seeing disease-fighting white blood cells vanish from the blood usually signals a weakened immune system.
But preventing white blood cells' circulation by trapping them in the lymph nodes can help mice get rid of a chronic viral infection, researchers at Yerkes National Primate Research Center and the Emory Vaccine Center have found.
Their findings, published this week in the journal Nature, suggest a new strategy for fighting chronic viral infections that could apply to the treatment of human diseases such as hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS.
Seeing disease-fighting white blood cells vanish from the blood usually signals a weakened immune system.
But preventing white blood cells' circulation by trapping them in the lymph nodes can help mice get rid of a chronic viral infection, researchers at Yerkes National Primate Research Center and the Emory Vaccine Center have found.
Their findings, published this week in the journal Nature, suggest a new strategy for fighting chronic viral infections that could apply to the treatment of human diseases such as hepatitis C and HIV/AIDS.
WALNUT CREEK, CA—Genomics is accelerating improvements for converting plant biomass into biofuel—as an alternative to fossil fuel for the nation's transportation needs, reports Eddy Rubin, Director of the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI), in the August 14 edition of the journal Nature. In "Genomics of cellulosic biofuels," Rubin lays out a path forward for how emerging genomic technologies will contribute to a substantially different biofuels future as compared to the present corn-based ethanol industry—and in part mitigate the food-versus-fuel debate.