Culture

Highlight

• Higher levels of urinary potassium excretion, which closely correlate with intake amounts, were linked with a slower decline of kidney function and a lower incidence of cardiovascular complications among patients with type 2 diabetes and normal kidney function.

Kidney failure and heart disease are common life-threatening complications of diabetes.

A major glacier in northeast Greenland known as Zachariæ Isstrøm began a rapid retreat in recent years, a new study reports. The demise of this glacier, which helps to drain 12% of the Greenland Ice Sheet, has the potential to raise sea level significantly, the study's authors say. Using 40 years of glacier data including satellite observations, Jeremie Mouginot and colleagues studied the evolution of Zachariæ Isstrøm and its northerly neighbor, the Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden glacier.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - A new study of adults ages 85 or older has found that rural residents have significantly higher levels of chronic disease, take more medications, and die several years earlier than their urban counterparts.

The findings were just published in The Journal of Rural Health by researchers from Oregon State University and the Oregon Health & Science University.

When people are listening to music, their emotional reactions to the music are reflected in changes in their pupil size. Researchers from the University of Vienna and the University of Innsbruck, Austria, are the first to show that both the emotional content of the music and the listeners' personal involvement with music influence pupil dilation. This study, published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, demonstrates that pupil size measurement can be effectively used to probe listeners' reactions to music.

The Wilson Center's Synthetic Biology Project has released a short documentary on the growth of the do-it-yourself biology (DIYbio) movement as seen through a community DIYbio lab in Baltimore, Maryland.

In a study published in PLOS One the team have proposed an entirely new approach to risk assessment for future violence. Previous approaches have relied on looking at risk factors that happen to be linked to, but may not cause, violence, for example, being young, male, of lower social class, with previous violent convictions.

The new approach is instead based on identifying risk factors that have a clear causal link to violence, and include symptoms of major mental disorder, the patient's living condition, and whether they are taking medication.

Two new risk prediction tools can identify patients with diabetes who are at high risk of blindness and amputation - two serious complications of diabetes, finds a study published in The BMJ this week.

The tools are based on variables that patients are likely to know, or that are routinely recorded in general practice computer systems, and will help to personalise care and advice and to target resources at those in greatest need.