Culture | Science Codex

Diagnosis, treatment of common outpatient disorder adds $238 million a year in ER costs

SAN DIEGO – A relatively common urinary tract disorder that can usually be managed in an outpatient setting is adding an estimated $238 million a year to the cost of emergency room visits in the U.S., according to two new studies from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

Hematuria, or blood in the urine, adds a "considerable" and "substantial" economic burden on already strained hospital emergency departments, says Khurshid R. Ghani, M.D., of Henry Ford's Vattikuti Urology Institute and lead author of the studies.

Cancer treatment could target inflammation in CVD

Berlin, 5 May 2013. Peptide receptor radionuclide therapy (PRRT) with radiolabeled somatostatin analogs, an established treatment for cancer patients, could offer a novel therapeutic approach to decrease levels of inflammation in the atherosclerotic plaques of patients with cardiovascular disease (CVD), reported an abstract¹ study at the International Conference on Nuclear Cardiology and Cardiac CT, May 5 to 8 in Berlin, Germany.

When less is more: New protocol limits use of SPECT MPI

Berlin, 5 May 2013. A new stress test protocol that investigates reducing the use of perfusion imaging in low risk patients undergoing SPECT myocardial perfusion imaging for possible angina symptoms was found to be diagnostically safe, revealed a US retrospective analysis.The study, reported as an abstract¹ at the International Conference on Nuclear Cardiology and Cardiac CT (ICNC11) May 5 to May 8 in Berlin, Germany, predicted that using exercise ECG stress testing alone in patients with high exercise capacity would have had no adverse effects on their prognosis at five years.

Fleeing Facebook: Study examines why people quit -- and come back -- to the 'global aquarium'

ITHACA, N.Y. – With more than a billion active accounts worldwide, it can be easy to forget that some people don't use Facebook.

A study by Cornell University researchers presented this week in Paris suggests that "non-use" of the social networking site is fairly common – a third of Facebook users take breaks from the site by deactivating their account, and one in 10 completely quit.

Study: https://cornell.box.com/FleeingFacebook

Violent video games have lower effects on highly-exposed teens

Philadelphia, Pa. (May 3, 2013) – Teenagers who are highly exposed to violent video games—three or more hours per day—show blunted physical and psychological responses to playing a violent game, reports a study in the May issue of Psychosomatic Medicine: Journal of Biobehavioral Medicine.

"High versus low experience of violent gaming seems to be related to different physiological, emotional and sleep related processes [after] exposure to violent video games," concludes the paper by Malena Ivarsson of the Stress Research Institute at Stockholm University and colleagues.

Injectable nano-network controls blood sugar in diabetics for days at a time

In a promising development for diabetes treatment, researchers have developed a network of nanoscale particles that can be injected into the body and release insulin when blood-sugar levels rise, maintaining normal blood sugar levels for more than a week in animal-based laboratory tests. The work was done by researchers at North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Children's Hospital Boston.

New mouse model confirms how type 2 diabetes develops

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have developed a new mouse model that answers the question of what actually happens in the body when type 2 diabetes develops and how the body responds to drug treatment. Long-term studies of the middle-aged mouse model will be better than previous studies at confirming how drugs for type 2 diabetes function in humans.

Virtual concert halls, buzzing cicadas, and more from ICA 2013 Montreal, June 2-7

May 3, 2013 – Wind turbine noise, virtual concert halls, and buzzing cicadas will feature alongside bio-inspired microphones, sound-enhanced biofuel production, and acoustic oil spill detection next month at a major international meeting on the science of sound, in Montreal.

What Italian defense attorneys know about factors affecting eyewitness accuracy

Surveys of the beliefs and knowledge of legal professionals about factors that affect eyewitness accuracy suggest that judges and police officers are no more knowledgeable about eyewitness testimony than are jurors or the general public.

A majority, or a substantial minority, of the legal professionals surveyed in the US, Norway, Estonia, China and Sweden harbor ideas about eyewitness memory that are not supported by available research, which suggests that many court decisions may be based on folklore with little support in memory science.

Increased risk of heart attack and death with progressive coronary artery calcium buildup

LOS ANGELES (May 2, 2013) – Patients with increasing accumulations of coronary artery calcium were more than six times more likely to suffer from a heart attack or die from heart disease than patients who didn't have increasing accumulations, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

3 ways to get more followers on Twitter

What do all Twitter users want? Apparently, followers – and lots of them. But unless you're a celebrity, it can be difficult to build your Twitter audience.

Looking at a half-million tweets over 15 months, a first-of-its-kind analysis by Georgia Tech has created a set of reliable predictors for building a Twitter following.

The analysis was performed by Eric Gilbert, assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Interactive Computing. Gilbert found that Twitter users can grow their followers by such tactics as:

Antidepressants and unethical advertising

The new feature of the antidepressant drugs of the 1990s was that they had milder side-effects than their predecessors. Combined with aggressive marketing, this meant that annual sales in Sweden increased from just under EUR 18 million to over EUR 100 million in the space of just a few years.

55 Senate and House Lawmakers Ask FDA To Label GMOs

Citing that consumers should make informed choices about what they eat, 55 Senate and House lawmakers have asked the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to require the labeling of genetically engineered foods.

Mustering support had been ongoing since early February. The members of Congress in support wrote:

Weight loss surgery safe and effective for an expanded group of patients

The LAP-BAND® weight loss procedure is safe and effective in an expanded group of patients, not just in people who are morbidly obese. This conclusion is reported in a new study published in the scientific journal Obesity. The findings indicate that the procedure may help to intervene before obesity becomes life threatening to patients.

Inflammatory bowel disease detection enhanced with PET/CT

Reston, Va. (May 1, 2013) – Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, may be detected and monitored more effectively in the future with positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT), according to research published in the May issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine. Typically assessed by endoscopic and histologic evaluations, investigators demonstrated the ability of PET/CT to identify lesions along the complete intestinal wall that could be missed with traditional imaging techniques.