Culture | Science Codex

Princeton research: Embracing data 'noise' brings Greenland's complex ice melt into focus

Simons compared the noise that previously obscured a precise view of Greenland's glaciers to fog on a window. For a small area such as Greenland, the GRACE signal can be easily overwhelmed by noise, which has numerous causes such as the satellite's orbital position or even the type of mathematics researchers use to interpret data, Simons said.

"Other researchers used less than perfect tools to wipe off the window more or less indiscriminately and quite literally left streaks on the data. They were thus less able to put the continent into the proper focus," he said.

Kentucky study finds common drug increases deaths in atrial fibrillation patients

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Nov. 27, 2012) -- Digoxin, a drug widely used to treat heart disease, increases the possibility of death when used by patients with a common heart rhythm problem − atrial fibrillation (AF), according to new study findings by University of Kentucky researchers. The results have been published in the prestigious European Heart Journal, and raises serious concerns about the expansive use of this long-standing heart medication in patients with AF.

Resolving conflicts over end-of-life care: Mayo experts offer tips

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- It's one of the toughest questions patients and their loved ones can discuss with physicians: When is further medical treatment futile? The conversation can become even more difficult if patients or their families disagree with health care providers' recommendations on end-of-life care.

Topical simvastatin shown to accelerate wound healing in diabetes

Philadelphia, PA, November 27, 2012 – Delayed wound healing is a major complication of diabetes because the physiological changes in tissues and cells impair the wound healing process. This can result in additional disease outcomes such as diabetic foot ulcer, a significant cause of morbidity in the growing population of diabetic patients. A new study has found that topically applied simvastatin accelerates wound healing in diabetic mice, suggesting important implications for humans with diabetes. This study is published in the December issue of The American Journal of Pathology.

Enzyme explains angina in diabetics

In a new study published in the scientific journal Circulation, scientists at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital in Sweden show that an enzyme called arginase might have a key part to play in the development of cardiovascular disease in patients who already have type II diabetes. According to the team, arginase prevents the formation of protective nitrogen oxide in the blood vessels, and treatments that inhibit this enzyme reduce the risk of angina in diabetics.

New behavioral strategies may help patients learn to better control chronic diseases

One of the most important health problems in the United States is the failure of patients with chronic diseases to take their medications and do all that is necessary to control their illnesses.

No Interventions Proven to Reduce Mother-to-child Transmission of Hepatitis C

Researchers have found no clear proof that any intervention reduces the risk for mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. More than 40,000 children are born to HCV-positive women each year.

Automated phone and mail notices increase medication adherence

PASADENA, Calif., Nov. 26, 2012 — Patients newly prescribed a cholesterol-lowering medication were more likely to pick it up from the pharmacy if they received automated phone and mail reminders, according to a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine today. This is one of a few published studies to examine strategies for reducing primary nonadherence, which occurs when patients do not pick up new prescriptions.

Rise in autism diagnoses leads to research explosion

Autism Speaks Chief Science Officer Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D. describes how the dramatic progress in autism research has paralleled increased recognition of autism's prevalence and financial impact in the December issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry. "This issue of the journal features three articles on autism," she writes in her editorial. "A decade ago, the journal published about the same number of autism articles per year."

Newly insured patients may have trouble finding primary care physicians

Implementation of the Affordable Care Act – now assured by the re-election of President Obama – is expected to result in up to 50 million currently uninsured Americans acquiring some type of health insurance coverage. But a study by researchers at the Mongan Institute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) finds that a significant percentage of the primary care physicians most likely to care for newly insured patients may be not be accepting new patients.

Using biomarkers from prehistoric human feces to track settlement and agriculture

For researchers who study Earth's past environment, disentangling the effects of climate change from those related to human activities is a major challenge, but now University of Massachusetts Amherst geoscientists have used a biomarker from human feces in a completely new way to establish the first human presence, the arrival of grazing animals and human population dynamics in a landscape.

Study advances use of stem cells in personalized medicine

Johns Hopkins researchers report concrete steps in the use of human stem cells to test how diseased cells respond to drugs. Their success highlights a pathway toward faster, cheaper drug development for some genetic illnesses, as well as the ability to pre-test a therapy's safety and effectiveness on cultured clones of a patient's own cells.

Stricter adherence to preliminary screening method could reduce unnecessary CT scans

DETROIT – A Henry Ford Hospital study has found that better use of commonly accepted diagnostic guidelines for detecting cervical spine injuries could reduce unnecessary CT scans and spare patients from radiation exposure.

The multi-phase study showed that a significant number of CT scans could have been avoided if physicians adhered to the National Emergency X-Radiology Study (NEXUS) criteria, which aid Emergency Department physicians with determining whether C-spine injuries exist. Key findings:

Risk of hemorrhage from warfarin higher in clinical practice than clinical trials show

Rates of hemorrhage for older patients on warfarin therapy are much higher than rates reported in clinical trials, found a study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

"The rate of hemorrhage in our study is considerably higher than those reported in randomized controlled trials of warfarin therapy, which have ranged between 1% and 3% per person-year," writes lead author Tara Gomes, Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES), Toronto, with coauthors.

Personalities influence workforce planning

Montreal, November 26, 2012 – What if factory foremen treated their workers less like the machines they operate, and more like people, with personality strengths and differences? Surely the workers would benefit, but might the employers also see positive results in the workplace, as well as being able to cut costs?

That's what Concordia researcher Mohammed Othman set out to prove in his paper "Integrating workers' differences into workforce planning," recently published in the journal Computers & Industrial Engineering.