Culture | Science Codex

'Read my lips' - its easier when they're your own

People can lip-read themselves better than they can lip-read others, according to a new study by Nancy Tye-Murray and colleagues from Washington University. Their work, which explores the link between speech perception and speech production, is published online in Springer's Psychonomic Bulletin & Review.

Most people cannot read lips - just try watching television with the sound turned off and see how much of a news item you understand. If you see someone speak a sentence without the accompanying sounds, you are unlikely to recognize many words.

FASEB lauds Air India for transporting research animals

Bethesda, MD – The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) commends Air India for continuing to transport research animals. In a letter to the company, FASEB expressed its appreciation for Air India's perseverance in the face of considerable pressure from animal rights groups to discontinue shipping laboratory animals. "Animals are crucial for the advancement of biomedical research, and scientists around the world are dependent upon their safe and humane shipment," stated FASEB President Judith S. Bond.

Capnography training video by BMC published in New England Journal of Medicine

(Boston) – Physicians at Boston Medical Center (BMC) have developed a training video for health care providers about how to effectively use capnography to monitor ventilation and carbon dioxide levels for patients under anesthesia or conscious sedation. This is the sixth video published in the New England Journal of Medicine's Videos in Clinical Medicine section produced by BMC. It highlights the importance of using capnography to increase patient safety.

Study: Education levels in Asian American neighborhoods affect residents' health

WASHINGTON, DC, November 8, 2012 — Higher neighborhood education is associated with better self-rated health among Asian Americans who live in Asian ethnic neighborhoods, but this correlation between individual health and neighborhood education levels does not exist for Asian Americans living in non-Asian neighborhoods, according to a recent study in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Cells from skin create model of blinding eye disease

MADISON — For the first time, Wisconsin researchers have taken skin from patients and, using induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology, turned them into a laboratory model for an inherited type of macular degeneration.

Dr. David Gamm, director of the UW's McPherson Eye Research Institute, said that while Best disease is relatively rare, having a patient-specific model of the eye disease, which destroys the macula of the retina, could lead to a greater understanding of more common eye disorders such as age-related macular degeneration.

Sugar and spice and everything not so nice

ANAHEIM, CA. (November 8, 2012) – Imagine a world where you could never dine away from home, wear makeup, smell of sweet perfumes or eat a large percentage of food on store shelves. According to allergists at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting that is kicking off today in Anaheim, Calif., that is the world for 2 to 3 percent of individuals living with a spice allergy.

Patients with aberrations in two genes respond better to drugs blocking a well-known cancer pathway

Cancer patients with mutations or variations in two genes -– PIK3CA and PTEN -– who have failed to respond to several, standard treatments, respond significantly better to anti-cancer drugs that inhibit these genes' pathways of action, according to research presented at the 24th EORTC-NCI-AACR [1] Symposium on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Dublin, Ireland, today.

Setting national goals to bolster patient safety with electronic health records

HOUSTON – (Nov. 7, 2012) – Electronic health records (EHRs) are expected to improve patient safety, but they themselves can present challenges for which health care providers must be prepared. Experts at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) and Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) have proposed a framework to help develop new national patient safety goals unique to electronic health record-enabled clinical settings.

Their report appears in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Financial incentives may improve hospital mortality rates, says study

New research into controversial pay-for-performance schemes has suggested they may help to save the lives of NHS patients.

A 'significant' fall in mortality rates for certain conditions emerged in a study by health experts and economists from the Universities of Nottingham, Manchester, Cambridge and Birmingham into the use of incentives at hospitals in the North West of England.

Anti-fat bias may be equally prevalent in general public and medical community

Medical doctors are as biased against obesity as the general public is, according to a study published Nov. 7 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Janice Sabin from the University of Washington, Seattle, and colleagues from the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.

Financial incentives may improve hospital mortality rates, says study

New research into controversial pay-for-performance schemes has suggested they may help to save the lives of NHS patients.

A "significant" fall in mortality rates for certain conditions emerged in a study into the use of incentives at hospitals in the North West of England.

Economists and health experts from the Universities of Manchester, Nottingham, Birmingham and Cambridge examined how the introduction of a scheme that paid bonuses to hospitals based on measures of quality affected the delivery of care.

Study: Metformin offers cardio benefits over sulfonylureas in diabetes

A Vanderbilt study examining the impact of the two most commonly prescribed oral diabetes medications on the risk for heart attack, stroke and death has found the drug metformin has benefits over sulfonylurea drugs.

Lack of vitamin D contributes to pain in black Americans with knee osteoarthritis

A new study reveals that black Americans display lower levels of vitamin D and greater pain sensitivity compared to white Americans. Findings published in Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), indicate that vitamin D deficiency may be one of many factors that account for increased pain in older black Americans with knee osteoarthritis (OA).

New study finds majority of pregnant women require an average of 2 months sick leave from work

Three quarters of pregnant women take sick leave from work but employers can help reduce this through flexible work adjustments, suggests a new study published today (7 November) in BJOG: An International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology.

The study looked at women scheduled to give birth, at the Akershus University Hospital in Norway over an 18 month period and the prevalence of, reasons for and factors associated with sick leave during their pregnancies.

Head-to-head trial of 2 diabetes drugs yields mixed results

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – A direct, head-to-head comparison of two of the newer treatments available for type 2 diabetes yielded mixed results.

The 26-week, multicenter DURATION-6 clinical trial found that daily injections of liraglutide (Victoza) were slightly more effective than weekly injections of exenatide (Bydureon) in lowering blood sugar and promoting weight loss in patients with type 2 diabetes. However, the patients taking exenatide suffered fewer negative side effects such as nausea, diarrhea and vomiting.