Culture

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Innovative problem solving requires trying many different solutions. That's true for humans, and now Michigan State University researchers show that it's true for hyenas, too.

For more than 45 years, the poor in this country have been identified by the U.S. Census Bureau's Official Poverty Measure — a tool that determines America's poverty rate based on pretax money income, which does not reflect all the resources at a family's disposal - namely, the government services they only get because they are in the poverty range.

A new survey in the August 2012 issue of Military Medicine says that 22 of 28 NATO nations do not use animals for battlefield trauma training, which seeks to replicate battlefield conditions using live tissue to most accurately portray conditions in war. Animals are under general anesthesia and feel no pain but animal advocacy group PETA got footage of a private contractor training group showing where military veterinary standards were not met and have implied that is the case across the US forces.

Los Angeles, CA (August 8, 2012) — While it is commonly believed that men who pay for sex are attempting to avoid emotional commitment, a new paper says that men who become regular clients of sex workers often develop feelings of romance and love. The paper is published in a recent edition of Men and Masculinities.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) develops in individuals who experience highly traumatizing situations such as terrorist attacks and car accidents, but symptoms can also come about after normal life events — including childbirth.

As US President Barack Obama turns 51 this month, new research suggests imagery of one of his most iconic predecessors, JFK, helped Obama on his way to the White House.

Similarities between the imagery of President Kennedy and President Obama have been highlighted in a new University of Warwick paper, due to be published in the August issue of Comparative American Studies Journal.

(Washington) – The American College of Physicians (ACP) today released a paper, Statement of Principles on the Role of Governments in Regulating the Patient-Physician Relationship, which recommends principles for the role of federal and state governments in health care and the patient-physician relationship.

"The physician's first and primary duty is to put the patient first," David L. Bronson, MD, FACP, president of ACP, said. "To accomplish this duty, physicians and the medical profession have been granted by government a privileged position in society."

Most informed consent disputes involve disagreements about who said what and when, not stand-offs over whether a particular risk ought to have been disclosed. But doctors may "routinely underestimate the importance of a small set of risks that vex patients" according to international experts writing in this week's PLOS Medicine.

Contrary to popular belief, purified drinking water from home faucets contains millions to hundreds of millions of widely differing bacteria per gallon, and scientists have discovered a plausible way to manipulate those populations of mostly beneficial microbes to potentially benefit consumers. Their study appears in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology.

A new study from the Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Medicine examines the relationship between family members who make decisions for hospitalized older adults with impaired cognition and the doctors, nurses and other clinicians who care for these patients.

Humanities courses designed to increase creative stimulation and variety in physicians' daily routines can sharpen critical thinking skills, improve job satisfaction and encourage innovative thinking, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers who piloted a series of such courses.

There is currently no proof that patients with ovarian cancer can benefit from positron emission tomography (PET) alone or in combination with computed tomography (CT). As regards diagnostic accuracy, in certain cases, recurrences can be detected earlier and more accurately with PET or PET/CT than with conventional imaging techniques.

This is the conclusion of the final report by the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) in Cologne that was published on 23 May 2012.

More reliable diagnosis is supposed to improve treatment

Doctors sometimes fail to warn patients of risks that could affect the patient's quality of life before providing treatment or surgery, a new study led by University of Melbourne researchers has shown.

Published in PLoS Medicine today, the study showed that some doctors, particularly surgeons, are not explaining the risk of specific outcomes that matter most to patients.

Overlooked risks that led to a legal claim or complaint included chronic pain, sexual dysfunction, visual or hearing loss, and the need for re-operation.

There's no significant difference in the rates of death among patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who were exposed to one of several TNF inhibitors used to treat RA, adalimumab (Humira), etanercept (Enbrel), and infliximab (Remicade). This population-based study of RA patients in Sweden—the first to compare mortality rates among patients treated with individual TNF inhibitors—is now available in Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal published by Wiley on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR).

A new study in Addiction shows that plain packaging (requiring cigarettes to be packaged in standard packages without attractive designs and imagery) may help to draw the attention of some adolescent smokers to the health warnings on the package. If so, this may in turn deter young smokers from continuing to smoke.