Culture

Firefighters more likely to be injured exercising than putting out fires

Firefighters are more likely to be injured while exercising than while putting out fires, suggests research published online in Injury Prevention.

But carrying patients is the task most likely to require time off work, the study shows.

Combined firefighting and emergency medical services have one of the highest workplace injury and death rates in the US.

The authors looked at data for injuries sustained while at work for 21 fire stations serving the metropolitan area of Tucson, Arizona between 2004 and 2009.

Overweight individuals more susceptible to risk factors for further weight gain

Some risk factors for obesity become stronger the more overweight a person is, according to a study published Nov. 23 in the online journal PLoS ONE.

Paul Williams of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California found that certain risk factors – lower education level, parental obesity, and high meat/low fruit diets – produced a greater risk for excess body weight for subjects with a higher body mass index (BMI) than for those with lower BMI.

Study finds online marketplaces overplay safeguards and ignore social aspects of transactions

As Cyber Monday approaches, a new study of e-commerce giants eBay and Amazon challenges a common assumption that trust and risk are always important considerations for buyers in online marketplaces, arguing instead that auction sites may have "over-invested in institutional structures" to reduce buyers' economic risk while ignoring social elements of their transactions.

Short waits, long consults keep most patients very happy with their physicians

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—Patients overall in the United States are very satisfied with their physicians and with treatment they receive in outpatient settings, according to new information which challenges common public perceptions about outpatient medical treatment.

The scoop on the dangers of snow shoveling

Urban legend warns shoveling snow causes heart attacks, and the legend seems all too accurate, especially for male wintery excavators with a family history of premature cardiovascular disease. However, until recently this warning was based on anecdotal reports.

Two of the most important cardiology associations in the US include snow -shoveling on their websites as a high risk physical activity, but all the citation references indicate that this warning was based one or two incidents.

Is sustainability science really a science?

LOS ALAMOS, New Mexico -- The idea that one can create a field of science out of thin air, just because of societal and policy need, is a bold concept. But for the emerging field of sustainability science, sorting among theoretical and applied scientific disciplines, making sense of potentially divergent theory, practice and policy, the gamble has paid off.

Paracetamol: Repeated ingestion of slightly too much can be fatal -- recognize and treat quickly

Repeatedly taking slightly too much paracetamol over time can cause a dangerous overdose that is difficult to spot, but puts the person at danger of dying. Patients may not come to hospital reporting the overdose, but because they feel unwell. This clinical situation needs to be recognized and treated rapidly because these patients are at even greater danger than people who take single overdoses.

Nanowrinkles, nanofolds yield strange hidden channels

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- Wrinkles and folds are ubiquitous. They occur in furrowed brows, planetary topology, the surface of the human brain, even the bottom of a gecko's foot. In many cases, they are nature's ingenious way of packing more surface area into a limited space. Scientists, mimicking nature, have long sought to manipulate surfaces to create wrinkles and folds to make smaller, more flexible electronic devices, fluid-carrying nanochannels or even printable cell phones and computers.

Study assesses association between urinary salt excretion and risk of cardiovascular events or death

For persons with cardiovascular disease or diabetes, urinary sodium excretion (a surrogate for salt intake) at higher levels or at lower levels compared to mid-range values was associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events (for higher levels) or cardiovascular death and hospitalization for congestive heart failure (for lower levels), according to a study in the November 23/30 issue of JAMA. Also, higher estimated urinary potassium excretion was associated with a reduced risk of stroke.

Anorexia nervosa study finds inner conflicts over the 'real' self that have treatment implications

"It feels like there's two of you inside – like there's another half of you, which is my anorexia, and then there's the real K, the real me, the logic part of me, and it's a constant battle between the two." - 36 year old study participant with anorexia nervosa.

Olympic Villages: Catalyst for urban renewal, or post-Games hangover?

The Olympic Games are big business and generate substantial amounts of revenue for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) through lucrative television contracts and corporate sponsorship. The Games are now also widely perceived as important promotional opportunities for cities seeking to reinforce their claims as 'world class' destinations for tourists and capital in the global economy.

Blocked holes can enhance rather than stop light going through

Conventional wisdom would say that blocking a hole would prevent light from going through it, but Princeton University engineers have discovered the opposite to be true. A research team has found that placing a metal cap over a small hole in a metal film does not stop the light at all, but rather enhances its transmission.

Andromeda Biotech: A drug for type 1 diabetes

The clinical trial was random, regulated, double-blinded and broad-based. The drug was tested on 457 patients, aged 16-45, who had been diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes a short time before joining the trial. The trial took place in around 40 medical centers in Europe, Israel and South Africa. The patients in the trial were randomly assigned to one of two groups: One received the trial drug (DiaPep277®) through a subcutaneous injection once every three months, for a period of two years, while the control group was given a placebo in the same way.

A new practical strategy for magnetic-force-microscope cantilevers with high isotropic coercivity

A magnetic force microscope (MFM) can determine the distribution of stray fields at a level of tens of nanometers near the surface of magnetic films, and therefore is an effective tool for observing the domain structures in magnetic grains of submicrometer size. At present, the coercivity of normal MFM cantilevers is about 0.3 kOe. Being affected by the magnetism of the measured material, the stability of these cantilevers is unsatisfactory. By applying a FePt layer, the coercivity can reach ~10 kOe.

Babies who eat fish before 9 months are less likely to suffer pre-school wheeze

Children who started eating fish before nine months of age are less likely to suffer from pre-school wheeze, but face a higher risk if they were treated with broad spectrum antibiotics in the first week of life or their mother took paracetamol during pregnancy. Those are the key findings from a large-scale Swedish study published in the December issue of Acta Paediatrica.

Researchers analysed responses from 4,171 randomly selected families, who answered questions when their child was six months, 12 months and four-and-a-half years of age.