Culture

Adding customer service representatives to a computerized radiology workflow management system means improved patient and referring physician satisfaction and increased radiologist efficiency, an analysis of a program at Children's Hospital Medical Center in Cincinnati finds.

Seven customer service representatives now staff the radiology reading room from 7:00 am – 11:00 pm daily and are responsible for ensuring that referring physicians receive completed radiology reports quickly.

Snap an image of friends in front of a window curtain and the camera captures the people — and invisible blood stains splattered on the curtain during a murder. Sound unlikely? Chemists from the University of South Carolina are reporting development of a camera with that ability to see the invisible, and more. Called multimode imaging in the thermal infrared, the new technology could find uses in crime scene investigations and elsewhere, they say in a series of three reports in ACS' Analytical Chemistry, a semi-monthly journal.

New software has been developed at Queen Mary, University of London's Centre for Digital Music, giving drummers the freedom to speed up or slow down the pace of any pre-programmed music, the material following their lead.

It means that drummers will no longer have to keep time with a click track and the set beat of pre-recorded tracks that are used during many live performances and studio sessions.

ATHENS, Ohio (Jan. 12, 2011) – Some school social workers report that they don't feel equipped to handle incidents of cyberbullying among teens.

Marketing efforts that encourage mixing caffeinated "energy" drinks with alcohol often try to sway young people to believe that caffeine will offset the sedating effects of alcohol and increase alertness and stamina.

But a new study led by researchers from the Boston University School of Public Health [BUSPH] and the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University has found that the addition of caffeine to alcohol -- mixing Red Bull with vodka, for example -- has no effect on enhancing performance on a driving test or improving sustained attention or reaction times.

New software has been developed that gives drummers the freedom to speed up or slow down the pace of the music with any pre-programmed material following their lead.

It means that drummers will no longer have to keep time with a click track and the set beat of pre-recorded tracks that are used during many live performances and studio sessions.

January 11, 2011 – (BRONX, NY) – Intrauterine devices (IUDs) for contraception are safe and effective, but only a small fraction of women in the United States use them.

Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced doctor who claimed a link between MMR and autism, planned secret businesses intended to make huge sums of money, in Britain and America, from his now-discredited allegations.

The Wakefield scheme is exposed today in the second part of a BMJ series of special reports, "Secrets of the MMR scare", by investigative journalist Brian Deer. Last week we revealed the scientific fraud behind the appearance of a link between the vaccine and autism. Now Deer follows the money.

One dose of the pandemic flu vaccines used in seven European countries conferred good protection against pandemic H1N1 influenza in the 2009-10 season, especially in people aged less than 65 years and in those without any chronic diseases. These findings from a study funded by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) and coordinated by EpiConcept, Paris, France, published in this week's PLoS Medicine, give an indication of the vaccine effectiveness for the influenza A (H1N1) 2009 strain included in the 2010-11 seasonal vaccines.

San Diego, CA, January 11, 2011 – Launched on December 2, 2010, Healthy People 2020 is an ambitious, science-based, 10-year agenda for improving the health of all Americans. A key component, Education for Health, is an educational roadmap to achieve the Healthy People 2020 goals.

Winter temperatures play complex role in triggering spring budburst

The opening of buds on Douglas-fir trees each spring is the result of a complex interplay between cold and warm temperatures during the winter, scientists with the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station have found.

Montreal, 11 January 2011—What is the future for North America's environment? Much of the answer is up to us.

A new report examines the major forces and underlying trends likely to shape the environment of North America in 2030 and outlines nine areas where decisions today will affect our environmental future in varying degrees.

PROVIDENCE, RI – Does obesity tend to "cluster" among young adults? And if so, what impact does it have on both their weight and weight-related behaviors? That's what researchers from The Miriam Hospital's Weight Control and Diabetes Research Center set out to answer to better understand how social influences affect both weight status and weight loss intentions in this difficult-to-reach age group.

Life expectancy was probably the same for early modern and late archaichumans and did not factor in the extinction of Neanderthals, suggests a new study by a Washington University in St. Louis anthropologist.

Erik Trinkaus, PhD, Professor of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences, examined the fossil record to assess adult mortality for both groups, which co-existed in different regions for roughly 150,000 years. Trinkaus found that the proportions of 20 to 40-year-old adults versus adults older than 40, were about the same for early modern humans and Neandertals.