Culture

PORTLAND, Oregon--Are individuals, families, communities and employers getting their money's worth from US healthcare? That's the big question in the news today, pushed further into the spotlight by the Obama administration.

Charles M. Kilo, MD, MPH, CEO of GreenField Health in Portland, Oregon, and co-author Eric B. Larson, MD, MPH of Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, Washington, explore this important question in their article Exploring the Harmful Effects of Healthcare in the July 1 issue of the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA).

WASHINGTON, DC – The misleading "health" halo surrounding highly-publicized marketing campaigns regarding sweetener reformulations is starting to dim.

Recent announcements by Starbucks and other brands that they will remove high fructose corn syrup from certain products are being called into question in news articles by experts and journalists. These articles have poked holes in companies' marketing efforts and put forth scientifically substantiated facts about sweeteners commonly used in foods.

EAST LANSING, Mich. — People are more likely to enroll in conservation programs if their neighbors do – a tendency that should be exploited when it comes to protecting the environment, according to a pioneering study from Michigan State University.

The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to focus on the phenomenon of social norms in the context of China's conservation efforts, said Jianguo "Jack" Liu, University Distinguished Professor and study co-author.

Pigeons could be art critics yet, according to a new study1 which shows that like humans, pigeons can be trained to tell the difference between 'good' and 'bad' paintings. According to Professor Shigeru Watanabe from Keio University in Japan, pigeons use both color and pattern cues to judge the paintings' beauty as defined by humans, as well as their texture. Professor Watanabe's work has just been published online in Springer's journal, Animal Cognition.

People are more likely to enroll in conservation programs if their neighbors do--a tendency that should be exploited when it comes to protecting the environment, according to results of a new study.

The research, to be published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) this week, is the first to focus on the phenomenon of social norms in the context of China's conservation efforts, said scientist Jianguo "Jack" Liu of Michigan State University (MSU).

A Kansas State University researcher is studying the potential health benefits of a specially bred purple sweet potato because its dominant purple color results in an increased amount of anti-cancer components.

K-State's Soyoung Lim, doctoral student in human nutrition, Manhattan, is working with George Wang, associate professor of human nutrition at K-State, to understand the pigment effects of a Kansas-bred purple sweet potato on cancer prevention.

Finnish Academy Professors Lauri Aaltonen and Jussi Taipale have identified and described a mechanism whereby a single-base change in the human genome increases the risk of colorectal cancer.

The focus in this study was on a common single-base variant occurring in chromosome 8, which in itself causes only a slightly increased risk of cancer. However, the risk allele is carried by 75% of people of European origin and by almost 100% of African populations.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: A substantial number of European patients travel to other countries for fertility treatment, both because they think that they will receive better quality care abroad and in order to undergo procedures that are banned in their home country says a study of the subject launched at the 25th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Monday June 29). Study co-ordinator Dr.

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (June 24, 2009) — University of Minnesota Medical School researcher Iris Borowsky, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues found that one in seven adolescents believe that it is highly likely that they will die before age 35, and this belief predicted that the adolescents' would engage in risky behaviors.

When it comes to something as simple as hammering a nail, some people are naturals and get the job done after a few clean, sharp strokes of the hammer, whereas for the rest of us a similar challenge is likely to end up with the nail bent in the middle, a sore thumb and a wounded pride. Dr. Duncan Irschick and his colleagues at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst have measured hammering performance in men and women and found that men are more accurate than women when hammering under light deprivation, and, conversely, women are more accurate in the light, regardless of target size.

Much is often said about the glaring statistics showing that some racial and ethnic minorities face greater risks than whites when it comes to health.

Nina T. Harawa, an Assistant Professor and researcher at Charles Drew University, says today's disparities are linked to many factors, including economics, access to health care and the impact of living in a race conscious society.

WASHINGTON -- Because tobacco use impairs military readiness, harms the health of soldiers and veterans, and imposes a substantial financial burden on the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs, these agencies should implement a comprehensive strategy to achieve the Defense Department's stated goal of a tobacco-free military, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. DOD should gradually phase in a ban on tobacco use in the military, starting at military academies and officer training programs and among new recruits, the report says.

(Toronto) Research from Canada's own Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) featured in this week's edition of the Lancet shows that worldwide, 1 in 25 deaths are directly attributable to alcohol consumption. This rise since 2000 is mainly due to increases in the number of women drinking.

By combining their movies with computer simulations, Aynur Kaya and Jerome Solon in Brunner's group discovered that the actin cable doesn't act as a drawstring, but rather as a ratchet. With every force pulse of the amnioserosa cells, the actin cable contracts and stops the epithelial cells from moving back away from the gap when the amnioserosa cells relax. This ratchetlike action means epithelial cells can move in only one direction: over the gap, bringing about dorsal closure.

Researchers from the University of Valladolid have constructed a demographic and economic simulation model called 'Carrión', which projects the costs of pensions, Social Security contributions and GDP up until 2060. The model also includes detailed scenarios about the behaviour of people migrating to Spain currently and in the future, in relation to the length of time they stay, their fertility, salaries and employment rate.