Culture

Highlight

• Higher levels of urinary potassium excretion, which closely correlate with intake amounts, were linked with a slower decline of kidney function and a lower incidence of cardiovascular complications among patients with type 2 diabetes and normal kidney function.

Kidney failure and heart disease are common life-threatening complications of diabetes.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Older adults with dementia are more frequent visitors to emergency departments, returning at higher rates and incurring greater costs than older adults without dementia, according to a new study from the Regenstrief Institute and the Indiana University Center for Aging Research. The study is one of the first to explore long-term patterns of healthcare use and mortality rates of elders with cognitive impairment who visit the emergency department.

A major glacier in northeast Greenland known as Zachariæ Isstrøm began a rapid retreat in recent years, a new study reports. The demise of this glacier, which helps to drain 12% of the Greenland Ice Sheet, has the potential to raise sea level significantly, the study's authors say. Using 40 years of glacier data including satellite observations, Jeremie Mouginot and colleagues studied the evolution of Zachariæ Isstrøm and its northerly neighbor, the Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden glacier.

The Wilson Center's Synthetic Biology Project has released a short documentary on the growth of the do-it-yourself biology (DIYbio) movement as seen through a community DIYbio lab in Baltimore, Maryland.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - A new study of adults ages 85 or older has found that rural residents have significantly higher levels of chronic disease, take more medications, and die several years earlier than their urban counterparts.

The findings were just published in The Journal of Rural Health by researchers from Oregon State University and the Oregon Health & Science University.

A new research study led by Dr. Mark Clemons, oncologist and associate cancer research scientist at The Ottawa Hospital, has shown that a personalized approach to treating one of the most expected side-effects of chemotherapy is far more effective than the existing "one size fits all" set of guidelines. The randomized trial is published in the November 12 issue of JAMA-Oncology.

When people are listening to music, their emotional reactions to the music are reflected in changes in their pupil size. Researchers from the University of Vienna and the University of Innsbruck, Austria, are the first to show that both the emotional content of the music and the listeners' personal involvement with music influence pupil dilation. This study, published in the scientific journal Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, demonstrates that pupil size measurement can be effectively used to probe listeners' reactions to music.

TAMPA, Fla. (Nov. 12, 2015) - New research from Moffitt Cancer Center and its collaborators find that the drug combination rituximab plus lenalidomide was effective and produced long-term responses in patients with mantle cell lymphoma. The results from the multicenter phase 2 study were published in the Nov. 5 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

The Wilson Center's Synthetic Biology Project has released a short documentary on the growth of the do-it-yourself biology (DIYbio) movement as seen through a community DIYbio lab in Baltimore, Maryland.

Oxford University scientists have found that the more effective way to beat malaria is to use less effective drugs some of the time.

In a study published in PLOS One the team have proposed an entirely new approach to risk assessment for future violence. Previous approaches have relied on looking at risk factors that happen to be linked to, but may not cause, violence, for example, being young, male, of lower social class, with previous violent convictions.

The new approach is instead based on identifying risk factors that have a clear causal link to violence, and include symptoms of major mental disorder, the patient's living condition, and whether they are taking medication.

The 2015 Pneumonia and Diarrhea Progress Report: Sustainable Progress in the Post-2015 Era, released today on World Pneumonia Day by the International Vaccine Access Center (IVAC) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, documents the progress of the 15 countries experiencing the greatest burden of pneumonia and diarrhea.

Two new risk prediction tools can identify patients with diabetes who are at high risk of blindness and amputation - two serious complications of diabetes, finds a study published in The BMJ this week.

The tools are based on variables that patients are likely to know, or that are routinely recorded in general practice computer systems, and will help to personalise care and advice and to target resources at those in greatest need.

Computer assisted cognitive behavioural therapy is likely to be ineffective in the treatment of depression because of low patient adherence and engagement, suggests the largest study of its kind published in The BMJ this week.

Current NICE guidelines recommend cCBT as a treatment for depression. But in light of the new findings, the authors say "the routine promotion and commissioning of cCBT be reconsidered" because it is "likely to be an ineffective form of low-intensity treatment for depression and an inefficient use of finite healthcare resources."

British workers are not being protected from occupational diseases and deaths, argues an expert in The BMJ this week.

There are around 500,000 new work-related illnesses every year, and over 13,000 deaths are caused by occupational exposures, mostly from cancers related to asbestos and respiratory diseases from dust and chemicals.

However, probably fewer than 15% of workers in Britain have access to adequate occupational health services, explains Anne Raynal, an occupational physician.