Culture

CINCINNATI - A new online open-access database has been developed by scientists to allow the clinical responses of more than 5 million patients to all FDA-approved drugs to be used to identify unexpected clinical harm, benefits and alternative treatment choices for individual patients, according to a study appearing July 8 in Nature Biotechnology.

Discounts tied to buying large quantities of virtual goods have little impact on profitability and do not increase the number of customers making purchases, according to economists at the University of Chicago.

The findings come from a field experiment of more than 14 million players of mobile games by King Digital Entertainment, maker of Candy Crush Saga. For the study, researchers offered a range of quantity discounts on virtual goods, which players buy for use within a video game.

An international team of researchers has developed a website at d-place.org to help answer long-standing questions about the forces that shaped human cultural diversity.

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO - For athletes and highly active patients who sustain cartilage injuries to their knee, an osteochondral allograft transplantation can be a successful treatment option, according to research presented today at the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine's (AOSSM) Annual Meeting in Colorado Springs, CO. The study showed these patients were consistently able to return to sport or recreational activities after the surgery, though frequently at a lower activity level.

Florence, Italy - 9 July 2016: Immunotherapy reduces cardiovascular risk in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, according to research presented today at Frontiers in CardioVascular Biology (FCVB) 2016 by Professor Aida Babaeva, head of the Department of Internal Medicine, Volgograd State Medical University, Volgograd, Russia.1 The combination of two extra-low dose anticytokine drugs reduced rheumatoid arthritis disease activity and cardiovascular events.

The United States is on course to experience a steep drop in the number of stem cell researchers in coming years as a large portion of academic scientists reach retirement age and younger scientists continue to leave academia for jobs in industry.

The trend is called the "graying of the biomedical workforce," and many suspect that a preference for older, more experienced researchers in the competitive government grant application process is driving younger scientists away from academia.

In a study published online by JAMA Ophthalmology, Gwyneth Rees, Ph.D., of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues examined the association between severity of diabetic retinopathy and diabetic macular edema with symptoms of depression and anxiety in adults with diabetes.

Group A streptococcus (GAS) can cause a life-threatening necrotizing fasciitis, which spreads rapidly and destroys soft tissue. Treatment of these GAS necrotizing soft tissue infections (NSTI) typically requires intensive care along with surgical intervention and often amputation of the affected limb. A new study in JCI Insight provides evidence that formation of biofilm, a collection of bacteria that adhere to a tissue surface, can be a complicating feature of GAS NSTI.

WASHINGTON (July 7, 2016) -- Researchers at the George Washington University (GW) created a conceptual model for episodes of acute, unscheduled care - care that can be delivered in a variety of settings from emergency departments to doctors' offices, from urgent care centers to telemedicine. The model, published in Annals of Emergency Medicine, will help researchers, policymakers, payers, patients, and providers identify and prioritize ways to improve acute care delivery. It was funded through a contract from the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response in the U.S.

WASHINGTON --Visits to emergency departments for patients with hypertension increased by 64 percent between 2002 and 2012 while hospitalizations for those visits declined by 28 percent. A study published online yesterday in Annals of Emergency Medicine suggests that aggressive home monitoring of blood pressure may be driving patients to emergency departments despite the lack of other emergency conditions, such as stroke ("A Population-Based Analysis Of Outcomes In Patients With A Primary Diagnosis Of Hypertension In The Emergency Department").

Lenders used misleading tactics in advertising home loans during the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis, according to a new study by a UT Dallas professor.

Dr. Umit G. Gurun, professor of accounting and finance in the Naveen Jindal School of Management, co-authored "Advertising Expensive Mortgages," recently published online in the Journal of Finance.

According to the study, borrowers spent on average $7,500 more on a $250,000 mortgage when taking an advertised "low-rate" mortgage, compared to an identical mortgage that was not advertised.

GLENVIEW - A new report on burnout syndrome in critical care health care professionals gives key stakeholders guidance on mitigating the development of burnout syndrome and calls for initiating research to examine ways to prevent as well as treat burnout syndrome.

The report was published by the Critical Care Societies Collaborative (CCSC), a group consisting of four professional and scientific societies, whose members care for America's critically ill and injured, and aims to raise awareness about burnout syndrome in critical care medicine.

Athens, Ga. - Medical marijuana is having a positive impact on the bottom line of Medicare's prescription drug benefit program in states that have legalized its use for medicinal purposes, according to University of Georgia researchers in a study published today in the July issue of Health Affairs.

If you worry about having a pet rat in case it bites you, then you can relax. Recent research has found that a domesticated strain of rat selectively bred for tameness never bites human handlers.

If people with a diabetic foot syndrome (DFS) receive hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) in addition to conventional treatment, this can promote wound healing. However, the certainty of conclusions of the available study results is restricted. Furthermore, the results for other aspects of treatment that are relevant to patients show neither hints of a benefit nor of harm. This is the finding of a final report published on June 2, 2016 by the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG).

Diabetic foot can require amputation