Culture

The increasing prevalence of both gout and chronic kidney disease has led to a growing interest in the association between hyperuricemia (an abnormally high level of uric acid in the blood) and kidney disease.

Groundbreaking research being published in the March 29th issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows the majority of the world's fisheries could be recovered in just 10 years, and that global fish populations could double by 2050 with better fishing practices compared to business as usual. The peer-reviewed study is authored by researchers from the University of California Santa Barbara, The University of Washington and Environmental Defense Fund.

A new UT Dallas study found that teen driving curfews might do more than reduce car accidents. They also may prevent teens from committing crimes.

Arrests among teens ages 16-17 fell by as much as 6 percent in states with laws that restrict nighttime driving hours for teens, according to the study.

The research by Dr. Monica Deza, assistant professor of economics in the School of Economic, Political and Policy Sciences, and co-author Daniel Litwok of the firm Abt Associates, was published online by the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.

LAWRENCE --Autism affects children from all walks of life, and education professionals need scientifically based interventions to help those affected develop reading and other life skills. However, a recent study has found that the research used to identify "evidence-based practices" very rarely reports racial and ethnic status of its participants.

That presents a problem because response to an intervention is not guaranteed and it's not always clear why one child will respond positively to certain methods while another will not, a University of Kansas researcher has found.

Companies appear to structure compensation contracts and incentive pay based on a manager's personality traits, and not just firm characteristics, according to a new study from The University of Texas at Dallas.

Dr. Vikram Nanda, O.P. Jindal Distinguished Chair of finance and managerial economics in the Naveen Jindal School of Management, said there are divergent views on the use of options and stock in CEO compensation contracts: do they appropriately incentivize managers and enhance shareholder value, and if so, why is there much variation in their use across firms?

A large study from Japan found that cancer patients who died at home tended to live longer than those who died in hospitals. Published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the findings suggest that oncologists should not hesitate to refer patients for home-based palliative care simply because less medical treatment may be provided.

Opioids are very effective for treating some types of pain, such as cancer pain and postoperative pain, but not for other kinds of pain like chronic low back pain. An increase in the number of opioid-related deaths among addicts has led to the current movement to restrict opioid prescribing by state and federal authorities. While a laudable goal, these restrictions threaten to block their use for safe and effective pain relief when medically indicated.

A recent review of the medical literature does not support the use of antipsychotic medications for preventing or treating delirium in hospitalized patients.

At least half of Parkinson's disease patients experience psychosis at some point during the course of their illness, and physicians commonly prescribe antipsychotic drugs, such as quetiapine, to treat the condition. However, a new study by researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan Medical School, and the Philadelphia and Ann Arbor Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Centers and suggests that these drugs may do significantly more harm in a subset of patients.

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Black men with historically distinctive black names such as Elijah and Moses lived a year longer, on average, than other black men, according to new research examining 3 million death certificates from 1802 to 1970.

The study, co-authored by Michigan State University economist Lisa D. Cook, is one of the first to find benefits of having a racially distinctive name. Other studies that looked at current black names such as Jamal and Lakisha suggest that having these modern-day monikers leads to discrimination.

When contact lenses work really well, you forget they are on your eyes. You might not feel the same at the end of a long day staring at a computer screen. After too many hours of wear, the lenses and your eyes dry out, causing irritation that might outweigh the convenience of contacts.

Stanford researchers hope to alleviate this pain by both advancing the understanding of how natural tears keep our eyes comfortable, and developing a machine for designing better contact lenses.

The work was inspired in part by a graduate student's dry eyes.

A joint report produced by the University of Liverpool's Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University Belfast and the University of Notre Dame, Indiana released today (Friday, March 25, 2016) sheds new light on the risks encountered by young people and children growing up in places of high religious segregation.

Highlights

Despite increased understanding of heart disease risk factors and the need for preventive lifestyle changes, patients suffering the most severe type of heart attack have become younger, more obese and more likely to have preventable risk factors such as smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, according to a study scheduled for presentation at the American College of Cardiology's 65th Annual Scientific Session.

Researchers have identified a relatively potent immunogen that could be harnessed to induce the immune system to target HIV. Recently, evidence suggests that using immunogens that prompt B cells to produce broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) may be a viable HIV vaccine strategy. In previous work, Joseph Jardine and colleagues demonstrated this possibility by using an immunogen that could bind to B cells engineered to express VRC01 class bnAbs (a class of highly broad and potent bnAbs) as well as their germline precursors.