Culture

An extract from the plant Cannabis sativa (trade name Sativex®) was approved in May 2011 for patients suffering from moderate to severe spastic paralysis and muscle spasms due to multiple sclerosis (MS). In an early benefit assessment pursuant to the "Act on the Reform of the Market for Medicinal Products" (AMNOG), the German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) examined whether the new drug, which is used as a mouth spray, offers an added benefit over the optimized standard therapy.

Lugano, Switzerland, 14 September 2012 -- Ahead of the top 48 abstracts (LBA and PR suffix) that will be released during the ESMO 2012 Congress, over 1,600 abstracts will be published online on Monday, 17 September 2012 at 9:00 (CEST) to anticipate the flavor of an ESMO Congress that once again "will be presenting emerging strategies set to combat cancer, signposting future directions in patient treatment and care, boldly addressing the many new challenges that lie ahead." (Josep Tabernero, ESMO 2012 Scientific Chair)

The age-old parental struggle of convincing youngsters to eat their fruits and vegetables has some new allies: Power Punch Broccoli, X-Ray Vision Carrots — and a host of catchy names for entrees in school cafeterias. Cornell University researchers studied how a simple change, such as using attractive names, would influence elementary-aged children's consumption of vegetables.

Family members who care for terminally ill patients at home can be helped by nurses throughout the course of the illness and particularly after the patient's death, according to Penn State nursing researchers.

The death of a loved one can be particularly hard for those who were involved in the day-to-day care of the person. This transition can be eased by existing support from nurses and other medical professionals.

CAMDEN -- From Napster to iTunes to Pandora, the methods by which the public can obtain and share music have rapidly progressed.

Future groundbreaking innovations may need to wait, though, as the next generation of technology is being stymied by the very copyright laws that seek to protect the industry, says Michael Carrier, a professor of law at Rutgers–Camden.

"There is not enough attention being given to the effect copyright law has on innovation," Carrier says about the fight against copyright infringement and the attempt to extinguish every instance of piracy.

Abstinence from alcohol plus physical exercise can help reclaim bone loss due to alcoholism

There is little doubt that Frances O'Grady has made history as the first woman to be elected General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress in September 2012. A recent study from Queen Mary, University of London casts some light on the level of O'Grady's achievement in the wider union landscape.

This cross-national study found that in both the UK and the US, women still have fewer top positions in trade unions despite growth in overall female membership.

In the vicinity of Hermeskeil, a small town some 30 kilometers southeast of the city of Trier in the Hunsrueck region in the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, archaeologists from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have confirmed the location of the oldest Roman military fortification known in Germany to date. These findings shed new light on the Roman conquest of Gaul. The camp was presumably built during Julius Caesars' Gallic War in the late 50s B.C.

In a study published today in The American Naturalist, a group of scientists led by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) have used a technique developed to study human consumer choices to investigate what influences a baboon's foraging decisions. The technique, known as discrete choice modelling, has rarely been used before in animal behaviour research. It showed how baboons not only consider many social and non-social factors when making foraging decisions, but also how they change these factors depending on their habitat and their own social traits.

Washington, DC (September 13, 2012) — Earlier this year, the American Society of Nephrology (ASN), the world's leading kidney organization, joined other groups in a campaign to help health care professionals and patients avoid wasteful and sometimes harmful medical interventions. A new article in the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (CJASN) outlines the ASN's top five recommendations for the campaign and the rationale behind them. Following these recommendations would lower costs and lead to better care for patients with kidney disease.

Doubt is not a pleasant mental state, but certainty is a ridiculous one.—Voltaire

In the first scientific study to test whether doubts about getting married are more likely to lead to an unhappy marriage and divorce, UCLA psychologists report that when women have doubts before their wedding, their misgivings are often a warning sign of trouble if they go ahead with the marriage.

The UCLA study demonstrates that pre-wedding uncertainty, especially among women, predicts higher divorce rates and less marital satisfaction years later.

Children of immigrants are outperforming children whose family trees have deeper roots in the United States, learning more in school and then making smoother transitions into adulthood, according to sociologists at The Johns Hopkins University.

Researchers have developed new software that can rapidly calculate the carbon footprints of thousands of products simultaneously, a process that up to now has been time consuming and expensive. The methodology should help companies to accurately label products, and to design ways to reduce their environmental impacts, said Christoph Meinrenken, the project's leader and associate research scientist at Columbia University's Earth Institute and Columbia Engineering. A new study, published online in the Journal of Industrial Ecology, describes the methodology.

A new study finds that smart growth approaches to urban planning could substantially reduce the number of miles that residents drive in a year. The research was published this week in The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy.

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Every cook knows that boiling water bubbles, right? New research from Northwestern University turns that notion on its head.

"We manipulated what has been known for a long, long time by using the right kind of texture and chemistry to prevent bubbling during boiling," said Neelesh A. Patankar, professor of mechanical engineering at Northwestern's McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science and co-author of the study.