Culture

A team from the University of Leicester is today (Wednesday September 12) announcing a dramatic development in the search for King Richard III.

The search, which has entered a third week, has uncovered evidence of human remains – the first time in the search that this is disclosed.

The University of Leicester is leading the archaeological search for the burial place of King Richard III with Leicester City Council, in association with the Richard III Society.

Over the past two weeks, the team has made major discoveries about the heritage of Leicester by:

The clot stabilizer drug tranexamic acid can be administered safely to a wide range of patients with traumatic bleeding and should not be restricted to the most severe cases, a study published on bmj.com today suggests.

Previous studies have already shown that tranexamic acid significantly reduces death from all causes, without increasing the risk of thrombotic adverse events (formation of a blood clot in a blood vessel). As such, tranexamic acid is being incorporated into trauma protocols around the world, but these tend to focus on the most severely injured.

Researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine have created a comic influenced by the Japanese manga style to help busy medical staff who treat patients suffering from bleeding.

Professor Ian Roberts devised a storyline to highlight the latest research into the life-saving benefits of tranexamic acid (TXA) in a way which he hopes will appeal to doctors, nurses and paramedics on the front-line of medicine.

Press releases and news stories reporting the results of randomized controlled trials often contain 'spin' or the much more pleasant sounding 'framing' — specific reporting strategies emphasizing the beneficial effect of the experimental treatment — but such spin often comes from the abstract of the study rather than being related to misinterpretation by the media, according to an editorial in PLOS Medicine.

Renal transplantation is best treatment option for improving quality of life in people with late-stage chronic kidney disease

CHICAGO – In a study that included nearly 70,000 patients, supplementation with omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids was not associated with a lower risk of all-cause death, cardiac death, sudden death, heart attack, or stroke, according to an analysis of previous studies published in the September 12 issue of JAMA.

Preoperative 3-dimensional visualization of sentinel lymph nodes (SLNs) with a technique known as single-photon emission computed tomography/computed tomography was associated with a higher rate of detection of positive SLNs and a higher rate of disease-free survival among patients with melanoma, according to a study in the September 12 issue of JAMA.

A new issue of State and Local Government Review (SLGR) documents the crisis affecting city and county governments following the Great Recession. Published this month, the issue examines the severity and potentially lasting changes brought about by the economic downturn and presents new data collected from local government administrators. The Special Issue of SLGR (published by SAGE), marks its move to a quarterly publication.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new method for forecasting seasonal hurricane activity that is 15 percent more accurate than previous techniques.

"This approach should give policymakers more reliable information than current state-of-the-art methods," says Dr. Nagiza Samatova, an associate professor of computer science at NC State and co-author of a paper describing the work. "This will hopefully give them more confidence in planning for the hurricane season."

Scientists at The University of Nottingham say adverse side-effects caused by the anti-parasitic drug quinine in the treatment of malaria could be controlled by what we eat.

Forgetfulness, lack of orientation, cognitive decline… about 700, 000 Germans suffer from Alzheimer's disease (AD). Now researchers from the University of Ulm, among them the Epidemiologist Professor Gabriele Nagel and the Neurologist Professor Christine von Arnim, have discovered that the serum-concentration of the antioxidants vitamin C and beta-carotene are significantly lower in patients with mild dementia than in control persons. It might thus be possible to influence the pathogenesis of AD by a person's diet or dietary antioxidants.

Immigrant parents' education before migrating is more strongly tied to their children's achievement in the United States than any other social, economic, or linguistic parental attribute, either before or after migration. That's the conclusion of a new study in a special section of the September/October 2012 issue of Child Development on the children of immigrants.

The study was carried out by researchers at the Pennsylvania State University.

Immigrant parents' education before migrating is more strongly tied to their children's achievement in the United States than any other social, economic, or linguistic parental attribute, either before or after migration. That's the conclusion of a new study in a special section of the September/October 2012 issue of Child Development on the children of immigrants.

The study was carried out by researchers at the Pennsylvania State University.

West Nile virus (WNV) has become endemic in North America, with cases in 2012 exceeding that of any other year. As of August 28, the United States has seen 1,590 cases, 65 deaths, and 303 viremic blood donors.

According to the authors of a commentary being published early online in Annals of Internal Medicine, the dramatic increase in WNV cases could be due to "the interplay of heat, drought, human habitats, increased mosquito populations and enhanced viral development that all act in concert to increase the force of transmission."

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – September 10, 2012) Early treatment response is a powerful predictor of long-term outcome for young patients with acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The information can help physicians decide whether a more intensive approach is needed. Research led by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators has identified the best test for measuring that response and guiding therapy.