FORT WORTH, TEXAS, USA, September 28, 2010—The outbreak of whooping cough in Texas, California, and other states this year underscores the critical importance of widespread vaccination coverage, both locally as well as around the world, said a leading global health official attending conferences on world affairs and immunization in Fort Worth this week.
Tech
A study carried out by Spanish researchers has shown that the presence of chemical contaminants can interact with noise and modify, for good or for bad, the way in which work-related "deafness" – which is increasingly common among young people – manifests itself. Noise-related hearing loss is the most common occupational disease in Europe.
Dairy farmers can greatly reduce ammonia emissions from their production facilities by injecting liquid manure into crop fields below the soil surface, according to research by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
CSIRO scientists have developed a revolutionary technique for the rapid on-site detection and quantification of petroleum hydrocarbons (commonly derived from crude oil) in soil, silt, sediment, or rock.
Developed in collaboration with waste technology specialist, Ziltek Pty Ltd, the technique means that the presence of petroleum hydrocarbons can now be quantified simply by using a hand-held infrared spectrometer to take readings at the site of interest, without the need to take samples or perform any kind of processing.
OAK BROOK, Ill. – Using incidental findings from routine diagnostic CT, radiologists may be better able to identify people at high risk for cardiovascular disease, according to a new study appearing online and in the November issue of Radiology.
COLUMBUS, Ohio – Computers might one day recycle part of their own waste heat, using a material being studied by researchers at Ohio State University.
The material is a semiconductor called gallium manganese arsenide. In the early online edition of Nature Materials, researchers describe the detection of an effect that converts heat into a quantum mechanical phenomenon – known as spin – in a semiconductor.
Once developed, the effect could enable integrated circuits that run on heat, rather than electricity.
While both black patients and white patients appear to benefit from end of life discussions with their physician, black patients are less likely to experience end-of-life care that accurately reflects their preferences, according to a report in the September 27 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
HOUSTON (Sept. 27, 2010) – Children who practice healthy lifestyle habits such as eating fruits and vegetables and engaging in physical activity may be negatively impacting their health because they tend to consume large amounts of flavored and sports beverages containing sugar, according to research at The Michael & Susan Dell Center for Healthy Living at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).
Electric cars hold greater promise for reducing emissions and lowering U.S. oil imports than a national renewable portfolio standard, according to research conducted by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.
INDIANAPOLIS – Not since victory gardens helped World War II era Americans on the home front survive food shortages have urban gardens been as necessary and popular as they are today. With more food production in cities, the safety of the produce grown there becomes increasingly important.
Elevated concentrations of nitrogen and phosphorus, nutrients that can negatively impact aquatic ecosystems and human health, have remained the same or increased in many streams and aquifers across the Nation since the early 1990's, according to a new national study by the U.S. Geological Survey.
A team led by engineers and physicists at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney, Australia, have developed one of the key building blocks needed to make a quantum computer using silicon: a "single electron reader". Their work was published today in Nature.
Quantum computers promise exponential increases in processing speed over today's computers through their use of the "spin", or magnetic orientation, of individual electrons to represent data in their calculations.
Healthcare professionals are still not receiving the appropriate training and support they need to help people who self-harm and this can result in negative attitudes and inadequate levels of care.
Those are the key findings of a research review carried out by mental health specialists from the University of Nottingham, UK, and published in the October issue of the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing.
STANFORD, Calif. - People go to emergency departments when they've broken a leg, been stabbed or otherwise need urgent care. But a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine finds that 90 percent of EDs nationwide also offer preventive-care services.
The high prevalence was surprising, said M. Kit Delgado, MD, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford's Center for Primary Care and Outcomes Research, and it likely stems from less-than-ideal conditions.
STANFORD, Calif. - Researchers at Stanford University were able to use light to induce normal patterns of muscle contraction, in a study involving bioengineered mice whose nerve-cell surfaces are coated with special light-sensitive proteins.