Tech

There may be no simple one-size-fits-all approach to improving end-of-life care in ICU settings, according to a recent study from some of the world's leading researchers in palliative care.

As the General Assembly of the UN resolved on July 28 of this year, clean drinking water and basic sanitary provision are human rights. Unfortunately, there are more than one billion people all over the world who do not have access to drinking water, while as many as 2.6 billion people live without any sanitary systems at all – that is well over one-third of the world's population.

A creative version of a classic engineering technique may improve decisions about building and using supplies of important pediatric vaccines, potentially leading to lower public health costs and healthier children.

MADISON, WI, September 9, 2010 – That swine manure sprayed on to fields adds valuable nutrients to the soil is well known. But what is not known is whether all that manure is bringing harmful bacteria with it.

An analysis of wind farm applications in England shows that rejection of wind energy projects is connected to areas with high political engagement and high life expectancy. The current trend shows that many technically suitable locations may remain unused because of the threat of effective local resistance by people who are relatively privileged.

People who are better at simple physical acts such as gripping, walking, rising from a chair and balancing on one leg are more likely to live longer, according to a new study published on bmj.com today.

Measures of physical capability, such as grip strength, walking speed, chair rising time and standing balance ability, can predict mortality in older people living in the community, UK researchers found.

Laxenburg, Austria – 9th September 2010. Due to increasing life-spans and improved health many populations are 'aging' more slowly than conventional measures indicate.

In a new study, to be published in Science, (10 September) scientists from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria, Stony Brook University, US, (SBU), and the Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) have developed new measures of aging that take changes in disability status and longevity into account.

Current energy technologies are not enough to reduce carbon emissions to a level needed to lower the risks associated with climate change, New York University physicist Martin Hoffert concludes in an essay in the latest issue of the journal Science.

NAIROBI (9 September 2010)—Greenhouse gas emissions caused by livestock operations in tropical countries—a major contributor to climate change—could be cut significantly by changing diets and breeds and improving degraded lands, according to a new study published this week in the U.S. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. And as an added bonus, scientists found the small changes in production practices could provide a big payoff by providing poor farmers with up to US$1.3 billion annually in payments for carbon offsets.

As speech recognition systems become more commonplace it is increasingly important to ensure that the voice signal is as clear as possible before it is processed by a computer and acted upon. In business, it could make the difference in a profitable financial deal while in transportation it could mean a safe vehicle or aircraft maneuver.Mobile phone conversations and even the clandestine recording of speech for security and law enforcement purposes could benefit.

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Tweet this, Ashton Kutcher, Lady Gaga and Guy Kawasaki. You may have a ton of followers on Twitter but that doesn't necessarily mean you're among the most influential people in the Twitterverse. Instead, on various topics people with much lower profiles may have the most influence.

Fresh insight into how plants slow their growth in cold weather could help scientists develop crops suited to cooler environments.

Researchers have shown for the first time that a gene – known as Spatula – limits the growth of plants in cool temperatures, possibly helping them adjust to cool conditions.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh, who took part in the study, believe that by manipulating the gene, they could produce the opposite effect – enabling development of crops that grow well in cold climates.

Numerous CCTV systems are in use in public places which have the capacity to gather large amounts of image material. For the time being, however, there are no effective ways to analyze the mass of video data automatically and recognize potential risk situations in advance. VTT is involved in an EU research project aimed at developing IT solutions to this end.