September 7, 2010 (4 pm ET) – Nevirapine is widely used to help prevent mother-to-child transmission of the HIV virus. In cases where the infants are nonetheless infected with HIV virus at birth, the standard treatment is to use protease inhibitors (PI) to reduce the amount of virus in their bloodstream. A new study involving 195 infants in South Africa found that children who were treated with PI and then switched to nevirapine were more likely to maintain virus below the detection threshold of the test than infants who continued to receive PI.
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Fairbanks, Alaska—A University of Alaska Fairbanks fisheries scientist has teamed up with Alaska Power and Telephone to study how a new power-generating turbine affects fish in the Yukon River.
So far, the news looks good for the fish.
"In the brief testing that we have been able to accomplish, we have no indication that the turbine has killed or even injured any fish," said Andrew Seitz, project leader and assistant professor of fisheries.
Interactive computer packages are effective in improving knowledge about sexual health, according to a new study by Cochrane researchers. Computer-based approaches could help to tackle problems such as sexually transmitted infections and unwanted pregnancy.
Acamprosate reduces the number of patients being treated for alcoholism who return to drinking, according to a new Cochrane Systematic Review. The drug showed moderate benefits in trials when used in addition to non-drug treatments.
Evaluating the quality of care delivered by individual physicians without accounting for such factors as their patients' socioeconomic status or insurance coverage risks undervaluing the work of those caring for a higher proportion of vulnerable patients. In the Sept. 8 Journal of the American Medical Association a team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers describe finding that primary care physicians' rankings on common quality measures appear to be associated with the characteristics of the patients they care for.
Patients panels (used to rate the quality of care of physicians) with greater proportions of underinsured, minority and non-English speaking patients were associated with lower physician quality rankings, according to a study in the September 8 issue of JAMA.
Use of gemcitabine, a drug that can be effective in treating advanced and resected pancreatic cancer, did not result in improved overall survival after pancreatic cancer resection (surgical removal) compared to patients who received fluorouracil and folinic acid, another treatment regimen that has shown effectiveness, according to a study in the September 8 issue of JAMA.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — For decades, carefully logging data about how mice go through the motions of their daily routines has been a tedious staple of behavioral and neuroscience research:
- Hour 2, minute 27: mouse 4 is sleeping;
- Hour 3, minute 12: mouse 7 is eating;
and so on. It's a task most people would happily cede to automation. Now, says Thomas Serre, assistant professor of cognitive, linguistic and psychological sciences at Brown University, that's finally possible.
Led by Dr. Ghanem, Henry Ford Hospital has performed more than a dozen TORS procedures since it was approved in January by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to remove malignant and benign tumors of the mouth, tongue, tonsils, and parts of the throat.
Having a sibling, especially a twin, impacts your life. Your twin may be your best friend or your biggest rival, but throughout life you influence each other. However, a recent study published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, shows that having an opposite-sex twin may impact you even before you are born: females with a male co-twin score higher on mental rotation task than females with a female co-twin.
Researchers have developed a new data transmission system that could substantially improve the transmission capacity and energy efficiency of the world's optical communication networks.
ESA's GOCE gravity mission has recovered from a glitch that prevented the satellite from sending its flow of scientific data to the ground. News of the recovery comes earlier than expected, thanks to the fervent efforts of a team of experts.
The recovery follows a serious communications malfunction on 8 July, when the Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer (GOCE) satellite suddenly failed to downlink scientific data to its receiving stations.