Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, February 18, 2010 – A comprehensive population-based study, conducted by the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS (BC-CfE) and presented at the 17th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in San Francisco, shows that expanded highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) coverage was associated with a 50% decrease in new yearly HIV infections among injection drug users.
Tech
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., Feb. 18, 2010 -- Research presented in a paper by Morgan McGuire, assistant professor of computer science at Williams College, and co-author Dr. David Luebke of NVIDIA, introduces a new algorithm to improve computer graphics for video games.
McGuire and Luebke have developed a new method for computerizing lighting and light sources that will allow video game graphics to approach film quality.
Call them oil droplets with a brain or even "chemo-rats." Scientists in Illinois have developed a way to make simple oil droplets "smart" enough to navigate through a complex maze almost like a trained lab rat. The finding could have a wide range of practical implications, including helping cancer drugs to reach their target and controlling the movement of futuristic nano-machines, the scientists say. Their study is in the weekly Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Scientists in Australia are reporting the first use of ordinary cotton thread and sewing needles to literally stitch together a microfluidic analytical device — microscopic technology that can transport fluids for medical tests and other purposes in a lab-on-a-chip. The chips shrink room-sized diagnostic testing equipment down to the size of a postage stamp, and promise revolutionary applications in medicine, environmental sensing, and other areas. Their study is in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, a monthly journal.
Where does it come from? Scientists in Arizona are reporting a surprising answer to that question, which has puzzled and perplexed generations of men and women confronted with layers of dust on furniture and floors. Most of indoor dust comes from outdoors. Their report appears in the ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.
A team of researchers from the Canary Islands has developed a technique for automatically controlling anaesthesia during surgical operations. The new system detects the hypnotic state of the patient at all times and supplies the most appropriate dose of anaesthetic.
A rapid and unprecedented proliferation of oil and gas concessions threatens the megadiverse Peruvian Amazon. The amount of area leased is on track to reach around 70% of the region, threatening biodiversity and indigenous people.
Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (February 18, 2010) – Can patients near death safely receive sedation at home, fully respecting their own and their families' wishes? This practice, which is on the rise, is coming under increasing scrutiny and debate by palliative care researchers and practitioners. Now palliative care specialists from a team based in Spain have documented their experiences and data, and developed a standard checklist to help other clinicians. Their research appears in the journal Palliative Medicine, published by SAGE.
BIRMINGHAM, Ala - New findings in a study led by the director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Division of Neonatology show that that training birth attendants in essential newborn-care techniques reduced stillbirths by more than 30 percent - and potentially could save as many as 1 million lives worldwide each year.
Scientists may have just made the breakthrough of a lifetime, turning discarded fruit peels and other throwaways into cheap, clean fuel to power the world's vehicles.
University of Central Florida professor Henry Daniell has developed a groundbreaking way to produce ethanol from waste products such as orange peels and newspapers. His approach is greener and less expensive than the current methods available to run vehicles on cleaner fuel – and his goal is to relegate gasoline to a secondary fuel.
Alcohol is an increasingly important factor in the rising toll of fatal car crashes involving young women drivers in the US, indicates research published in Injury Prevention.
In 2007 alone, alcohol related fatal car crashes accounted for almost a third of the total in the US.
The research team analysed data from the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on fatal road traffic collisions for the years 1995 to 2007 inclusive.
Frying meat on a gas hob may be more harmful to health than using an electric hob, because of the type of fumes it produces, suggests research published ahead of print in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Professional chefs and cooks may be particularly at risk.
Cooking fumes produced during high temperature frying have recently been classified as "probably carcinogenic" by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).
Preparing vaccines that do not need refrigeration has been identified as one of the major unsolved problems in global health.
Nova has now proved the potential to solve many of the problems that pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have around stabilising the medicines of tomorrow, while offering significant practical advantages and reducing costs. Its patented technologies were also designed for ease and convenience of administration – and true availability at the 'point of care'.
Chapel Hill, N.C. - More than 57,000 Americans face a diagnosis of kidney cancer each year. Now patients with advanced disease may soon have another treatment option. Physicians who conducted a pilot study at UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center found that therapy before surgery with the drug sorafenib can reduce the size of large tumors and could be safely undertaken administered without adding significantly to the risks of surgery.
Their results are published in the Feb. 16, 2010 online issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
An international team of researchers has created a genome-scale map of 26 different cancers, revealing more than 100 genomic sites where DNA from tumors is either missing or abnormally duplicated compared to normal tissues. The study, the largest of its kind, finds that most of these genetic abnormalities are not unique to one form of cancer, but are shared across multiple cancers. The work appears in the February 18 issue of the journal Nature.