Tag: Staying Current

From the Mayo Clinic

Over 100,000 people in the U.S. are waiting for an organ donation. Unfortunately, many may never get the call saying that a suitable donor organ — and a second chance at life — has been found.

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A simple, ultra-thin skin patch could help doctors monitor patients around the clock.

Engineers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Northwestern University have proven that the patch, which moves with the skin and has electronic chips, is as effective as EKG and EEG testing.

According to the researchers, the patches have a “microfluidic” construction with wires folded like origami to allow the patch to bend and flex. The patches could be used for daily health tracking by wirelessly sending updates.

A crucial discovery about the relationship between viruses and cells could lead to treatment for conditions as disparate as cancer and the common cold.

The findings, by scientists from UCLA's Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center, represent the first detailed study explaining exactly how viruses reprogram the metabolism of the cells they invade to promote continued viral growth.

The study results were published in the journal Cell Metabolism.

By Rose Haywood

You put more personal information online than you may think. By signing up for a contest, shopping online for the holidays, or doing online banking, you can make it easier for hackers to get the details they need about your online ID.

With so many companies and services moving to online-only mediums, it’s hard not to put some of your information out there to get the services you need.

Here are three easy-to-follow rules that can help safeguard your ID and personal information, including financial and health details,heal from prying eyes.

1. Avoid free Wi-Fi

The number of older people who have living wills has nearly doubled in recent years, researchers have found. The change indicates that millions of people are less timid about discussing the complicated, frightening issues surrounding end-of-life medical treatments.

Investigators from the University of Michigan and the Veterans Affairs Ann Arbor Health Care System found that the percentage jumped from 47 percent in 2000 to 72 percent in 2010.

People growing food in urban gardens need to know more about soil contamination, according to researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF).

Although consuming food from urban gardens can have health benefits, a lack of knowledge about soil contamination could pose potential problems for both consumers and producers.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has issued a recommendation against routine cognitive-impairment screening for older adults who do not have symptoms.

The task force said there isn’t enough evidence to determine the effectiveness of screening all older adults.

[The evidence] “is insufficient at this time,” said Task Force co-vice chair Al Siu, M.D., M.S.P.H.

Researchers have developed a drug that can manipulate the body’s signaling systems, triggering an attack and shutdown of deadly cancer cells.

The finding was published in the journal Angewandte Chemie International Edition.

The drug, called ZL105, is a compound based on the metal iridium. The study, by researchers from the University of Warwick in the UK, has found ZL105 could potentially replace currently used anticancer drugs. Those drugs become less effective over time, have a number of side effects and damage both healthy and cancerous cells.

Although stroke affects millions of American women, many in that group are unaware of the warning signs, according to research conducted by the American Heart Association/American Stroke Association.

Researchers at the University of California, San Diego say that feelings are “contagious” on Facebook and that this fact could be exploited to created an “epidemic of wellbeing”. The study, published in March 2014 in the hournal PLOS ONE, analyzed over a billion status updates among more than 100 million users of Facebook in the United States. The report found that “positive posts beget positive posts”, according to a release from the university.

Technology that identifies the seven universal emotions — fear, anger, joy, sadness, disgust, surprise, and suspicion – can help make driving safer, according to a study done at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.

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A safer form of lithium is on the horizon, researchers say.

The drug, one of the most widely used to treat bipolar disorder has a serious drawback of toxicity.

But investigators from the University of South Florida discovered that an oral variation, lithium salicylate, maintains steady levels of the drug for up to 48 hours without the toxic “spike” that happens with the rapid absorption of FDA-approved lithium carbonate.

 Their study results appear in RSC Advances, the journal of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

In their deadly journey through the body, cancer cells travel much more efficiently than had been previously thought, a new study shows.

Researchers, whose findings were reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, developed a new mathematical formula that they say better reflects the behavior of cells as they travel through 3-D environments.

Along with all their other functions, smart phones may soon be able to diagnose diseases in real time.

Researchers from the University of Houston are developing a diagnostic system that could be read using only a smart phone and a $20 lens attachment.

This new device, like essentially all diagnostic tools, relies on spotting specific chemical interactions between something that causes a disease – a virus or bacteria, for example – and a molecule that bonds with that one thing only, like a disease-fighting antibody.

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If you think you’re good at reading peoples’ faces, you might want to think again.

Lisa Feldman Barrett, Northeastern University Distinguished Professor Psychology, has concluded that the widespread belief in universal emotions – i.e. you can read someone from a Third World country just the same as you would someone from the is simply wrong.

“Emotions are not universally perceived, “ Barrett says. Everything that’s predicated on that is a mistake.”