Archive for June, 2008
Robot Learns to Use Tools
Monday, June 30th, 2008Molecular Basis And Regulation Of Circadian Rhythms In Plants
Monday, June 30th, 2008
As anyone who has suffered from jetlag knows, we have internal clocks that tell us when to sleep and wake, and we can be miserable when these are disrupted. The daily cycles of many organisms are well known, but what has not been clear is whether these cycles are just responses to external cues of light, dark, heat, and cold, or if there are internal clocks that are set and reset by environmental signals. In animals, circadian rhythms are known to be important for maintaining a multitude of physiological processes. New research investigates circadian rhythms in plants.
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TB Outbreaks Can Be Predicted Based On The First Two Cases, Study Shows
Monday, June 30th, 2008
Outbreaks of tuberculosis may be able to be identified by looking at certain characteristics of the first two patients, according to new research. If the first two patients are diagnosed within three months of each other, live in urban areas, and if one or both are of sub-Saharan African nationality, there is a 56 percent chance that the two cases will lead to a large outbreak of TB, whereas if the patients exhibit none of those characteristics, the odds are just one percent.
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New ‘Everyday Cognition’ Scale Tracks How Older Adults Function In Daily Life
Monday, June 30th, 2008
As more adults age into the high-risk period for cognitive impairment, clinicians need simple and reliable methods to identify where they may have problems in everyday life that reveal underlying changes in the brain. A new, carefully validated questionnaire called Everyday Cognition, when filled out by someone who knows an older adult well, can sensitively evaluate the performance of everyday activities that reflect basic mental functioning, according to a report in Neuropsychology.
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Penguins Setting Off Sirens Over Health Of World’s Oceans
Monday, June 30th, 2008
Like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, penguins are sounding the alarm for potentially catastrophic changes in the world’s oceans, and the culprit isn’t only climate change, says a conservation biologist.
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New Combination Of Tests Measures Child’s Ability To Taste And Smell
Monday, June 30th, 2008
Researchers have developed a series of tests that for the first time accurately measure the normality of taste (gustatory function) and smell (olfactory function) in young children.
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Cancer Cells Revert To Normal At Specific Signal Threshold, Researchers Find
Monday, June 30th, 2008
Scientists at the Stanford University School of Medicine report that lowering levels of one cancer signal under a specific threshold reverses this process in mice, returning tumor cells to their normal, healthy state.
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Violence Declines With Medication Use In Some With Schizophrenia
Monday, June 30th, 2008
Some schizophrenia patients become less prone to violence when taking medication, but those with a history of childhood conduct problems continue to pose a higher risk even with treatment, according to a new study.
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Flaws Found In Hospital Barcoded Technology May Lead To Errors With Patient Medication
Monday, June 30th, 2008
In the first study of its kind, researchers studied how hospital nurses actually use bar-coded technology that matches the right patient with the right dose of the right medication. The surprising result is that the design and implementation of the technology, which is often relied upon as a “cure-all” for medication administration errors, is flawed, and can increase the probabilities of certain errors. Hospital patients, on average, are subject to one medication administration error a day.
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