Natural herbal supplements are supposed to help boost our immune systems, give us more energy and make us generally healthier. However, many of these “harmless” supplements could cause dangerous side effects during plastic surgery, reports a study in February’s Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS). In fact, the study found approximately 55 percent of plastic surgery patients, compared to 24 percent of the gene
Older people who do not have help for daily tasks such as dressing and bathing are much more likely to be hospitalized for acute illness than older adults who receive the help they need, a Purdue University study indicates, suggesting that reducing health-care costs for older adults may be as simple as providing them with a little household help each day.
A research team, including Purdue nursing professor Laura P. Sands, has found evidence that older adults who qualify for nurs
Scientists are casting a wide, tightly woven net with the goal of catching the causes of type 1diabetes.
Study sites around the world are screening 220,800 healthy babies for genes that put them at risk for type 1diabetes.
They expect to identify the genes in about 13,000 babies in this four-year screening. About half those babies will embark with their families on a 15-year journey that may help cure the disease.
“Our hope is to identify environmental factors
Food poisoning may become a thing of the past, if commercial kitchens link their appliances to the Internet. Unique technology developed recently in Europe for this environment also promises to reduce the risk of fire and to slash maintenance costs.
“The idea of remotely monitoring and controlling catering equipment over the Internet isn’t new,” says Stephen Read, coordinator of the IST project I’MOK. “But nobody succeeded in doing it. Our plug-and-play software and hardware is a ma
Researchers have introduced the concept that the cost of extending life with a defibrillator in young and otherwise healthy subjects with genetic cardiac disorders can be balanced by society gains when the lifespan of an individual is considered. Through computer-based analytical models, the study, published in Annals of Noninvasive Electrocardiology, shows that primary intervention with defibrillator therapy is cost-effective and even cost-gaining in this population.
Defibrillator
An innovative new medical approach which could substantially improve the quality of life for over a million kidney dialysis patients, and bring huge savings to health services around the globe has received an investment round worth £2.6m.
The development of this new product has been made possible thanks to a major funding round of £2.6m led by NPI Ventures with funding from NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), who had previously invested £95,000 in
Scientists from Bournemouth University and the University of Southampton have devised a new method of examining how much of the earth’s surface is covered by vegetation and assessing the state of health of the foliage. The European Space Agency (ESA) has recognised the value of this information which is likely to be a vital tool for researchers examining models of terrestrial productivity, gas exchange and climate change.
Dr Jadunandan Dash from the School of Geography and Visiting Pro
EORTC 20981 trial demonstrates: Risk of death can be halved
Two years of maintenance therapy with rituximab dramatically improves the chances of survival for patients suffering from one of the most frequent forms of lymphoma, indolent non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma (NHL). The EORTC 20981 trial reveals that rituxibam maintenance treatment prologns progression free survival by about 2,5 years, irrespective of initial treatment. Moreover, the risk of death is halved for patients who receive
A team of international researchers has revolutionised the opportunities for water industry software developers. They have developed a new toolkit that, for the first time, provides a common standard for linking essential computer programmes that help balance our water supplies against the demand from domestic, leisure and industrial users.
The Open Modelling Interface (OpenMI) will not only make life easier for thousands of water and environmental managers across Europe, it will open u
Researchers at the University of Warwick, and the University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust, have devised a new sensor which dramatically improves the amount of early warning doctors and midwives get of a dangerous situation in the birth process when the unborn child’s brain is starved of oxygen – Fetal Hypoxia.
The threat of fetal hypoxia carries dangers not only for the child but also for the woman giving birth as doctors often proceed quickly to a caesarean section i
Unique views of Earth afforded by a pioneering twin ESA radar satellite flight has brought an extra dimension to maps of Canada’s newest territory, the results winning praise from the Canadian government.
Nunavut is the latest and also largest territory of Canada: located up in the frozen northeast, Nunavut has a population of only around 29 300 but an area the size of Western Europe. The Canadian government is currently refining and updating its geographic information for the
Corporate sponsors seek positive results from their investments. By automatically monitoring TV programmes and print media, a new system promises to keep sponsors and media analysts well informed and happy.
Developed within the IST project DIRECT INFO, a prototype of the Web Services-based system was successfully tested in the sports arena. “We tracked sponsorship of the Italian football team Juventus,” says Herwig Rehatschek, the project coordinator, “looking at videos of the
The University of Liverpool is offering a new form of equine cataract removal surgery on a routine basis, which could save the sight of thousands of horses.
Professor Derek Knottenbelt from the University’s Division of Equine Studies and Professor David Wong from the Ophthalmology Research Unit, have developed a unique approach to cataract removal operations combining techniques used on humans and animals. The new surgery is proving consistently successful in restoring complet
Academics at Aston University in Birmingham, UK have invented what is thought to be the world’s longest laser. They have transformed an optical fibre 75 kilometres long into the laser, which the team hopes will improve long distance transmissions across the World.
The new laser is special because it can transmit light signals over such a long distance without any loss of power, so the signal that is being sent barely deteriorates. When normal telephone conversations or data sent
Using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, a team of Italian astronomers reveal the troubled past of the stellar cluster Messier 12 – our Milky Way galaxy ‘stole’ close to one million low-mass stars from it.
Globular clusters move in extended elliptical orbits that periodically take them through the densely populated regions of our galaxy, and then high above and below the plane (the ’halo’). When venturing too close to the innermost dense regions of our galaxy, (the 
In a coming issue, Astronomy & Astrophysics presents new laboratory results that provide some important clues to the possible origins of exotic mineral grains in interplanetary dust. Studying interplanetary grains is currently a hot topic within the framework of the NASA Stardust mission, which recently brought back some samples of these grains. They are among the most primitive material ever collected. Their study will lead to a better understanding of the formation and evolution of our Solar
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