For young people who clearly seem to be developing early signs of schizophrenia, treatment with the antipsychotic drug olanzapine appears to lower or delay the rate of conversion to full-blown psychosis, according to an article by a Yale School of Medicine researcher in the May issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry.

The findings are preliminary since 60 patients began the study and 17 completed it. Despite the long recruitment period and multiple study sites, participat

Intranasal influenza vaccine compared to shots in a phase 3 study; Data announced today at Pediatric Academic Societies Annual Meeting

An intranasal influenza vaccine proved to be more effective than the injectable influenza vaccine in children older than 6 months and younger than 5 years of age, according to study data presented today at the annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies in San Francisco.

The results point to a new way of looking at how to best

Research investigating attention in infancy has revealed that, at just four months old, babies are able to organise visual information in at least three different ways, according to brightness, shape, and how close the visual elements are together (proximity). These new findings mean that very young infants are much more capable of organising their visual world than psychologists had previously thought. The study also has implications for understanding certain developmental disorders such as Williams

For more than two hundred years, Christians, Jews and Muslims have lived and worked in close proximity in Spitalfields, east London. Dr Anne Kershen, of Queen Mary, University of London’s Department of Politics, will chair a panel discussion next week with representatives of the three religions to discuss notions of identity and cultural and religious difference in the community.

Dr Kershen will chair the discussion on interfaith and tolerance between Rev Dr Kenneth Leech, Priest, writer

A new study, to be published in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Political Economy, calculates the prospective gains that could be obtained from further progress against major diseases. Kevin M. Murphy and Robert H. Topel, two University of Chicago researchers, estimate that even modest advancements against major diseases would have a significant impact – a 1 percent reduction in mortality from cancer has a value to Americans of nearly $500 billion. A cure for cancer would be worth about $50 t

A new study recently published in Journal of Vision, an online, free access publication of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology (ARVO), shows that an individual’s navigation skills can be measured by using an immersive virtual “forest” in which peripheral visual field losses are simulated.

The study, conducted by researchers from the Lions Vision Center, Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md., involved varying the study participants’ visual

New research by Dr John Aggergaard Larsen, Research Fellow at the European Institute of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Surrey suggests that overseas-trained nurses working in the UK experience racist or xenophobic discrimination that often works through subtle ‘little things’ occurring in everyday interaction. The research, which is based on in-depth interviews across England and Wales, and was presented at the BSA Conference 2006 on 22 April 2006, reveals that this can have severe co

A new small business that helps public sector bodies and charities engage with disadvantaged young people is being given a cash boost by the University of Bradford (Thursday 27 April 2006).

The University’s graduate enterprise unit, Think Business@Bradford, will award £1,000 in cash and support to ‘Maximum Impact’ – a new company that aims to help charities and public sector bodies (such as social services, education, health and the probation service) communicate more effecti

Researchers at the University of Manchester are testing a secret herb in a bid to stop the severe hot flushes that besiege breast cancer patients on hormone treatment.

Professor Alex Molassiotis, of the School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, says the herb – one of the mint family, found in any kitchen – is thought to stop the hot flushes and night sweats which can be so bad that some women have to change their clothes three or four times a night.

It is tradition

Health professionals need to use more than tape measures and scales to define and tackle obesity, according to a paper in the British-based Journal of Advanced Nursing.

A research review carried out by Maryanne Davidson from Yale University has discovered that many women don’t make the link between high weight and poor health and that culture plays a big role in how positively they see themselves.

She reviewed key papers published over a 10-year period to see how health pr

New research shows how radical activists have triggered innovations that are helping move the UK in a more sustainable direction. Long seen as the bane of rational economic progress, these devotees to a greener lifestyle turn out to have been a key source of ideas that have seeded new industries in areas such as food, housing and energy. Rather than dismissing activists as hopelessly idealistic, mainstream business and policy should recognise how they create a diversity of options for sustainabil

Nanotechnology may one day help physicians detect the very earliest stages of serious diseases like cancer, a new study suggests.

It would do so by improving the quality of images produced by one of the most common diagnostic tools used in doctors’ offices – the ultrasound machine.

In laboratory experiments on mice, scientists found that nano-sized particles injected into the animals improved the resulting images. This study is one of the first reports showing that ultr

The disadvantages of locking the front doors of psychiatric units outnumber the advantages by more than two to one according to a study published in the latest Journal of Clinical Nursing.

Researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden interviewed 40 mental health nurses and nursing assistants working on seven Swedish psychiatric inpatient wards with locked entrance doors.

The majority of patients in their care (45 per cent) had been diagnosed with mood disorders, 33 per

chronic illness, mental health problems go unchecked

Already displaced by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, thousands of families in FEMA-subsidized temporary housing in Louisiana are facing a second crisis, according to a new study issued today by Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and The Children’s Health Fund. The study found this displaced group is suffering from a host of serious medical and mental health problems, but receiving little or no treatment

Findings may also shed light on ’choice defecit’ disorders, such as eating disorders, compulsive gambling, & drug abuse

Researchers at Harvard Medical School (HMS) report in the April 23 issue of Nature that they have identified neurons that encode the values that subjects assign to different items. The activity of these neurons might facilitate the process of decision-making that occurs when someone chooses between different goods.

“We have long known that d

Research news from the European Journal of Social Psychology

Recent studies investigating individuals’ perception of themselves as becoming better looking across time have found that we think we really do get more attractive each day. This research is revealed today in the European Journal of Social Psychology.

In an amusing and popular country and western song from 1980, Mac Davis commented how he couldn’t wait to look in the mirror, because he seemed to get better looki