The notion of offering a self-test for chlamydia via the Web-­unique in the world­ – is the centerpiece of the dissertation that Daniel Novak will be defending at Umeå University, Sweden, on March 3.

“Testing yourself with the aid of the Internet is something I hope will serve as a major complement to present – day care,” he comments.

Many sexually transmitted diseases present no early symptoms. It is fully possible, for instance, to carry a chlamydia infection with

Researchers studying a water supply programme for Ethiopian villages found that it had many benefits, but one unpredicted result was an increase in the birth rate. The demands on the scarce resources available to the villages therefore increased. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Bristol and University College London, UK, is published in the latest issue of PLoS Medicine.

Improving access to water is one of the most important goals of development pro

Less than 1 percent of outpatients who received medication in 2002 were prescribed a medication that violated a prescription drug’s black box warning, according to a study in the February 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

“Adverse drug events (ADEs) are believed to be among the leading causes of mortality in the United States, with an estimated 100,000 deaths per year,” according to background information in the article. However, ther

Some patients with glaucoma appear to have higher pressure in their eyes during sleep at night than during the day when it is usually measured, possibly putting them at higher risk for progression of the disease than previously thought, according to a study in the February issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

Higher intraocular pressure, the force within the eyeball, and greater daily fluctuation in pressure may increase the risk that glaucoma will de

Assertive and even aggressive human behavior could explain why shark attacks worldwide dipped last year, continuing a five-year downward trend in close encounters with the oceanic predators, new University of Florida research suggests.

Greater safety precautions and in-your-face responses to confrontations with sharks went a long way in reducing the total number of attacks from 65 in 2004 to 58 in 2005 and fatalities from seven to four, said George Burgess, director of the Interna

A drug widely available in Europe and Canada – but not the United States – dramatically eases one of the most disabling symptoms of Huntington’s disease, involuntary writhing movements known as chorea, according to a study in the Feb. 14 issue of the journal Neurology.

The medication, tetrabenazine, is currently being reviewed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. If approved, the medication would be the first authorized by the agency expressly for the treatment of Hunting

Most people would not choose the sex of their child if given the option, according to a new nationwide survey. The study is the first to examine the demand and preferences for sex selection among the U.S. general population.

“We found that only 8 percent of people would use pre-implantation sex selection for non-medical reasons,” said Dr. Tarun Jain, assistant professor of reproductive endocrinology and infertility at University of Illinois at Chicago and senior author of the report

A new study to examine facial preference, has found that people are attracted to facial characteristics indicative of personality traits similar to their own.

Biological scientists at the University of Liverpool launched the study to investigate the reasons why many couples tend to look similar to each other. The team, in collaboration with the University of Durham and the University of St Andrews, asked participants to judge perceived age, attractiveness, and personality traits

Six-year-olds whose parents displayed frequent disagreements in their relationship responded to subsequent parental conflicts with elevated distress and negative thoughts, according to a team of researchers from the University of Rochester and the University of Notre Dame.

In the latest issue of the journal Child Development, the team reported examining 223 children twice during a one-year period for their reactions to conflicts between their parents. First, their mothers and fathe

The Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) — a project developed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — is seeking 800 older adults to participate in a study aimed at identifying biological markers of memory decline and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Ultimately, scientists hope that brain and biological changes can be detected before memory decline and other symptoms appear, allowing the effectiveness of drugs to be evaluated at the earliest possible time.

The $6

New study reveals that perceptions of volume depend on which sense is being used to make the judgment

A fascinating new study from the March 2006 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research explores how our senses interact to gauge volume, with important implications for perception of consumer products and consumption patterns. Specifically, the article argues that “elongation effect” – the common tendency to think that a tall, thin glass holds more than a short, stout glass of equ

Socioeconomic factors predominantly explain racial and ethnic disparities in prostate cancer outcomes, according to a new study. Published in the March 15, 2006 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the study found race plays a minor role in prostate cancer survival, and that the most important factors related were education, community poverty, and income levels. Age, disease stage, and treatment method also independently impacted outcome.

Prosta

A study from the Medical College of Wisconsin and Children’s Research Institute

A study by researchers at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and Children’s Research Institute concludes that the risk of death for injured children is significantly lower when care is provided in pediatric trauma centers than in non–pediatric centers. Children’s Research Institute is part of the Children’s Hospital and Health System. The study on “Outcomes and Delivery of

Research has identified the most effective way to insert breathing tubes in air ambulance patients on the way to the hospital. The finding, that a combination of sedative and paralytic drugs increased the chance of success by almost fourfold, may also apply to other types of pre-hospital care.

“Having solid evidence for what method is most effective allows us to offer the best care possible to patients in these life-or-death situations,” said William Bozeman, M.D., lead auth

Poor reading puts first graders at risk for later aggressive behavior

Does your first grader help other children? Does he comfort other children when they are upset? If so, say a silent thanks –your child’s prosocial skills may predict good reading skills by the third grade. That’s the finding from a study published in the January/February 2006 issue of the journal Child Development. The study, from researchers from Stanford University, also finds that children with low readi

Empathy, altruistic behavior seen increasing

In the nation’s first survey of altruistic love, scholars have found that people who have strong feelings of love for people in general are more likely to have strong romantic relationships.

The survey by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, found wide support for altruistic love on a number of items and compared altruistic values and behaviors with those in a similar study from 2002, and fou