Imagine entering a museum and having information about the artwork at your fingertips or being able to collaborate remotely with fellow students in a university. Those services, and others, are being provided by a new mobile learning environment.

Created by MOBIlearn under the European Commission’s IST programme by 24 partners from Europe, Israel, the United States and Australia, the system breaks new ground in the development of mobile learning, or m-learning, applications that

Union representation in British workplaces has continued to decline since 1998, though the rate of decline has slowed compared with recent decades. There has also been a substantial increase in the availability of flexible working arrangements including home-working, term-time only working, flexi-time and job sharing.

These conclusions are based on a wealth of evidence from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey (2004), which is co-sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry, Eco

Few front-line medications exist for treating hospitalized patients with acute decompensated heart failure, a stage of heart failure marked by heightened severity and often-lengthy hospital stays with frequent readmissions. Now, a study suggests the list of preferred drugs for treating the disease might be even shorter.

In a study released today (7/5) in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, researchers found that two particular drugs were associated with substantial

In a study of third graders, children with a television in their bedrooms had lower scores on standardized tests while children with access to a home computer had higher scores, researchers report in the July issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

U.S. households with children have an average of 2.8 television sets and 97 percent of those households have at least one video cassette recorder (VCR) or DVD player, according to backg

What look like playground injuries to one physician, may be suspected child abuse to another. A Penn State College of Medicine study reports that there is widespread inconsistency among pediatricians in how they interpret their responsibility to report suspected child abuse. Mandated reporting of child abuse has been in effect for 30 years and requires that people who interact with children in a professional capacity contact child protection services whenever they have “reasonable suspicion” that

Study raises hope of treating aggressive vascular malformations with anti-angiogenesis drugs

Vascular anomalies – birthmarks caused by abnormal development of arteries, capillaries, veins or lymph vessels – can sometimes begin to progress, requiring aggressive treatment to save the child’s health or vision. Research at Children’s Hospital Boston now suggests that urine testing can help monitor these anomalies and predict those about to become a serious threat. The findings, publi

Even on a relatively cool day, the temperature inside a parked car can quickly spike to life-threatening levels if the sun is out, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have found. They hope their findings will put to rest the misconception that a parked car can be a safe place for a child or pet in mild weather.

“There are cases of children dying on days as cool as 70 degrees Fahrenheit,” said lead author Catherine McLaren, MD, clinical instructor in emergency medici

Women feel pain more than men despite the popular notion that the opposite is true, according to research.

Scientists investigating gender differences in pain have found that not only do women report more pain throughout the course of their lifetime, they also experience it in more bodily areas, more often and for longer duration when compared to men.

There also seem to be differences in how men and women think and feel about their pain. For example, anxiety may affec

Gene pool of the Russian nation may be investigated using people’s surnames instead of genetic markers. This is being performed by Russian researchers supported by the Russian Foundation for the Humanities (RFH) and the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR).

Researchers use people’s surnames as a special class of genetic markers, with the help of which one can judge of internal diversity of human populations and relative connections between them. In Russia, specialists of

In the search for the best fats for a heart healthy diet, trans- and saturated fats have long been recognized as undesirable and those that contain polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) and mono-unsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) are preferred — with no clear benefit demonstrated for higher levels of either the PUFAs or the MUFAs within recommended limits.

Now, a Penn State study provides evidence that the optimum dietary fat isn’t one that contains either more PUFAs or more MUF

Your IQ and extracurricular interests as a teenager may forecast your memory and thinking abilities decades later.

A new study by researchers at the University Memory and Aging Center, affiliated with Case Western Reserve University (Case) and University Hospitals of Cleveland (UHC), found that persons who were more active in high school and who had higher IQ scores, were less likely to have mild memory and thinking problems and dementia as older adults. Their results are published

Actelion Ltd (SWX: ATLN) announced today that a study published in the July edition of the Journal of Neurosurgery suggests that clazosentan can reduce the number and severity of cases of vasospasm following aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH).1

Vasospasm occurs 5-14 days following SAH and leads to strokes and neurological deficits that cause significant disability to patients and is a major cause of death. As many as 70% of people who have aneurysmal SAH may have arteria

Establishing live, interactive links between pupils on field trips and those in the classroom is a set of tools that frees teachers from the challenge of engaging all pupils on external field trips.

Organising field trips may sometimes be difficult because the venue limits the total number of visitors or parents may simply be unable to afford the additional costs involved. Therefore the IST programme-funded RAFT project set out to demonstrate the educational benefits of externa

A recently completed study by scientists at the Oregon Research Institute (ORI) in Eugene confirmed earlier findings from a pilot study that walking on a cobblestone mat surface resulted in significant reductions in blood pressure and improvements in balance and physical performance among adults 60 and over. An article published in an early online publication of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society summarizes the study results in a randomized trial.

“These are very exciting

A study published today in the prestigious journal Nature by Dr. Michael Petrides and colleagues at the Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) at McGill University, challenges current thinking that speech developed as a result of new structures that evolved in the human brain. Dr. Petrides and colleagues have identified a distinct brain region that controls jaw movements in macaque monkeys that is comparable to Broca’s area – the region in the human brain critical for speech production. This disc

A steady diet of e-mails that promote healthy behavior can change a person’s outlook and behavior regarding healthier eating and increased physical activity, says a new study from the University of Alberta.

The 12 week study of 2,598 Canadian workers will be published in the July/August 2005 edition of the American Journal of Health Promotion.

People receiving the e-mails showed an increase in physical activity levels and also had more confidence in being able t