Science2.0
London Murders: Stats Theory Shows Numbers Are Predictable
Leading statistician Professor David Spiegelhalter claims today that the number of murders in London last year was not out of the ordinary and followed a predictable pattern. Spiegelhalter's report, published today in Significance, the magazine of the Royal Statistical Society, argues that shocking headline numbers are not as surprising as one might think.
Violence in London attracts headlines. After four people were murdered in separate incidents in London on July 10th, 2008, BBC correspondent Andy Tighe said "To have four fatal stabbings in one day could be a statistical freak." But could it? On July 28th thelondonpaper had the front-page headline: "London's murder count reaches 90". But Professor Spiegelhalter states that this number was predictable.
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Link Between Religious Coping And Aggressive Treatment In Terminally Ill Cancer Patients
BOSTON ––– In a new study of terminally ill cancer patients, researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute found that those who draw on religion to cope with their illness are more likely to receive intensive, life-prolonging medical care as death approaches –– treatment that often entails a lower quality of life in patients' final days.
Previous research has shown that more religious patients often prefer aggressive end-of-life (EOL) treatment. The new study –– to be published in the March 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association –– examined whether these patients actually receive such care. The study's findings suggest that physicians tend to comply with religious patients' wishes for more aggressive care.
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Drug Being Used To Improve Cognition Affects Dopamine, Suggesting Potential For Abuse
Preliminary research in healthy men suggests that the narcolepsy drug modafinil, increasingly being used to enhance cognitive abilities, affects the activity of dopamine in the brain in a way that may create the potential for abuse and dependence, according to a study in the March 18 issue of JAMA.
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Animal Families With The Most Diversity Also Have Widest Range Of Size
DURHAM, N.C. -- Somewhere out there in the ocean, SpongeBob SquarePants has a teeny-tiny cousin and a humongous uncle.
That's just what one would expect from a new analysis of body sizes across all orders of animal life that was conducted by researchers at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), in Durham, N.C. and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Researchers Craig McClain and Alison Boyer created a giant database on body sizes across all orders of animal life and found that phyla -- families of animals grouped together by a similar body plan -- with the greatest diversity of species were also those with the largest range of body sizes.
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Historical Increase In Corn Yield -- It's In The Roots
Madison, WI, March 16, 2009 -- One of the most significant developments in agricultural growth in modern times has been the continuous and substantial increase in corn yield over the past 80 years in the U.S. Corn Belt.
This extraordinary yield advance has been associated with both breeding of improved hybrids and the ability to grow them at increased density. In a new study, published in the January-February issue of Crop Science, researchers have investigated the importance of the effects of leaves and roots on this dramatic increase in yield in the U.S. Corn Belt, and have found that the root structure may be the key to understanding how these crops have grown so efficient.
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Squid Fishing Fight Not 'David Vs Goliath' But More Like 'Boy Who Cried Wolf'
That is what Virginia Hennessey wrote in the Monterey Herald. Hearing claims of three squid brail (smaller boat) fishermen, one might think that the larger seine vessel squid fishermen are illegally catching all of the allowable quota.
But that’s just not the case. In fact, not only is there an abundance of squid in California’s waters – more than enough to go around – most of the brail-boat fishing fleet have no problem with the current management structure.
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What’s The Point Of Demarcation Projects?
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Disparity In Maternity Care: Lawyer Blames Government Budgets
In the UK, health care is nationalized but a trial lawyer for maternity cases says that has made money a bigger concern in deciding who gets quality medical care.
A report by The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) said there was enormous disparity in the quality of care patients received across the country. It looked at the performance of maternity units in England during 2011/12 and found that rates of inductions, emergency cesareans and assisted deliveries were twice as high in some hospitals as others.
Euthanasia: Slope For Newborns Not That Slippery Yet
The Groningen Protocol, introduced in Holland in 2005, was devised to create a standard for doctors who had families that wanted to end the suffering of sick newborns for humanitarian reasons. It outlined parameters to help identify situations in which euthanasia is warranted and wouldn't land anyone in jail.
How To Tell Time On Saturn When The North And South Poles Have Different Day Lengths
We all know time is relative, just like we know that the plates are moving around underneath us, but both time and that the earth is not moving still 'ground' us on a daily basis.
Bird Flu: H7N9 Infection Risk Mapped
A map of avian influenza (H7N9) risk is now available. The map is comprised of bird migration patterns, and adding in estimations of poultry production and consumption, which are used to infer future risk and to advise on ways to prevent infection.
As of today, there have been 127 confirmed cases of H7N9 in mainland China with 27 deaths. A lack of information about the virus and its mode of transmission has led to public concerns that H7N9 could be a pandemic waiting to happen.
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Prenoxad Injection For The Emergency Treatment Of Opioid Overdose Launched
Prenoxad Injection is a pre-filled syringe containing 1mg/ml naloxone hydrochloride solution for injection. Martindale Pharma announced the world's first licensed emergency treatment for acute opioid related overdose for use at home or other non-medical settings.
There are more than 1,000 fatal opioid related overdoses just in the UK each year, with a significant proportion of these being witnessed by other people who use drugs, family members and loved ones.
The Whale, The Torpedo And Cruelty To Animals
A brief history of the use of electricity in medicine and the development of the pacemaker.
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Prediction: 'Dark Genome' Popularity May Make 'Dark' The Top Science Media Cliche Of 2013
With the popularity of dark matter and dark energy as blanket terms for 'this is weird and we don't understand it but we are studying it, ain't science awesome?' in physics, it was only a matter of time before it caught on elsewhere.
So we have dark lightning and the life sciences made sure they caught the wave, migrating non-coding DNA (factual = booooring) from the colloquially misunderstood blanket term 'junk DNA' to the cooler and edgier 21st century 'Dark Genome'.
Can Pharmaceutical Advertising Regulate Itself?
In America, science is as polarized as politics. Corporate scientists, like at pharmaceutical companies, are criticized for working at unethical companies while academic scientists are criticized for 'chasing funding' rather than helping people.
Like many stereotypes, those images started with a kernel of truth. So if you ask most people if the pharmaceutical industry can self-police its advertising policies, they will reply it is not possible, an outside force must do it. But then if you ask people who are skeptical of medicine, they will say the FDA is also controlled by pharmaceutical companies.
Most countries have an established system for self-regulation of pharmaceuticals advertising.
Finding Nematostella: How Epithelial Cell Shape Changes Drive Tentacle Development
When you read studies about embryogenesis and the cellular and molecular mechanisms used by cells to assemble into layers or clusters of epithelial cells, you often see the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster as a model.
Stowers Institute for Medical Research Associate Investigator Matt Gibson, Ph.D., uses a different star, Nematostella vectensis, for his lab's paper on embryology.
Tissues comprised of epithelial cells shape the body not only of simple creatures but also of mammals, where they line every body cavity from lung to intestine and form hormone- and milk-secreting glands. Unfortunately these cells have a dark side too - over 80% of human cancers, carcinomas, are of epithelial origin.
The Complex Physics Behind Ducks' Feet
Although a duck may already intuitively know the answer, the question has now been clarified for us humans as part of a recent research project undertaken at the prestigious California Institute of Technology (Caltech), in the US.
Research Scientist and Post Doctoral Scholar Dr. Daegyoum Kim performed the study along with professor Morteza Gharib. The team employed a range of experimental setups with mechanical flappers, clappers and paddlers in tanks of fluid which was seeded with silver-coated glass microspheres and illuminated by an Nd:YAG laser.
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When Anti-Science Is Not
Egg White Protein May Help Lower High Blood Pressure
Chlorogenic Acids In Green Coffee Beans Help Control Blood Sugar Levels
Balkan Bean Remedy Traps Bedbugs
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The Cave Of Death: 10 Million B.C.
Why did saber-toothed cats, hyenas, an extinct 'bear-dog', ancestors of the red panda and several other carnivores die under unusual circumstances in a Spanish cave near Madrid approximately 10 million years ago?
Different scenarios have been floated for why an unusually large concentration of healthy adult carnivores died in this cave during the Late Miocene, a location known now as Batallones-1 fossil site, Madrid Basin, Spain; accidental falls into the cave, maybe the animals died in other locations and were washed into the cave, everything but mass suicide.
Yet those scenarios would mean mean herbivores also got trapped. And not just healthy adults.
Manure Pits Sound Funny - Until You Die From Hydrogen Sulfide Gas
Researchers estimate that about 10 people die each year in North American animal-manure pits. That doesn't sound like a lot but the number of manure storage facilities on farms is steadily growing, because the average farm size is increasing, the number of farms is decreasing and that will mean more manure pits. These deaths are entirely preventable, it was just not a problem in the past, so Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences have published a standard for ventilation in confined animal-manure storage facilities used at large livestock operations.
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