Culture

Stem cell therapies work as a complement to standard treatments, potentially cutting the number of deaths after a year, suggests evidence from the latest Cochrane review: Stem cell therapy for chronic ischaemic heart disease and congestive heart failure. Taking stem cells from a patient's bone marrow and injecting them into their damaged heart may be an effective way to treat heart disease.

Philadelphia, April 29, 2014 – Clinical Therapeutics features a special report in its April issue focusing primarily on the behavioral issues associated with patients' self-management of type 2 diabetes. "Diabetes, perhaps more so than any other chronic disease, requires people to significantly modify their behaviors—sometimes in ways that are contrary to their cultural norms and backgrounds—even when they don't 'feel' sick or experience symptoms of the disease," said John G.

It is a requirement of the touchscreens for all our everyday gadgets that they are transparent and at the same time electrically conductive. Solar cells are also unable to operate without such a film, which allows sunlight to pass through it, but can also conduct the current generated. Conventional "transparent conductive oxide" (TCO) films consist of a mixture of indium and tin oxide. Indium in very much in demand in the electronics industry, but is rare, and therefore expensive.

SAN DIEGO (April 29, 2014) – As the number of people with type 2 diabetes continues to rise and its toll increases, scientists are scrambling to unravel the complex genetic and lifestyle factors behind the disease. A new study finds that African American children with a genetic predisposition to diabetes may be able to reduce their risk by getting the USDA-recommended dose of calcium.

So-called animal-assisted therapy is being used increasingly often to treat physical and mental diseases in man. "For stressed persons, animals may serve as "social ice-breakers" and thus motivate them to enroll in therapy in the first place," says Lisa Maria Glenk, the lead author of the study. Scientific investigations on animal-assisted therapy do exist, but these have been largely confined to studying the effects of such therapy on man.

A graduate student in Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, and two of his undergraduate trainees, were selected by the Council on Undergraduate Research to present their original research on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.

Children's exposure to violence and crime declined between 2003 and 2011.

Rates of violent crime have declined in the United States since the 1990s. The authors previously completed three national telephone surveys of children and caregivers on children's exposure to violence in 2003, 2008 and 2011.

In this study, the authors analyzed the surveys for changes over time from 2003 to 2011.

University students who used a Facebook group as part of a large sociology class did better on course assignments and felt a stronger sense of belonging, according to a Baylor University study.

Would you sacrifice one person to save five? Such moral choices could depend on whether you are using a foreign language or your native tongue.

A new study from psychologists at the University of Chicago and Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona finds that people using a foreign language take a relatively utilitarian approach to moral dilemmas, making decisions based on assessments of what's best for the common good. That pattern holds even when the utilitarian choice would produce an emotionally difficult outcome, such as sacrificing one life so others could live.

Suicide has been on the increase recently in the United States, currently accounting for almost 40,000 deaths a year. A new study shows that one successful effort to avoid suicide attempts would be to focus on correcting the distorted, catastrophic thoughts about the future that are held by many who try to kill themselves. Such thoughts are unique and characteristic to those who attempt suicide, says Shari Jager-Hyman of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in the US.

NEW YORK, NY (April 28, 2014) – Using somatic cell nuclear transfer, a team of scientists led by Dr. Dieter Egli at the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) Research Institute and Dr. Mark Sauer at Columbia University Medical Center has created the first disease-specific embryonic stem cell line with two sets of chromosomes.

Who had the privilege to spend eternal life next to the pharaoh? Close to the royal tombs in the Egyptian Valley of the Kings, excavations by Egyptologists from the University of Basel have identified the burial place of several children as well as other family members of two pharaohs.

CHICAGO – Two studies from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania reveal new information about the effects of weight gain and obesity among pregnant women. One study, examining weight gain during pregnancy, shows that despite updated guidelines from the Institute of Medicine (2009), the majority of patients are still unaware of the appropriate amount of weight they should gain.

The findings from the research – led by Professor Simon Heller of the University of Sheffield's Department of Human Metabolism and Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust - could offer vital clues to the mechanism by which low blood sugar levels could contribute to life-threatening changes in heart rhythm, a major risk for patients with diabetes.

They also shed important new light on the 'Dead in Bed' syndrome – where young people without any history of long-term complications die suddenly from the disease.

PHILADELPHIA - Stroke researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania will unveil a map demonstrating geographic hotspots of increased stroke mortality across the United States, among a series of stroke studies being presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 66th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, April 26 to May 3, 2014.

Hot and Cold: Stroke Mortality Varies Widely, Even in Neighboring Counties