Culture

New research shows that more than 5.5 million people die prematurely every year due to household and outdoor air pollution. More than half of deaths occur in two of the world's fastest growing economies, China and India.

MANHATTAN, KANSAS -- Average neighborhood income may play a role in creating food deserts in cities of all sizes, according to a Kansas State University study.

A new survey finds that 15 percent of U.S. adults (that's about 36 million people) cook in the nude. Or at least have.

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 12 February 2016: Mecca's cardiac hospital has described how it copes with the huge patient influx during the Hajj and gives details of the echocardiography service in an abstract presented at the 27th Annual Conference of the Saudi Heart Association (SHA).1

The conference is being held 12 to 15 February in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Experts from the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) will present a special programme.2

CINCINNATI -- While approved generics are required to be equivalent to their brand-named counterparts in terms of active ingredients, some may wonder if a switch between generics could cause problems for someone who relies on daily medication to control a severe, chronic condition, like seizures.

Female college students are more likely to abandon studies in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines than their male classmates, and a new paper finds a way to blame men. Ironically, it reaffirms stereotypes by suggesting the confidence of female scientists is easily undermined by male peers, even when females outnumber men.

DALLAS, Feb. 11, 2016 - Patients aged 50 and older with recent asthma activity were significantly more likely than non-asthmatics to experience abdominal aortic aneurysm rupture and sudden death, according to new research published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, an American Heart Association journal.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- They may dream of becoming doctors, and helping people like themselves.

But for young people with disabilities, that dream may die when they check the admissions standards of most medical schools, according to a new study.

After more than half a decade of speculation, fabrication, modeling and testing, an international team of researchers led by Drexel University's Dr. Yury Gogotsi and Dr. Patrice Simon, of Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, France, have confirmed that their process for making carbon films and micro-supercapacitors will allow microchips and their power sources to become one and the same.

A drug used by people with type 2 diabetes to regulate blood sugar led to pancreatic beta cell burnout in mice exposed to high doses over a period of six months. The study, published February 11 in Cell Metabolism, adds to the continuing conversation about the long-term effects of liraglutide and similar drugs on the pancreas. However, more research is needed to assess the potential safety of continuing treatment with these drugs.

Research led by UCLA professor on 'OpenNotes' model finds that follow-up emails are critical to keeping patients in the know

A study led by Dr. John Mafi, a professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, has found that a simple note from a primary care doctor can be a critical way to keep patients involved in their own health care.

Pediatric oncologists from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have investigated techniques to improve and broaden a novel personalized cell therapy to treat children with cancer. The researchers say that a patient's outcome may be improved if clinicians select specific subtypes of T cells to attack diseases like acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and lymphoma.

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 11, 2016 - Have you ever noticed that when heated a film of oil in a pan doesn't remain completely flat? Instead, it forms a wavy pattern that resembles the exterior of an orange. These sorts of deformations inspired a group of researchers at the Technical University of Darmstadt, in Germany, to explore whether they could be used to improve and streamline microfabrication processes.

FINDINGS: Increasingly patients and providers are interested in using remote monitoring devices to help with their health care. The researchers sought to determine if these devices could be useful in preventing 180-day all-cause hospital readmissions for heart failure patients. They enrolled 1437 patients from UCLA, UC Davis, UC Irvine, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles who were randomized into two groups.

A ban on federal funding of research into gun violence initiated by Congress in 1997 must be overturned to improve understanding of gun use and how best to control it, argue experts in The BMJ today.

In an editorial, Margaret Winker and colleagues say the move has had "a chilling effect on gun violence research to this day" and they argue that "US history and the political pressure brought to bear by the National Rifle Association have so far proved impossible to defy."