Culture

Cancer clinicians and a chaplain at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center have developed a new tool to help doctors, nurses and other health care providers talk to dying patients and families who are, literally, praying for a miracle.

The first Canadian guideline for Bell palsy, facial weakness or paralysis caused by facial nerve damage, is aimed at helping physicians manage and treat patients during the acute phase as well as recovery. The guideline, published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal), is based on the growing body of recent evidence on the condition.

Due to their previously discovered fractal nature, financial data patterns are self-similar when scaling up. New research shows that the most extreme events in financial data dynamics—reflected in very large price moves—are incompatible with multi-fractal scaling. These findings have been published in EPJ B by physicist Elena Green from the National University of Ireland in Maynooth and colleagues. Understanding the multi-fractal structure of financially sound markets could, ultimately, help in identifying structural signs of impending extreme events.

Land use policies and preferential tax treatment for housing – in the form of federal income tax deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes – have increased carbon emissions in the United States by about 2.7 percent, almost 6 percent annually in new home construction, according to a new Georgia State University study.

June 16, 2014 (San Francisco) – Researchers have long understood there is a strong association between diabetes and depression. But new research presented at the American Diabetes Association's 74th Scientific Sessions® shows that symptoms of depression in people with type 2 diabetes can be significantly reduced through interventions for "diabetes distress," suggesting that much of what is being labeled as depression may not be a co-morbid psychiatric disorder after all, but rather a reaction to living with a stressful, complex disease that is often difficult to manage.

June 16, 2014 (San Francisco) – Treatments used to decrease the development of type 2 diabetes continue to be effective an average of 15 years later, according to the latest findings of the Diabetes Prevention Program Outcomes Study, a landmark study funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

WHITEHOUSE STATION, N.J., June 14, 2014 – Merck (NYSE: MRK), known as MSD outside the United States and Canada, today announced results from a late-breaking observational study that assessed the differences in time to initiation of insulin use and the proportion of the population initiating insulin among patients with type 2 diabetes taking the combination of JANUVIA® (sitagliptin) and metformin, and patients taking the combination of a sulfonylurea and metformin.

Taxation in the UK has become increasingly regressive since the financial crisis, particularly since the coalition government came to office, according to academics at the Sheffield Political Economy Research Institute (SPERI).

The latest evidence on tax revenue shows that progressive taxes such as income tax and capital gains tax contribute 54 per cent of total tax receipts, down from 58 per cent five years earlier. In contrast, regressive taxes such as VAT contribute 28 per cent of total tax receipts, an increase from 25 per cent.Tax

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Most research examining growing income inequality in the United States has focused on economic causes, for seemingly obvious reasons.

But a new study suggests that a different cause – the politically induced decline in the strength of worker unions – may play a much more pivotal role than previously understood.

In fact, the role that union decline has played in growing income inequality may actually be larger than many of the favorite explanations offered by economists, such as the education gap in the United States.

The latest version of a bionic pancreas device has been successfully tested in two five-day clinical trials – one in adults, the other in adolescents – that imposed minimal restrictions on patient activities. A team of investigators from Boston University (BU) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) report study results in a New England Journal of Medicine paper being issued online to coincide with a presentation (abstract # 237-OR) at the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions.

CHESTERBROOK, Pennsylvania, June 16, 2014 –Animas Corporation today shared encouraging results from its predictive hypoglycemia-minimizing algorithm in development. Data from a clinical feasibility study demonstrated that the algorithm was capable of helping maintain glucose above hypoglycemic levels an average of 99.1 percent of the time for the 12 participants investigated, all of whom were adults with type 1 diabetes.

Lobbyists for 20 organic organic farm and consumer groups have filed a petition to make the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) a permanent fiefdom inside USDA, with its own oversight and accountability. Currently, NOSB exists as an advisory board, a right that was granted them when the industry was tiny. 

ITHACA, N.Y. – Social scientists' analysis of 290,119,348 tweets from 193,522 "politically engaged" Twitter users during the 2012 presidential campaign conventions and debates found little creative thinking, and a slavish blitz of retweeting "elites" like @billmaher and @seanhannity, according to a new study.

"Don't forget! Check blood sugar before and after physical activity."

"Use small plates! Portions will look larger and you may feel more satisfied after eating."

"Tick, tock. Take your medication at the same time every day!"

These are just a few of the text messages that participants received as part of the Dulce Digital study conducted by the Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute, a subsidiary of Scripps Health and one of the nation's leading diabetes research, patient care and education organizations.

New cohort studies presented today at the European League Against Rheumatism Annual Congress (EULAR 2014) have shown the amino acid valine at position 11 of HLA-DRB1 gene to be the strongest independent genetic determinant of radiological damage in rheumatoid arthritis (RA).1 In addition, positions 71 and 74 were found to represent independent predictors, with the three positions together: 11, 71 and 74 strongly associated with disease outcomes.1