Culture

Driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol is a major public health problem. A study of people who had relapsed to DUI found subtle deficits in their decision-making abilities that tend to go undetected through conventional neuropsychological testing.

Results will be published in the December 2010 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.

WASHINGTON—September 7, 2010— Research!America is highlighting the vital importance of vaccines with a new fact sheet in its Investment in Research Saves Lives and Money series. CDC recently reported that routine vaccination rates are increasing among teens aged 13-17, but for many diseases the vaccination rates are far below the CDC's recommended 90% mark. With kids heading back to school and flu season fast approaching, now is a good time to remind readers of the importance of vaccines and disease prevention.

A child who can't stop scratching himself may well be suffering from atopic dermatitis, also known as neurodermatitis. Extreme irritability of the skin with a concomitant urge to scratch is typical of the disorder. The condition often appears during the first year of life and is on the increase in industrialized countries. The patient's skin becomes hypersensitive and reacts strongly to even mild irritation. A research team led by Dr.

BOSTON--Patients with colon cancer who used multivitamins during and after being treated with post-surgical chemotherapy did not reduce the risk of the cancer returning or their dying from it, according to researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

St. Louis, MO, September 7, 2010 – Food manufacturers advertise a variety of foods on grocery store shelves by using nutrient claims on the front of packaging. A study in the September/October issue of the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior evaluates how consumers misinterpret certain carbohydrate-related content labels and the effects of labels on consumer perceptions of food products. Findings from this study reveal that consumers misinterpret low carbohydrate labels to mean health benefits and weight loss qualities beyond their nutrition facts.

The United States must focus on conserving the use of antibacterial drugs, or face a public health crisis from rapidly rising rates of antibiotic-resistant infections, according to an analysis out today.

About 12,900 years ago, a sudden cold snap interrupted the gradual warming that had followed the last Ice Age. The cold lasted for the 1,300-year interval known as the Younger Dryas (YD) before the climate began to warm again.

In North America, large animals known as megafauna, such as mammoths, mastodons, saber-tooth tigers and giant short-faced bears, became extinct. The Paleo-Indian culture known as the Clovis culture for distinctively shaped fluted stone spear points abruptly vanished, eventually replaced by more localized regional cultures.

What had happened?

STOCKHOLM (6 September 2010)—Against a backdrop of extreme weather wreaking havoc around the world, a new report warns that increasingly erratic rainfall related to climate change will pose a major threat to food security and economic growth, especially in Africa and Asia, requiring increased investment in diverse forms of water storage as an effective remedy.

Uninsured minority pedestrians hit by cars are at a significantly higher risk of death than their insured white counterparts, even if the injuries sustained are similar, claims a new study from Johns Hopkins.

Minority pedestrians are also far more likely than white pedestrians to be struck by motor vehicles, according to a study published in the August issue of the journal Surgery.

Yes, you read that right. Nationalized health care can apparently prevent people from getting hit by cars and save them if they do.

VERNON -- Dr. Dariusz Malinowski is seeing blue, and he is very excited.

For four years, Malinowski, an AgriLife Research plant physiologist and forage agronomist in Vernon, has been working with collaborators Steve Brown of the Texas Foundation Seed and Dr. William Pinchak and Shane Martin with AgriLife Research on a winter-hardy hibiscus breeding project.

A painful fact about calories: it will take as long to lose weight undereating as it took to gain it overeating. But overeating is at least fun, and so only about one in every six Americans who have ever been overweight or obese loses weight and maintains that loss, according to Penn State College of Medicine researchers.

Identifying those who lose weight and successfully maintain that loss may aid health professionals in developing approaches to help others maintain weight loss, the researchers say.

Ten years on, Martin McKee reflects on report placed health system performance rankings firmly on political agenda.

Martin McKee, Professor of European Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine has contributed one of three commentaries appearing today in the journal Health Policy and Planning, each of which take a different perspective on the World Health Report 2000 on health systems (WHR2000).

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – A new report by terrorism researchers at the University of Maryland concludes that the deadly hostage-taking incident at the Discovery Communications headquarters in suburban Washington, D.C. meets the criteria of a terrorist act – a rare one for media organizations and the nation's capital region. Hostage-taking, though, is a familiar pattern in capital-region terror, the researchers add.