Culture
Availability of family and friends key factor in deciding organ transplant suitability
This may sanction existing prejudices and widen inequalities in selection process, warn researchers
The availability of a supportive network of family and friends is a key factor in deciding on a person's suitability for an organ transplant, reveals research published online in the Journal of Medical Ethics.
Around 25 percent of Medicare spending in the U.S. occurs in the last year of people's lives. This is sometimes discussed as a questionable use of resources: Is society throwing large amounts of medical treatment at some patients in a futile, if noble, effort to extend lives that are bound to end soon?
A new study co-authored by an MIT health care economist offers a resounding answer: No.
Charles Lieber and his group are rewriting the rules of how scientists study retinal cells, and they're doing it with a single injection.
Although it's far from perfect by virtually any measure - whether poverty rates, violence, access to education, racism and prejudice or any number of others - the world continues to improve. Why, then, do polls consistently show that people believe otherwise?
The answer, Daniel Gilbert says, may lie in a phenomenon called "prevalence induced concept change."
Genetic ancestry tests are often advertised as a tool to uncover new connections to diverse cultures and ancestries, but new research from the University of British Columbia has found people tend to pick and choose which races they identify with based on preconceived biases.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- Researchers at Indiana University have found early evidence that tiny snippets of genetic material called microRNA may help with early detection of conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.
The study, published June 18 in Nature Scientific Reports, found that changes in microRNA are detectable in mice long before they start to show symptoms from neurodegeneration. These microRNA changes may represent an early warning sign, or "biomarker," for the condition.
Researchers have identified a new gene-activation pathway caused by lipids associated with coronary artery disease, a finding that could help identify new directions in research and drug development. The study was published in June in Nature Communications.
When playing an economic game those that were assigned as 'lower status' were more likely to share their wealth than their 'higher status' counterparts, according to a new study at Queen Mary University of London.
The social experiment involved a series of economic games in which people played with other people for real money. The games involved participants deciding how much money they kept and how much they gave to a group pot. The money in the pot was always shared out to the players.
Spiders are ubiquitous within our forests, fields, and backyards. Although you may be used to seeing the beautiful yellow and black spiders of the genus Argiope in your garden, large ground-scurrying wolf spiders in your yard, or spindly cellar spiders in your basement, this new sheet-web-building spider is probably one you haven't seen before. The reason is that it's known from a single cave in the world, Stygeon River Cave, in southern Indiana.
In-game purchasing systems, such as 'loot boxes', in popular online games resemble gambling and may pose financial risks for vulnerable players, according to gambling psychology researchers at the University of Adelaide.
The researchers have examined a range of popular online games that include the option of paying small fees ('microtransactions') to access additional features or content that enhance the player's experience.
Using observations from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based observatories, an international team of scientists have confirmed ?Oumuamua (oh-MOO-ah-MOO-ah), the first known interstellar object to travel through our solar system, got an unexpected boost in speed and shift in trajectory as it passed through the inner solar system last year.
MINNEAPOLIS - While it has been known that estrogen plays a role in migraine for women, new research shows that the female sex hormone may also play a role in migraine for men, according to a small study published in the June 27, 2018, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Migraine is a disabling neurologic disorder marked by frequent attacks of severe headaches. During childbearing years, women are three times more likely to have migraine than men.
The interstellar object Oumuamua was discovered back on October 19, 2017, but the puzzle of its true nature has taken months to unravel, and may never be fully solved.
Meaning "scout from the distant past" in Hawaiian, Oumuamua was found by astronomers working with the University of Hawaii's Pan-STARRS1 survey as it came close to Earth's orbit. But what is it: an asteroid or a comet? As soon as it was spotted, astronomers from around the world were on the case.
Providing care based on need not ability to pay is the NHS's greatest achievement, say readers of The BMJ
'Providing care based on need and free at the point of delivery' has been voted the NHS's greatest achievement in its 70 years by readers of The BMJ.
Over 5,500 readers voted on a shortlist of 12 contenders to find the NHS's greatest achievement since it launched on 5 July 1948.
Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science have discovered a circuit in the brain that is necessary for unlearning fear. Published in Nature Communications, the study details the role of dopamine in ensuring that rats stop being afraid when there isn't anything to be afraid of anymore.