Culture

(Philadelphia, PA) - Many people who survive a heart attack find themselves back in the hospital with a failing heart just years later. And the outcome often is unfavorable, owing to limited treatment options. But scientists at Temple University School of Medicine's Cardiovascular Research Center (CVRC) recently found hope in an unlikely source – stem cells in cortical, or compact, bone. In a new study, they show that when it comes to the regeneration of heart tissue, these novel bone-derived cells do a better job than the heart's own stem cells.

URBANA, Ill. – Farmers who grow corn and soybeans can take advantage of government price support programs and crop insurance, but similar programs are not available for those who grow biomass crops such as Miscanthus. A University of Illinois study recommends a framework for contracts between growers and biorefineries to help spell out expectations for sustainability practices and designate who will assume the risks and costs associated with these new perennial energy crops.

TORONTO, Sept. 4, 2013—Problem gamblers are a hidden population among people with mental health or substance abuse issues who often don't get the treatment they need, a new paper says.

Anywhere from 10 to 20 per cent of people with substance abuse problems also have significant gambling problem, yet few programs are targeted at them and most social service agencies don't have funds to treat them, the study's main author says.

Amsterdam, 4 September 2013: Close to thirty thousand delegates converged from all over the world, to the ESC Congress 2013 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, this week. Cardiologists came to hear first-hand about the latest research. "A record number of Hot Lines and scientific sessions with new formats allowed for more exchanges between peers presenting results of clinical trials, new Clinical Practice Guidelines and new devices and treatments," said Professor Keith Fox, Chair of the ESC Scientific Programme Committee. We have much to learn from each other!

London (Wednesday 04 September 2013). Having a tattoo can reduce your chance of getting a job, but it depends on where the tattoo is, what it depicts and if the job involves dealing with customers, new research says.

London (Wednesday 04 September 2013). Having a degree or other qualifications is no protection against under-employment in Britain, new research shows.

The British Sociological Association's conference on work, employment and society in Warwick heard today [Wednesday 4 September] that qualified women were more likely to be under-employed than unqualified ones. Qualified men were just as likely to be under-employed as unqualified ones.

Heart failure patients and others who need implanted cardiac devices to help their heart beat regularly may benefit from a new technology to guide their implantation procedure. It uses electromagnets, which work like a GPS tracking system, instead of radiation-based imaging, researchers reported in the American Heart Association journal Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology.

Big global questions face us, among them: How will we feed a growing global population without ruining the soil and polluting freshwater? Or meet our burgeoning energy demands while curbing the greenhouse gas emissions that fuel rising sea levels, flooding, drought, disease and wildfire? And what can we do to stem the extinction of thousands of other species that share the planet with us?

(Boston) - Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Boston Medical Center (BMC) have found that among obese people who had lost considerable weight, those with high insulin levels--a marker of insulin resistance in the body--were the most likely to experience better blood vessel function following the weight loss. These findings appear online in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Mayo Clinic researchers have found a way to resynchronize cardiac motion following a heart attack using stem cells. Scientists implanted engineered stem cells, also known as induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, into damaged regions of mouse hearts following a heart attack. This regenerative approach successfully targeted the origin of abnormal cardiac motion, preventing heart failure. The findings appear in the September issue of the Journal of Physiology.

For many firms, losing significant revenue and profit to employee theft has been a cost of doing business.

But a new study from Washington University in St. Louis finds that information technology monitoring is strikingly effective in reducing theft and fraud, especially in the restaurant industry.

"Cleaning House: The Impact of Information Technology Monitoring on Employee Theft and Productivity," by Lamar Pierce, PhD, associate professor of strategy at Olin Business School, finds that mining sales data of employees increased restaurant revenue about 7 percent.

If you're poor and aging in America, the golden years may not be pretty, especially if you are black.

University of Central Florida assistant professor Latarsha Chisholm and colleagues conducted a study, which found that nursing homes that serve predominantly black residents tend to struggle financially and provide lower quality care than nursing homes with no black residents. Results were recently published in the Health Services Research journal.

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Women are two to eight times more likely than men to suffer a debilitating tear of the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the knee and a new study suggests that a combination of body type and landing techniques may be to blame.

In two new studies published online this week in the Journal of Athletic Training, lead author Marc Norcross of Oregon State University documents how women who were asked to undergo a series of jumping exercises landed more often than men in a way associated with elevated risk of ACL injuries.

Research has shown that giving obese rodents a recently identified circulating protein called fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) helps improve their metabolism. Now investigators reporting in the Cell Press journal Cell Metabolism reveal that a variant of FGF21 has similar effects in obese people with type 2 diabetes.

Scientists from the Institute of Health Economics and Health Care Management (IGM) and from the Institute of Epidemiology II (EPI II) discovered that weight gain leads to deterioration in physical health. Female study participants, however, experienced improved mental quality of life as their weight increased, a result that was observed even in women who were already overweight when the study began.