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A ubiquitous health monitoring system that automatically alerted the patient's family or physician to problematic changes in the person's vital signs could cut hospital visits and save lives, according to Japanese researchers writing in the International Journal of Web and Grid Services.

Scientists are reporting a discovery of the potential basis for a urine test to diagnose community-acquired pneumonia (CAP), a difficult-to-diagnose disease that is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States. The test could save lives by allowing doctors to begin the right treatment earlier than often occurs at present. The study appears online in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research.

WASHINGTON -- Energy efficiency technologies that exist today or that are likely to be developed in the near future could save considerable money as well as energy, says a new report from the National Research Council. Fully adopting these technologies could lower projected U.S. energy use 17 percent to 20 percent by 2020, and 25 percent to 31 percent by 2030.

Today at the European Parliament, the MEP Heart Group evaluated the achievements at EU level in combating cardiovascular disease (CVD) and revealed further action.

"The EU cannot turn its back on CVD", expressed Dirk Sterckx and Linda McAvan, both MEPs and co-chairs of the MEP Heart Group. There is overwhelming evidence that prevention and lifestyle modification brings about big health gains. It is therefore the task of decision makers at European and national level to ensure that effective policies supporting prevention are put in place.

When cells experience DNA damage, they'll try to repair it. But if that fails, the damaged cells are supposed to self-destruct, a process called apoptosis. A cancer researcher at Robarts Research Institute at The University of Western Ontario has identified a protein that regulates apoptosis, a new discovery which has implications for both the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. Caroline Schild-Poulter's findings are now published online in the journal Molecular Cancer Research.

São Paulo/ Leipzig. Deforestation in tropical rain forests could have an even greater impact on climate change than has previously been thought. The combined biomass of a large number of small forest fragments left over after habitat fragmentation can be up to 40 per cent less than in a continuous natural forest of the same overall size. This is the conclusion reached by German and Brazilian researchers who used a simulation model on data from the Atlantic Forest, a coastal rain forest in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, around 88 per cent of which has already been cleared.

TORONTO, Ont – December 9, 2009 – Gender differences persist in the quality of cardiac care across Ontario, according to a health study by researchers at St. Michael's Hospital and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences (ICES). Ontario women who had heart attacks were less likely to receive care from a cardiologist, be referred for angiography, or be prescribed statins, cholesterol-lowering drugs.

A drug being tested to treat cancer could also help patients suffering from asthma, research has suggested.

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh found that the drug – R-Roscovitine – helps to kill certain immune cells which can exacerbate symptoms associated with asthma.

The findings could lead to an alternative way to treat asthma in patients who are resistant to steroids, which are commonly used in asthma treatments.

Researchers studied the effect that the drug had on immune cells known as eosinophils

HOUSTON - Genetic variations in the Sonic Hedgehog pathway increase the likelihood of recurrence, reduce survival time and limit response to therapy for people with non-muscle invasive bladder cancer, scientists from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center reported today at the American Association for Cancer Research Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference.

The castration of pigs prevents the "boar taint" smell in the meat and allows them to contain more fat. However in practice this can be very different. Now, for the first time, a scientific team has collected information on the conditions of castration on European pigs. The main conclusion of the study, that forms part of the PIGCAS project, is that these animals are castrated directly by the livestock farmers, without anaesthetic and in some cases, without respecting the European legislation.

Recent studies show that one in three Canadians suffer from stress and the number is on the rise. But stress isn't a new problem.

While the physiological state wasn't properly named until the 1930s, new research from The University of Western Ontario proves stress has plagued humans for hundreds, and perhaps thousands of years.

The first study of its kind, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, detected the stress hormone cortisol in the hair of ancient Peruvians, who lived between 550 and 1532 A.D.

Doctors may soon be able to quickly and accurately diagnose the cause of pneumonia-like symptoms by examining the chemicals found in a patient's urine, suggests a new study led by UC Davis biochemist Carolyn Slupsky.

Pneumonia is a lung infection that annually sickens millions of people in the United States, resulting in approximately 500,000 hospitalizations and thousands of deaths. A rapid, accurate diagnostic test for pneumonia could save lives by enabling doctors to begin appropriate treatment earlier.

CHAPEL HILL – For years, scientists have tried to determine the basis for discrepancies between race and the predisposition for development of diseases such as type II diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Could factors such as differences in lifestyle or access to health care play a role, or is there something else in play?

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK (10 December 2009)—A new legal opinion released today from one of the world's largest law firms has found that a vulnerable Brazilian tribe in the Amazon region owns carbon-trading rights in future global warming deals, a development that could preserve vast areas of the rainforest. The groundbreaking finding, said advocates, should apply to other indigenous groups in Brazil, home to 40 percent of the world's rainforests, representing a major step forward in protecting indigenous people's land rights.

Children and adolescents who survive cancer have a significantly higher risk of developing heart disease as young adults, according to the largest study on this issue published on bmj.com today.

The findings show that young adult survivors of childhood cancer are at risk for a variety of cardiovascular complications related to their cancer therapy, such as heart failure, heart attacks, inflammation of the heart and heart valve abnormalities - as late as 30 years after therapy.