Culture

Flexible, transparent electronics are closer to reality with the creation of graphene-based electrodes at Rice University.

The lab of Rice chemist James Tour lab has created thin films that could revolutionize touch-screen displays, solar panels and LED lighting. The research was reported in the online edition of ACS Nano.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the United States. Every year millions of Americans think about taking their own lives. Sadly, each year tens of thousands die by suicide. While suicides can be a shock to family and friends, some warning signs exist. Often a simple question from a family doctor can be enough to start a person toward help and treatment.

More than 6000 attendees of the Love Parade 2010 in Duisburg required medical care. The mass panic in a narrow stretch of tunnel led to 21 dead and more than 400 injured, some seriously. The emergency physician Ole Ackermann of the Duisburg Medical Center and his coauthors present an assessment of the medical care provided. Rather than focusing on the treatment administered to those who later died, the authors give an overview of the number, severity and urgency of treatment as a whole.

Caregivers and their relatives who suffer from mild to moderate dementia often have different perceptions regarding the amount and quality of care given and received. A study by researchers at Penn State and the Benjamin Rose Institute on Aging examined a major source of those differences -- caregivers do not understand the things that are important to their relatives with dementia.

The push for campaign finance reform may be driven by a tendency to overestimate the power of political messages to influence other people's opinions, according to researchers.

In an experiment, people who viewed negative political advertising said the advertisements had little effect on their own opinions, but believed the ads would have a greater influence on others, said Fuyuan Shen, associate professor, communications, Penn State.

Research published in The Cochrane Library found that the risk of death and cardiovascular disease, such as stroke, was unchanged whether glucose control was intense or conventional. They did find, however, that when aiming to keep blood glucose levels at the lower intensive level, the chance of damaging small blood vessels in the body, potentially leading to damage in the eyes and kidneys, is reduced.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. — Attending a non-denominational spiritual retreat can help patients with severe heart trouble feel less depressed and more hopeful about the future, a University of Michigan Health System study has found.

Heart patients who participated in a four-day retreat that included techniques such as meditation, guided imagery, drumming, journal writing and outdoor activities saw immediate improvement in tests measuring depression and hopefulness. Those improvements persisted at three- and six-month follow-up measurements.

In an effort to reduce the radiation dose delivered by computed tomography (CT) scans, staff at a community-based hospital developed a comprehensive CT radiation dose reduction program which has allowed them to reduce the radiation dose delivered by CT scans at their facility, according to an article in the August issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology.

An interactive computer software program appears to be effective in helping patients manage their Type 2 diabetes using their mobile phones, according to a new study by University of Maryland School of Medicine researchers. The study is being published in the September issue of the journal Diabetes Care.

Breast cancer screening has not played a direct part in the reductions of breast cancer mortality in recent years, says a new study by an international team of researchers from France, the UK and Norway who found that better treatment and improving health systems are more likely to have led to falling numbers of deaths from breast cancer than screening.

HOUSTON -- (July 28, 2011) -- The DNA evidence is in, and Ben Franklin didn't import the Chinese tallow trees that are overrunning thousands of acres of U.S. coastal prairie from Florida to East Texas.

"It's widely known that Franklin introduced tallow trees to the U.S. in the late 1700s," said Rice University biologist Evan Siemann, co-author the new study in this month's American Journal of Botany. "Franklin was living in London, and he had tallow seeds shipped to associates in Georgia."

CINCINNATI—New University of Cincinnati (UC) research on HIV testing at local emergency departments shows that hospitals miss opportunities to diagnose patients who do not know they are infected with HIV, even when a regular testing program is in place.

Brussels, 29 July 2011 - The European Commission's Joint Research Centre has developed three new methods to detect an illegal clouding agent which can be found in sports drinks imported from Taiwan.

In late May, the Taiwanese authorities informed the European Commission that significant amounts of phthalates were illegally added to certain categories of sports drinks. These chemicals are believed to affect reproductive performance and fertility, and have been linked to developmental problems with children.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should gather the information needed to develop a new regulatory framework to replace the 35-year-old 510(k) clearance process for medical devices, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine. The 510(k) process lacks the legal basis to be a reliable premarket screen of the safety and effectiveness of moderate-risk Class II devices and cannot be transformed into one, concluded the committee that wrote the report.

TORONTO, Ont., July 29, 2011—More than eight in 10 Ontarians say they would want to be taken directly to a trauma centre if they were seriously injured, even if another hospital were closer, a new poll has found.

The poll, conducted for researchers at St. Michael's Hospital, also found that 40 per cent of respondents believe they can get access to a trauma centre within an hour of calling 911.

Neither event is guaranteed, said Dr. Avery Nathens, the hospital's trauma director.