Culture

The truth behind some of the world's most famous historical myths, including Homer's epic, the Iliad, has been bolstered by two researchers who have analysed the relationships between the myths' characters and compared them to real-life social networks.

In a study published online today, 25 July, in the journal EPL (Europhysics Letters), Pádraig Mac Carron and Ralph Kenna from Coventry University performed detailed text analyses of the Iliad, the English poem, Beowulf, and the Irish epic, the Táin Bó Cuailnge.

Research: Overdiagnosis and mistreatment of malaria among febrile patients at primary healthcare level in Afghanistan: observational study

Substantial overdiagnosis and mistreatment of malaria is evident in south and central Asia, warns a study published on bmj.com today.

With more than two billion people at risk of malaria in this part of Asia – larger than that of Africa - this is a major public health problem which needs to be confronted, say the authors.

Patients with blocked arteries to their extremities, known as peripheral artery disease (PAD) or critical limb ischemia (CLI), may now find relief from lower leg pain and wounds caused by impaired leg artery circulation with the previously unproven therapy, percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA).

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Participation in competitive sports by people with long QT syndrome -- a genetic abnormality in the heart's electrical system -- has been a matter of debate among physicians. Current guidelines disqualify most LQTS patients from almost every sport. In a first-of-its-kind study, Mayo Clinic's LQTS Clinic recently examined its own experience, determining the outcome of LQTS patients who chose to remain athletes against guideline recommendations. The study is published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

China's improved air quality during the 2008 summer games did more than provide a healthier atmosphere for the athletes. It also demonstrated that widespread changes in transportation patterns could greatly reduce the threat of climate change. Those changes in transportation basically boiled down to banning cars for people who were not government or business elites, which is favored by social authoritarians but not by working people - still, it works. And not a bad deal if you are part of the 1%.

(Washington) – "Repeal of Medicare's Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) is essential, but repeal by itself will not move Medicare to better ways to deliver care," David L. Bronson, MD, FACP, president of the American College of Physicians (ACP), today told the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health. "We need to transition from a fundamentally broken physician payment system to one that is based on the value of services to patients, building on physician-led initiatives to improve outcomes and lower costs."

New research from North Carolina State University shows that informal social networks play an important role when it comes to finding jobs in both the United States and Germany, but those networks are significantly more important for high-paying jobs in the United States – which may contribute to economic inequality.

CLEMSON — Clemson researchers redesigned and modified a mobile drill press to retrofit a section of a runway that halts overrun aircraft, ultimately minimizing aircraft damage and passenger injury.

The process of retrofitting the end of a runway at Greenville Downtown Airport required more than 80,000 holes to be drilled in the concrete. Pace Pavement Technologies Inc. recognized that manually drilling the holes was not an option and there needed to be a more efficient and accurate way to drill.

A new diabetes study at the University of Leicester has discovered that South Asians (people of Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lanka origin) have higher levels of blood sugar than white Europeans independent of risk factors that influence sugar levels.

The study of 4,688 white Europeans and 1,352 South Asians was led by Dr. Samiul A Mostafa, of the University of Leicester, Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, and was published in Diabetes Care, a journal of the American Diabetes Association.

Two out of three severely obese kids already have at least one risk factor for heart disease, suggests research published online in Archives of Disease in Childhood.

The prevalence and severity of childhood obesity has been rising worldwide, but little research has been carried out on the underlying health problems that children with severe weight problems have, say the authors.

They base their findings on data supplied by paediatricians to the Dutch Paediatric Surveillance Unit between 2005 and 2007.

Damaged and aged heart tissue of older heart failure patients was rejuvenated by stem cells modified by scientists, according to research presented at the American Heart Association's Basic Cardiovascular Sciences 2012 Scientific Sessions.The study is simultaneously published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The research could one day lead to new treatments for heart failure patients, researchers said.

MINNEAPOLIS – Watching videos on YouTube may be a new way to show the treatment for a common cause of vertigo, which often goes untreated by physicians, according to a study published in the July 24, 2012, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) is an inner ear disorder that is a common cause of dizziness.

CHICAGO – Total hip replacement (THR) and total knee replacement (TKR) surgeries were associated with increased risk of acute myocardial infarction (AMI, heart attack) in the first two weeks after the surgical procedures, according to report published Online First by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

THR and TKR are effective for treating patients with moderate to severe osteoarthritis. These surgical procedures are commonly performed, with an estimated 1.8 million procedures performed annually worldwide, according to the study background.

As sulfur cycles through Earth's atmosphere, oceans and land, it undergoes chemical changes that are often coupled to changes in other such elements as carbon and oxygen. Although this affects the concentration of free oxygen, sulfur has traditionally been portrayed as a secondary factor in regulating atmospheric oxygen, with most of the heavy lifting done by carbon. However, new findings that appeared this week in Science suggest that sulfur's role may have been underestimated.

Children with trisomy 13 or 18, who are for the most part severely disabled and have a very short life expectancy, and their families lead a life that is happy and rewarding overall, contrary to the usually gloomy predictions made by the medical community at the time of diagnosis, according to a study of parents who are members of support groups published today in Pediatrics. The study was conducted by Dr.