Tech

Nine out of ten patients who discontinued their overactive bladder (OAB) medication said it was because it didn't work as expected or they couldn't tolerate it, according to research in the May issue of the urology journal BJUI.

US researchers also discovered that smokers, men with enlarged prostates and people with bladder infections are also significantly more likely to stop taking prescription drugs for bladder problems.

People with diabetes have an increased risk of blindness, yet nearly half of the approximately 23 million Americans with diabetes do not get an annual eye exam to detect possible problems.

But it appears that cost-effective computerized systems to detect early eye problems related to diabetes can help meet the screening need, University of Iowa analysis shows.

FAIRFAX, Va.—In a study conducted by researchers from George Mason University and the Urban Institute, it was determined that variations in Medicare beneficiaries' health across geographic areas accounts for a significant share of Medicare costs that vary widely by region. The study of geographical differences in Medicare spending was published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released the Digital Library of Mathematical Functions (DLMF) and its printed companion, the NIST Handbook of Mathematical Functions, the much-anticipated successors to the agency's most widely cited publication of all time. These reference works contain a comprehensive set of tools useful for specialists who work with mathematical modeling and computation.

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)—a widely used medical tool that relies on magnetic fields and radio waves to visualize the body's internal structures, especially soft tissues—may soon become even more useful.

PASADENA, Calif.—A team of scientists from Columbia University, Arizona State University, the University of Michigan, and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have programmed an autonomous molecular "robot" made out of DNA to start, move, turn, and stop while following a DNA track.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — While the laws of physics weren't made to be broken, sometimes they need revision. A major current law has been rewritten thanks to the three-port transistor laser, developed by Milton Feng and Nick Holonyak Jr. at the University of Illinois.

LIVERMORE, Calif. - Understanding the key elements of biofuel combustion is an important step toward insightful selection of next-generation alternative fuels.

And that's exactly what Lawrence Livermore and Sandia national laboratories researchers intend to do.

In a new paper on the cover of the May 10 edition of the journal Angewandte Chemie, Sandia researcher Nils Hansen and Lawrence Livermore scientist Charles Westbrook take a look at the vastly diverse and complex chemical reaction networks of biofuel combustion.

Just as cooking helps people digest food, pretreating polycarbonate plastic — source of a huge environmental headache because of its bisphenol A (BPA) content — may be the key to disposing of the waste in an eco-friendly way, scientists have found. Their new study is in ACS' Biomacromolecules, a monthly journal.

LIVERMORE, Calif. — Understanding the key elements of biofuel combustion is an important step toward insightful selection of next-generation alternative fuels.

And that's exactly what researchers at Sandia and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories are doing.

The journal Angewandte Chemie devotes its May 10 cover to a paper co-authored by Sandia's Nils Hansen and Lawrence Livermore's Charles Westbrook, which examines the essential elements of biofuel combustion.

Vaccination of infants with Rotarix or RotaTeq significantly reduces the rate of severe rotavirus diarrhoea, hospitalizations, medical attention due to rotavirus and severe diarrhoea from all causes. The vaccines are not associated with increased numbers of serious adverse events. These are the conclusions of a Cochrane Systematic Review published in the May 2010 issue of The Cochrane Library.

A new type of procedure for correcting short-sightedness could be safer than laser eye surgery, according to a new Cochrane Systematic Review. The study also shows that patients prefer the new procedure, despite there being little difference between the two in terms of improving vision.

There is an urgent need for longitudinal cohorts based in sub-Saharan Africa to address the growing burden of non-communicable diseases in the region, according to a new article published in PLoS Medicine. Michelle Holmes from the Channing Laboratory at Harvard Medical School and colleagues argue that public health in sub-Saharan Africa has historically focused on communicable diseases including HIV/AIDS, malaria and other infectious disease.

AMES, Iowa – The metal poles that carry power lines across the country are built to take whatever blows at them. So they're big and round and sturdy – as much as 12 feet in diameter and 100 feet high.