Tech

Imagine a car dealership where telling a salesperson "I'm just looking" would allow you to do just that. Or an online retailer offering you price cuts or free shipping to improve its relationship with you.

That's what shopping experiences might be like if more retailers paid attention to the findings of a Kansas State University marketing professor and his research collaborators.

Could inexpensive wireless sensors based on nanotechnology be used to alert engineers to problematic cracks and damage to buildings, bridges, and other structures before they become critical? A feasibility study published in the International Journal of Materials and Structural Integrity would suggest so.

Esophagectomy is a standard treatment for resectable esophageal carcinoma but relatively few patients are cured. Combined neoadjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) or adjuvant CRT with surgery may improve survival but there is concern about treatment morbidity and the best sequencing of CRT and surgery.

For anyone who has spent a significant amount of time in an urban setting, the scene of a bomb squad responding to a report of a suspicious package might be all too familiar. But just how is it determined that the lunchbox left under the park bench is just leftovers – or a lethal weapon? The most common way is spectroscopy.

The old excuse, "I am only overweight because of my genes," is suddenly gaining credibility as researchers uncover ever more evidence that the way our bodies digest and process nutrients in the food we eat is different for every person. The budding discipline of metabolomics strives to investigate these differences in a scientific manner.

On March 21, 2010, Congress passed the most comprehensive healthcare reform bill since the formation of Medicare. While a monumental achievement, the bill leaves much of the critical work of healthcare reform unfinished, according to a new editorial by Dr. Robert Wachter, Chief of the Division of Hospital Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, and past president of the Society of Hospital Medicine, in the April issue of the Journal of Hospital Medicine.

A new report from critical care experts at Johns Hopkins shows that use of prescription sedatives goes down by half so that mild exercise programs can be introduced to the care of critically ill patients in the intensive care unit (ICU). Curtailing use of the drowsiness-inducing medications not only allows patients to exercise, which is known to reduce muscle weakness linked to long periods of bed rest, but also reduces bouts of delirium and hallucinations and speeds up ICU recovery times by as much as two to three days, the paper concludes.

CHESTNUT HILL, MA (4/8/2010) – The single-atom thick material graphene maintains its high thermal conductivity when supported by a substrate, a critical step to advancing the material from a laboratory phenomenon to a useful component in a range of nano-electronic devices, researchers report in the April 9 issue of the journal Science.

Europe's first mission dedicated to studying the Earth's ice was launched today from Kazakhstan. From its polar orbit, CryoSat-2 will send back data leading to new insights into how ice is responding to climate change and the role it plays in our 'Earth system'.

The CryoSat-2 satellite was launched at 15:57 CEST (13:57 UTC) on a Dnepr rocket provided by the International Space Company Kosmotras from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The signal confirming that it had separated from the launcher came 17 minutes later from the Malindi ground station in Kenya.

The study, conducted in California with a comprehensive survey and selected follow-up interviews with three students with different technological experiences, captured a snapshot of the digital divide in 2004. While the definition of digital divide may need revision, Goode said, the problems identified in the study likely have gotten worse and need to be addressed.

BOSTON (5:00 p.m. EDT, April 7, 2010) — Educating individuals about the costs of healthcare could save money and lead to a more efficient use of the healthcare system, report policy researchers at Tufts University School of Medicine and Boston University School of Public Health. The study is the first to assess the effect of knowledge and perceptions of cost-sharing levels (the percentage of cost borne by individuals out of total healthcare costs) on self-reported and actual behavior.

Researchers from North Carolina State University have developed a new way to shape ceramics using a modest electric field, making the process significantly more energy efficient. The process should result in significant cost savings for ceramics manufacturing over traditional manufacturing methods.

Ceramics make up significant components of an array of products, including insulators, spark plugs, fuel cells, body armor, gas turbines, nuclear rods, high temperature ball bearings, high temperature structural materials and heat shields.

Women living in the northeastern United States are more likely to develop rheumatoid arthritis (RA), suggesting a link between the autoimmune disease and vitamin D deficiency, says a new study led by a Boston University School of Public Health researcher.

In the paper, which appears online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, a spatial analysis led by Dr. Verónica Vieira, MS, DSc, associate professor of environmental health, found that women in states like Vermont, New Hampshire and southern Maine were more likely to report being diagnosed with RA.

Patients with sickle cell disease average about 2.5 hospital visits per year, with 18- to 30-year old patients more likely to require acute care or rehospitalization, according to a study in the April 7 issue of JAMA.

SALT LAKE CITY, April 7, 2010 – Teenagers and "tweenagers" with type 1 diabetes have more trouble sticking to their treatment plan – thus raising their risk of blindness, kidney failure and heart disease – if their parents become increasingly lax about monitoring the child's treatment, or if the mother-child relationship is poor.

That's the conclusion of a new study by University of Utah psychologists that will be presented in Seattle Friday, April 9 during the Society of Behavioral Medicine's annual meeting.