Tech

Over 30,000 megawatts of wind energy capacity are installed across the United States and an increasing number of communities are considering new wind power facilities. Given these developments, there is an urgent need to empirically investigate typical community concerns about wind energy and thereby provide stakeholders involved in the wind project siting process a common base of knowledge. A major new report released today by the U.S.

A new study on the smokeless tobacco product called moist snuff — placed between lip and gum — has led scientists in Minnesota to urge the tobacco industry to change manufacturing practices to reduce snuff's content of carcinogens. Their study is published online in ACS' monthly journal Chemical Research in Toxicology. It reports that this category of tobacco products contains surprisingly high levels of certain toxic and cancer-causing substances. Called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), they may contribute to carcinogenic effects associated with smokeless tobacco use.

BOSTON – Alcoholic beverages popular among youths are more likely to be advertised in magazines with high youth readership than alcoholic drinks consumed mainly by adults, resulting in disproportionately high youth exposure to such targeted alcohol ads, according to a new study.

(Washington, DC • Dec. 2, 2009) – The Special Sensor Ultraviolet Limb Imager (SSULI) developed by NRL's Spacecraft Engineering Department and Space Science Division, launched October 18, 2009 on the U.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F18 (flight 18) satellite, observed first light on December 1, 2009.

In a sample airglow profile (Figure 1) the spectral emission features in the data are clean and show no anomalies.

The well-publicized toy recalls of 2007 took potentially harmful toys off the shelves and affected the companies that made them.

But a new study also shows that even companies not targeted by the recalls got hurt in the resulting consumer backlash, sometimes worse than the offenders. Meanwhile offending companies did not generally see other product categories affected.

CHICAGO – Results of a large-scale clinical trial presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) provide the first strong evidence of the benefit of annual screening ultrasound for women with dense breasts who are at elevated risk for breast cancer. In addition, the study confirmed that MRI is highly sensitive in depicting early breast cancer.

Despite improvements in obstetric care services, women from deprived areas are still more likely to give birth to a very preterm baby compared with mothers from more affluent areas, finds a study published on bmj.com today.

Yet survival rates and provision of care was similar for infants from all areas, suggesting that neonatal care provision is equitable. A finding in contrast to many other areas of health care where socioeconomic inequalities in survival and access to care are common.

The presence of doulas (paid birth assistants) during labour may alter the doctor-patient dynamic and can compromise communication and therefore patient care, warns a doctor on bmj.com today.

Furthermore, the need for doulas implies a failing of medical and midwifery services and also the support provided by family and friends, says Dr Abhijoy Chakladar who was working at Worthing Hospital in West Sussex when he first encountered a doula.

Northwestern University researchers have achieved a breakthrough in quantum cascade laser output power, delivering 120 watts from a single device at room temperature.

The results are particularly attractive for infrared countermeasure, a way of misguiding incoming missiles to protect commercial and military aircrafts.

The research, led by Manijeh Razeghi, Walter P. Murphy Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, was published in the journal Applied Physics Letters on Dec. 1.

A substantial number of premature infants born before 27 weeks gestational age encounter complicated medical problems. Although the survival rate of these infants has increased over the last two decades, the survival data for these patients is highly variable.

A recent study conducted by neonatologists and nurses at Nationwide Children's Hospital found that a unified approach to the care of extremely premature infants in the first week of life resulted in improved patient outcomes and a decrease in the length of stay at the hospital.

LOS ANGELES (Dec. 1, 2009) – A study in the New England Journal of Medicine released on World AIDS Day reports that viral failure, the point at which medication can no longer suppress the HIV infection, was twice as likely and happened sooner among patients initiating anti-retroviral therapy with high viral loads who were given Epzicom when compared to similar patients treated with Truvada.

BATON ROUGE –Santanu Majumdar spent his years as a graphic design graduate student developing a project that might sound counterintuitive for a student of fine arts – a software program made to simplify information gathering at conferences and exhibitions. With the help of researchers at LSU's Center for Computation & Technology, or CCT, Majumdar developed Exhibition Next, a system that's inexpensive, easy to use and an event organizer's dream come true.

Uninsured patients in California are unable to successfully obtain information about the cost of medical care at hospitals despite recent state legislation intended to improve price transparency, according to a new study.

Posing as low-income uninsured patients, researchers received price estimates from less than one-third of the hospitals they approached and the estimates received often were much higher than those allowed under California law, according to the findings published online by the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

A South Tyrolean craftsman wearing ear protection carefully guides a tool arm over a master figure, producing forty or more mini-copies of the original at the cutting machine next to him. This kind of pantograph machine has long been the traditional means of manufacturing wooden figures in many of South Tyrol's valleys. "Pantographs are often given away in children's magazines and comics. Kids love them. With just a pencil and paper, they can reproduce their favorite characters on whatever scale they like, and then hang the posters on their wall.

Chevy Chase, MD—Women who have gestational glucose intolerance (a condition less severe than gestational diabetes) exhibit multiple cardiovascular risk factors as early as three months after birth, according to a new study accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM).