Tech

Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (October 1, 2009) Self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) enables those with diabetes to modify their behavior, adjust their medicine and understand their disease to better manage it, according to a recent study, published by SAGE in The Diabetes Educator. The research looked at "paired testing," a self-monitored testing both before and after specific events, to evaluate whether it could assist the patient in making better health and food choice decisions over time.

An 81-year-old San Francisco woman with dementia, little money and an equally aged caregiver sister who is suffering from cancer.

A 72-year-old Riverside woman with Alzheimer's who cannot be left safely on her own, forcing her son to cut back his working hours to care for her.

A 78-year-old Los Angeles man with Alzheimer's whose daughter will have to quit her job to take care of him if day care services are cut.

(Boston) –As the population ages, it is imperative that medical students are prepared to treat older adults, regardless of their specialty. Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) report that an interdisciplinary multisite fourth-year geriatrics clerkship, has successfully met all the ambulatory core geriatric competencies as outlined by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) working group. This report appears in the October Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Researchers have overcome a major obstacle in efforts to use tiny structures called carbon nanotubes to create a new class of electronics that would be faster and smaller than conventional silicon-based transistors.

A new ceramic material described in this week's issue of the journal Science could help expand the applications for solid oxide fuel cells – devices that generate electricity directly from a wide range of liquid or gaseous fuels without the need to separate hydrogen.

Hamilton, ON (October 1, 2009) – A McMaster University study has found that surgical masks appear to be as good as N95 respirators in protecting health-care workers against influenza.

The research, published online today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), concluded that surgical masks have an estimated effectiveness within one per cent of N95 respirators, and are not associated with an increased rate of infection of influenza or other respiratory viruses.

New Orleans, LA – Research led by Hernan A. Bazan, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery, Section of Vascular Surgery, at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans School of Medicine, has found that unstable carotid artery plaques – those in danger of rupturing and leading to a stroke – contain more inflammation and significantly less omega-3 fatty acids than asymptomatic plaques. This suggests that increasing the levels of omega-3 fatty acids in carotid artery plaques could either prevent strokes or improve the safety of treatment.

Surgical masks appear to be no worse than, and nearly as effective as N95 respirators in preventing influenza in health care workers, according to a study released early online today by JAMA. The study was posted online ahead of print because of its public health implications. It will be published in the November 4 issue of JAMA.

(CHICAGO - Sept. 30, 2009) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Research and Development has completed its review of a dioxin exposure study conducted by the University of Michigan in the Midland-Saginaw, Michigan area. EPA found the study was conducted well and provided useful, scientifically credible information. However, the study is of limited value to help EPA fully evaluate human exposure to levels of dioxin in the Tittabawassee River and Saginaw River and Bay.

According to the AZTI-Tecnalia researchers, the first estimations of the geographical location of the recovered tag revealed that this fish had undertaken migrations between the Azores and Portugal during the winter, later to return to the Gulf of Bizkaia in spring and also that it had dived, during the winter, to depths of more than 1000 metres.

Surgical masks appear to be no worse than, and nearly as effective as N95 respirators in preventing influenza in health care workers, according to a study released early online today by JAMA. The study was posted online ahead of print because of its public health implications. It will be published in the November 4 issue of JAMA.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1—The latest technology in optics and lasers will be on display at the Optical Society's (OSA) Annual Meeting, Frontiers in Optics (FiO), which takes place Oct. 11-15 at the Fairmont San Jose Hotel and the Sainte Claire Hotel in San Jose, Calif.

Information on free registration for reporters is contained at the end of this release. Research highlights of the meeting include:

When society jumps on a bandwagon, even for a good cause, there may be unintended consequences. The unintended consequence of crop-based biofuels may be the loss of wildlife habitat, particularly that of the birds who call this country's grasslands home, say researchersfrom Michigan Technological University and The Nature Conservancy.

According to climate change experts, our planet has a fever ― melting glaciers are just one stark sign of the radical changes we can expect. But global warming's effects on farming and water resources is still a mystery. A new Tel Aviv University invention, a real-time "Optical Soil Dipstick" (OSD), may help solve the mystery and provide a new diagnostic tool for assessing the health of our planet.

If a person loses a large amount of blood the consequences can be critical. That's why adequate quantities of donated blood have to be kept available in hospitals and blood banks. In Egypt doctors collect blood by traveling to towns and villages and conducting blood donation sessions in a laboratory bus. The problem is that 25 per cent of the samples taken contain pathogens, including HIV, hepatitis and syphilis. As these diseases can be passed on in transfusions, the contaminated blood cannot be used. Conventional fast tests are not suitable in most cases for mobile use.