RxPG News : Latest Research
Medical News and Information

• NASA-conceived map of Antarctica lays ground for new discoveries
  A team of researchers from NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Science Foundation and the British Antarctic Survey unveiled a newly completed map of Antarctica today that is expected to revolutionize research of the continent's frozen landscape.
• ANDRILL's 2nd Antarctic drilling season exceeds all expectations
  McMurdo Station, Antarctica, Nov. 28, 2007 -- A second season in Antarctica for the Antarctic Geological Drilling (ANDRILL) Program has exceeded all expectations, according to the co-chief scientists of the program's Southern McMurdo Sound Project.
• Accuracy of past hurricane counts good
  Counting tropical storms that occurred before the advent of aircraft and satellites relies on ships logs and hurricane landfalls, making many believe that the numbers of historic tropical storms in the Atlantic are seriously undercounted. However, a statistical model based on the climate factors that influence Atlantic tropical storm activity shows that the estimates currently used are only slightly below modeled numbers and indicate that the numbers of tropical storms in the recent past are increasing, according to researchers.
• New research review shows that your family doctor may be the key to quitting smoking
  Scientists at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) are defining the most effective ways to treat tobacco dependence, and in an article released in the November issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) they highlight the surprisingly significant role that the health practitioner can play in helping people quit smoking. Many people's attempts to quit are unsuccessful, so effective interventions are critical for the 4.5 million smokers in Canada alone.
• NSF grant funds research on risky decision-making in pre-teens
  Researchers at the University of Iowa have secured a $396,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study risky decision-making among pre-teens.
• Nanotech's health, environment impacts worry scientists
  MADISON - The unknown human health and environmental impacts of nanotechnology are a bigger worry for scientists than for the public, according to a new report published today (Nov. 25) in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
• 'Close to the Sky: Biological Heritage in the ALMA Area'
  A new ALMA outreach and educational book was publicly presented to city officials of San Pedro de Atacama in Chile, as part of the celebrations of the anniversary of the Andean village.
• Dunes, climate models don't match up with paleomagnetic records
  Lincoln, Neb., Nov. 22, 2007 -- For a quarter-century or more, the prevailing view among geoscientists has been that the portion of the ancient supercontinent of Pangea that is now the Colorado Plateau in southern Utah shifted more than 1,300 miles north during a 100-million year span that ended about 200 million years ago in the early Jurassic Period, when Pangea began to break up.
• Rising tides intensify non-volcanic tremor in Earth's crust
  For more than a decade geoscientists have detected what amount to ultra-slow-motion earthquakes under Western Washington and British Columbia on a regular basis, about every 14 months. Such episodic tremor-and-slip events typically last two to three weeks and can release as much energy as a large earthquake, though they are not felt and cause no damage.
• Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS): a model disease
  A new model to predict the spread of emerging diseases has been developed by researchers in the US, Italy, and France. The model, described in the online open access journal BMC Medicine, could give healthcare professionals advance warning of the path an emerging disease might take and so might improve emergency responses and control.
• Drug combination effective against multiple myeloma, researchers show
  HOUSTON - Pairing a new thalidomide derivative with a steroid slows progress of multiple myeloma, an incurable bone marrow cancer, and prolongs the lives of patients who have relapsed from previous treatment, researchers report in the Nov. 22 New England Journal of Medicine.
• Oral drug sets a new survival standard for bone marrow cancer
  Findings from two large, international clinical trials show unprecedented survival for patients with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that occurs in the blood-making cells of bone marrow. The findings demonstrate that with Revlimid, an oral cancer drug, all measures of myeloma showed significant improvement in patients where previous treatments had failed. Rush University Medical Center took part in the U.S. study. Results of the study were published November 21 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
• Reprogramming the debate: stem-cell finding alters ethical controversy
  MADISON - When University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers succeeded in reprogramming skin cells to behave like embryonic stem cells, they also began to redefine the political and ethical dynamics of the stem-cell debate, a leading bioethicist says. R. Alta Charo, a UW-Madison professor of law and bioethics, says the scientific finding could have far-reaching effects on the social dimensions of the ongoing controversy over embryonic stem cell research.
• Evolutionary comparison finds new human genes
  Using supercomputers to compare portions of the human genome with those of other mammals, researchers at Cornell have discovered some 300 previously unidentified human genes, and found extensions of several hundred genes already known.
• Even minute levels of lead cause brain damage in children
  Even very small amounts of lead in children's blood -- amounts well below the current federal standard -- are associated with reduced IQ scores, finds a new six-year Cornell study.
• UW-Madison scientists guide human skin cells to embryonic state
  MADISON - In a paper to be published Nov. 22 in the online edition of the journal Science, a team of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers reports the genetic reprogramming of human skin cells to create cells indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells.
• Rapid response teams save children's lives at pediatric hospital, Stanford/Packard study shows
  STANFORD, Calif. - Gut feelings can save lives, say clinicians and researchers at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and the Stanford University School of Medicine.
• Pedometers help people take a step to get active, Stanford study finds
  STANFORD, Calif. - The pedometer, a small, inexpensive device that counts the number of steps walked per day, could be key to ramping up a person's physical activity.
• Older workers stress less, U-M study suggests
  ANN ARBOR, Mich.---Older workers generally report low levels of work-related stress, according to a University of Michigan study of a nationally representative sample of older workers.
• Gender roles and not gender bias hold back women scientists
  Traditional roles of women in the home and a negative bias in workplace support result in less career success for women versus men at the same stage of