A roundup of NC State University research, teaching and outreach activities. For use by the media as briefs or as background for stories. Stories include: From Fish, Come Clues on Sexual Behavior; Paper From Cornstalks; Better Housing for Migrant Workers; Nanotubes May Pave Way for Space Elevator; Edible Film Fights Food-Borne Disease; and more.
Testing a new aircraft can be costly and risk. But a new scale-model, remote-piloted test plane developed at NC State University with funding from the U.S. Navy may help reduce those risks and costs by letting researchers identify potential problems before they occur in manned flights. The test plane, a 17.5 percent scale version of the U.S. Navy's newly updated F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet strike fighter, was developed by a team of NC State researchers led by Drs. Charles Hall and John Perkins.
Scientists are rethinking what they know about bacteria: it turns out that the organisms tell time. Scientists affiliated with the NSFÃs H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest Long-Term Ecological Research site in Oregon may have found part of the answer for how deforestation affects global carbon cycles. A Memorandum of Agreement between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Defense (DOD) designates the Air National Guard to provide air logistics support to the U.S. Antarctic Program, which is run by NSF.
There has been a remarkable rise in the number of triplet and other higher-order multiple births over the past two decades.Yet, babies born in triplet and other higher-order multiple deliveries arrive smaller and earlier than single births and are at greater risk of infant death and life-long health problems.
Dramatic changes in the nursing home industry have taken place over the past decade, especially because of growth in home health care, according to findings from the latest survey of nursing homes in A merica.
Frequent phone calls from specially trained nurses significantly improved the health of heart failure patients in a study reported this month in the American Journal of Cardiology.
A nutritionally-balanced diet benefits people at risk for cardiovascular disease and also improves quality of life, according to an article in the January 27 issue of The AMA's Archives of Internal Medicine. EMBARGOED: 3 p.m. (CT) 1-26-1997
Exercising beyond current minimum guidelines (30 minutes a day most days of the week) can provide substantial health benefits, according to an article in the January 27 issue of the AMA's Archives of Internal Medicine. EMBARGOED: 3 p.m. (CT) 1-26-1997
APA Online Tipsheet for Feb. 97: 1.) Psychotherapy cost-effective in treatmnt of severe mental illness; 2.) High intelligence resists Alzheimer's; 3.) Near-death terminally ill no more likely to become depressed than other terminally ill; 4.) Irrational fears of being watched/humiliated linked to brain abnormality; 5.) Managed care and mental hlth; 6.) States' definitions of parity for mental hlth vary widely; 7.) APA annual mtg, 5/17-22, San Diego; 8.) '97 APA media award winners, and deadline for '98 awards; 9.) New, controv.
The federal Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) today announced a simple and accurate method to predict which patients with pneumonia may be treated at home rather than in a hospital. The prediction method--a clinical model used to help doctors assess the need for hospitalization--also could help reduce the over $4 billion spent annually for inpatient care. This model is described in the January 23 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (AHCPR) today released the first evidence report under its new Evidence-based Practice Initiative. The report indicates that screening has been shown to be effective in detecting early-stage colorectal cancers and their precursors. Early detection and treatment are the primary means of preventing deaths from colorectal cancer.
Today at Energy Week π97, in Houston, Dr. Richard J. Goldstein, president of ASME International, posited how government and industry ≥can radically alter the status quo and influence the worldπs future.≤
NEW HAVEN, Conn., Jan. 26, 1997--The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) has selected Yale University School of Medicine as one of seven locations in the United States to establish a Specialized Center of Research to understand the causes of asthma. To conduct this research the NHLBI, a component of the National Institutes of Health, has awarded $8.6 million to Yale over the next five years. "Asthma is so common now that it has become a major health-care issue," points out Jack A. Elias, M.D., director of this new Yale medical research center. "Approximately 15 million children and adults in the United States suffer from asthma, a chronic condition in which their airways become chronically inflamed. The frequency of asthma appears to be particularly prominent in inner-city areas. In the last 15 years, asthma has become an increasingly severe health problem, even reaching epidemic proportions," he adds. Since the early 1980s, national statistics show that the prevalence (fr
Children who benefit from child support payments seem to fare better in cognitive development and educational attainment than those who obtain the same amount of money from welfare, according to a Cornell University study. And when child support stems from an agreement between parents rather than a court-ordered one, the children do even better, according to Elizabeth Peters, Cornell professor of consumer economics and housing.
Cardiac surgeons at Temple University Hospital have performed the first-ever combined coronary artery bypass graft and heart valve replacement surgery without cutting open the patient's chest.
By measuring levels of the hormone renin, which is produced in the kidney, physicians can identify hypertensive patients at risk of heart attacks, leading hypertension experts found in a study published in the January issue of the American Journal of Hypertension.
When the 20th anniversity edition of Star Wars opens in theaters Jan. 31, will Generation X, raised on the murky paranoia of The X-Files and state-of-the-art special effects of blockbusters like Independence Day, embrace a sweet-tempered film about a hero in white, a plucky princess and a mystical power called The Force? It's a good bet they will, says Dr. John Kessel, an award-winning science fiction writer at NC State University. "Star Wars is a larger-than- life, quasi-medieval, Errol Flynn swashbuckler with non-stop action and special effects, and a core message that good always triumphs over evil. You couldn't ask for anything more."
Researchers at the University of Minnesota and Carnegie-Mellon University have identified a diamond-shaped structure at the active site of bacterial methane monooxygenase. Understanding how the iron-based structure works could help in developing new processes to make plastics and other chemicals, as well as in making methanol.
A Purdue University engineering program that could become a national model is helping community agencies track and assist the homeless and others who need services. Working through an engineering course, a team of undergraduate engineering students is developing a data base for the Homelessness Prevention Network. Color photo available.
ATHENS, Ga. -- Managing for a single endangered species may put other species at risk and is no longer a reasonable policy option, according to a paper published today in the journal Science. Knowing which species are most vulnerable and which human activities threaten them is crucial to saving species, according to an article by U.S. Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt and Dr. Ron Pulliam, director of the National Biological Service and science advisor to Secretary Babbitt.
Throughout the 12-state Northeast region, temperatures were well above normal during December. The region reported an average temperature departure of 6 degrees above normal, which was warm enough to make it the fourth warmest December on record, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University. The normal average temperature for the region is 27.5 degrees, while weather observers measured 33.5 degrees this year.
An unlikely tool to save tropical forest biodiversity may be the chainsaw, according to conservationists attending a forest diversity workshop, organized by the Wildlife Conservation Society, headquartered at the Bronx Zoo. With worldwide logging regimes owning more forest land than all national parks combined, conservationists are looking toward forest departments and their production forests to complement existing reserves. PHOTOS AVAILABLE
The American College of Radiology (ACR) today reaffirmed its strong support for mammography screening for women in their 40s and said that a National Institutes of Heath Panel failed to recognize and incorporate into its report important new follow-up data from clinical trials that confirms the benefits of this test.
Newly revised government recommendations for immunizing infants against serious childhood diseases create new options and decisions for many parents and physicians. Now, a newly-available combination vaccine from Merck & Co., Inc., COMVAX, offers a unique choice that may reduce the number of total injections required in the first 18 months of life from as many as 15 to as few as 11.
A team of researchers, led by a University of Colorado Health Sciences Center/Denver Veteran's Affairs Medical Center professor, has pinpointed a gene that carries significant risk for schizophrenia, a devastating mental illness that affects some 4 million Americans. The new findings also may explain why 80 percent of schizophrenics are heavy smokers.
COLLEGE STATION -- The pathway in legumes -- such as soybeans and alfalfa -- that controls the formation of nitrogen-packed nodules on roots has been identified by researchers at Texas A&M University. The finding, reported in today's issue of Science magazine, could help scientists better understand how to manipulate the growth of such unique plant organs which are vital to the Earth's ecological health.
Researchers from Resources for the Future in the United States and Chulalongkorn University in Thailand today announce the start of their collaborative investigation of a proposed dam's impact on local forest communities -- an impact that is often not accounted for in development planning in Southeast Asia.
Johns Hopkins geophysicists have developed a model that may explain recent findings suggesting that the Earth's solid inner core rotates faster than the rest of the planet.
In a new three-year study published in Wednesday's issue of The Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers from Intermountain Health Care's LDS Hospital found that adverse drug reactions - on average - prolong hospitalizations by nearly two days, cost $2,262 each to treat, and almost double the risk of death for patients.
The plastic bottle you throw in the recycling bin today may be in your gas tank tomorrow. That type of reclamation of waste material is now possible, according to Dr. Joseph Shabtai of the University of Utah. The results of his work appear in the January/February issue of Energy & Fuels, a bimonthly publication of the American Chemical Society.
Like beta-carotene, antioxidants such as vitamins C and E are thought to prevent cancer and other diseases. But researchers have been puzzled by the apparent link between beta-carotene and an increased risk of lung cancer in heavy smokers, as reported recently in the New England Journal of Medicine. Research to be published in the Jan. 22 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society appears to clear up this mystery.
Women who take estrogen-replacement therapy after menopause often also take progestin to avoid an increased risk of endometrial cancer. But progestin itself has a number of side-effects, including resumption of menses and central nervous system disturbances. And estrogen replacement therapy is also associated with increased breast cancer risk, according to Dr. Timothy Grese of Eli Lilly and Co. in Indianapolis.
Americans who avoid red meat may not be getting enough iron in their diet, according to research reported in the January issue of the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agricultural & Food Chemistry, due to be published on Jan. 20.
Four tips from Los Alamos: * four-color laser * a membrane reactor for ultrapure hydrogen * new method for forming metallic glasses * high-precision carbon monoxide sensor
The Pinatubo eruption has helped validate a Los Alamos 3-d computer model of Earth's atmosphere, which accurately modeled the cooling and impact on Arctic ozone and the polar vortex caused by the volcano's infusion of aersols into the upper atmosphere.
An endocrinologist and reproductive in Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine, has been studying the dramatic seasonal cycles that profoundly alter the groundhog's reproductive activity, food intake, basal metabolism, body fat and total body weight from season to season. Groundhogs have more dramatic annual biological rhythms than nearly all other mammals and may provide key clues into better understanding cancer and cancer treatment, blood cell functions, brain activity and mental health.
Unless the world's food-growing nations improve their resource-management practices, life in the 21st century will be as tough as it is now in the 80 countries that already suffer serious water shortages, a new Cornell University study warns. As a start, governments should end irrigation subsidies that encourage inefficient use of water and instead reward conservation.
Cornell University researchers, using non-linear laser-microscope technology developed at Cornell, have produced images displaying the neurotransmitter serotonin in live cells in real time, and they have for the first time measured the concentration of serotonin in secretory granules. Embargoed: 01/23/97 4 p.m.
-Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center have found that education plus counseling was more effective than stand-alone education in increasing understanding about the potential benefits, limitations, and risks of BRCA1 gene testing. However, neither intervention changed the intent to be tested within the study of approximately 400 women interviewed, according to the research report in the Jan. 15 Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Research-based pharmaceutical companies will invest a record $18.9 billion in research and development in 1997, and increase of 11.5 percent from 1996, a new PhRMA survey shows.
In a government-supported study of more than 300 fatal and non-fatal bicycle accidents, Johns Hopkins researchers found that alcohol was a factor in at least a third of the deaths.
New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, which collects statuary, has teamed with scientists from Sandia National Laboratories, concerned with preserving the nation's security, to produce an inorganic coating that increases by a factor of ten the longevity of powdered calcite -- the basic component of limestone -- when calcite is submerged in a solution similar to mildly acid rain.
Physicians and pharmacists can reduce adverse drug events in hospital patients by understanding the causes of most medication prescribing errors, according to a study by Albany Medical Center (Albany, NY) researchers in the Jan. 22 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study is the first to quantify the most common causes of hospital medication prescribing errors, which occur approximately four times for every 1,000 prescriptions. Embargoed: 4 p.m. (EST) Tuesday, January, 21, 1997
Hopkins School of Public Health Researchers analyzed the content of patient-physician communication and identified five communication patterns that directly impact both patient and physician satisfaction, as well as the quality of care.
This week's "Science" magazine features a major article by Washington State University Professor of Biochemistry Norman G. Lewis and co-workers on their discovery of the first member of an apparent new class of proteins. These proteins help explain how nature controls free- radical chemistry, something scientists in laboratories have had difficulty doing.
Economic cooperation offers the Middle East such clear benefits that it will eventually prevail over hostility. Jerry Rosenberg, Professor and Chair of International Business at Rutgers, and an active participant at mid-east economic summits, has a model for such cooperation.
Japanese managers are more likely to use reason, reciprocity, and rewards--and to be more controlling--in dealing with Western subordinates, says Asha Rao, Assistant Professor of Managemnent at Rutgers Graduate School of Management.
Researchers at West Virginia University have developed a computer-based flight data recorder (FDR), commonly called a "black box," they say would cost a fraction of what new proposed FDRs with extended recording capabilities would cost the nation's airlines.
Researchers at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and colleagues have developed as mouse model for the most common genetic cause of a lipid disorder associated with premature heart disease.
More than 40 experts on risk management, land use and the nation's nuclear weapons complex gathered at Resources for the Future to discuss the challenges faced in assuring protection from risks to human health and the environment posed by hazards remaining at the nation's nuclear weapons production sites once the United States Department of Energy completes its major cleanup activities.
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