IOWA CITY, Iowa -- University of Iowa law students are hoping that a new "electronic handbook" that they have developed will help explain the complex, yet important, world of international finance and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to people without advanced degrees or years of study.
Two new studies appearing in the May 6 issue of JAMA, and funded by AHCPR, have implications for improving the quality of health care. They're entitled, The Generalist Role of Specialty Physicians: Is There a Hidden System of Primary Care?, and Effect of Local Medical Opinion Leaders on Quality of Care for Acute Myocardial Infarction.
May 1998 science tips include: 1.) New method makes sure meat is safe from contamination 2.) Astronomers observe what they think is a star made of diamond 3.) Conference updates virtual reality 4.) Casting tool helps find defects
The exhibition will include a 12th-century herbal manuscript from the first European school of medicine in Italy, multi-hued books documenting the flora of the "New World," garden design books showing the extravagant splendors of the princely gardens of 18th- and 19th- century Europe, and Pierre Joseph Redoute's illustrations of the exotic plants introduced in the gardens of 19th-century French nobility. In addition to featuring sumptuous illustrations of plants and accounts of exploration and discovery the exhibition chronicles the development of the publication of botanical science over the centuries.
At the APA Annual Meeting in Toronto, Canada, sessions will deal with family issues and life concerns, including: 1) Group Therapy Benefits to Breast Cancer Patients, 2) Infanticide in the United States, 3) Effects of Childhood Abuse on Mind, 4) Psychiatry, Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, 5) Sexual Abuse Case: Psychotherapy and Neurobiology
Psychiatric experts will share the latest research into what happens when people with mental causes and treatments of mental illnesses at the American Psychiatric Association's 151st Annual Meeting in Toronto, Ontario, Canada May 30 - June 4, 1998, at the Toronto Convention Centre.
EAST LANSING, Mich. - The partial ban on a compound used to keep barnacles off of boat hulls doesn't seem to be enough to save the lives of California sea otters, according to a recently published Michigan State University study.
Starting salaries, signing bonuses, and other job perks have sent the total compensation package for MBA students at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management up to $117,000. That's up 29% from last year's total of $92,000.
As part of its participation in the world's largest technical conference on lasers and electro-optics, in San Francisco this week, Lucent Technologies is celebrating the 40th anniversary of the publication of the scientific paper that described the concept and design for one of the century's greatest inventions -- the laser.
A genetic method for identifying individuals who get the most benefit from exercise, a device that makes it possible to get more information from fiber optic sensors more quickly, and a system for increasing the speed at which large knowledge-based computer systems can answer complex queries are the University of Maryland, College Park's inventions of the year for 1997.
The March/April issue of "Food Insight" addresses issues related to guidelines for communicating emerging science, international dietary guidelines and food irradiation.
Experts generally agree that increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will result in changes in the Earth's climate. However, there is much less agreement about how such climate change could affect the world's forests. In their new essay, Resources for the Future's Roger Sedjo and Ohio State's Brent Sohngen identify potential sources of forest damage from climate change and evaluate the possible socioeconomic consequences.
Minority and handicapped children in the New York state foster care system who qualify for subsidies are twice as likely to get adopted as other children, according to a Cornell University study by Rosemary Avery. She has completed one of the most comprehensive studies tracking the outcome of foster care children. However, she notes, 90 percent of the foster children available for adoption in the state get adopted.
Hard-to-place children who are adopted in New York State receive "vastly different levels of support," sometimes half that of a similar child living in a nearby county, says a new Cornell University study. Some of the most vulnerable children are not being treated equally, and low support may inhibit adoption rates, leaving children to linger in foster care, says Rosemary Avery, associate professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell.
Merck & Co., Inc., today announced that it received marketing clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for Cosopt (dorzolamide hydrochloride-timolol maleate ophthalmic solution). Cosopt is the first eye drop that combines a topical carbonic anhydrase inhibitor and a topical beta-blocking agent, commonly used, effective ophthalmic products with excellent safety profiles. Cosopt is indicated for the reduction of elevated intraocular pressure in patients with open-angle glaucoma or ocular hypertension who do not respond adequately to beta-blockers alone.
Should a post-menopausal woman, over the age of 50, who has been diagnosed with cystic ovarian tumors, be alarmed? According to conclusions reached in a new study, "The Malignant Potential of Small Cystic Ovarian Tumors in Women Over 50 Years of Age," published in the April issue of Gynecologic Oncology, alarm is unwarranted, but concern is appropriate.
More than one-third of all gay, lesbian or bisexual teenagers reported in an anonymous in-school survey that they had attempted suicide within the previous 12 months, according to a report in the May 5 issue of Pediatrics. Among straight teenagers, 9.9 percent said they had attempted suicide.
As more parents log onto the Internet, it is becoming an important resource for health information on common childhood ailments, including asthma. However, since there are no traffic cops, road signs or regulations for the information supperhighway, the accuracy and quality of information varies widely.
For the past two years, pediatricians at a medical center lacking on-site pediatric cardiology specialists have had access to pediatric cardiologists from Wake Forest University School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, NC, at the touch of a button.
A survey of low-income families in an urban pediatric teaching hospital's primary care setting concluded that 63 percent of these families had access to computers, with 37 percent having a computer at home. The survey, conducted at Children's Hospital in Boston, was designed to determine the feasibility of using the World Wide Web as a vehicle for delivering pediatric health care information.
A disturbing 79 percent of kids visiting pediatric clinics in the inner cities have witnessed violence first hand, and 49 percent have been direct victims of violence, according to a recent study by pediatricians at Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, NY.
Despite a continuing controversy over the most appropriate scheule for immunization against polio, a majorty of pediatricians surveyed recently have adopted the Centers for Disease Control Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices' (ACIP) most recent recommendation to administer doses of both the oral and inactive polio vaccines.
The Park Leadership Fellows Program at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Managment, which offers two-year, full-tuition fellowships to 30 of the nation's top MBA applicants each year, has appointed its first director. Clint Sidle, who has taken on that role, will direct the Fellows program and help develop the other components of the Johnson School's leadership development offerings, including hte Distinguished Speakers series,the Young Leaders series, the annual Leadership Forum, and the Johnson Mentor Program.
The first major national study of the emergency medicine workforce shows that 32,026 physicians are clinically employed in this new specialty that emerged over the past 30 years in the United States, according to the May issue of Annals of Emergency Medicine. Another study in the issue reports that male spectators in the 20- to 35-year old age group consume the most alcohol at sporting events; 10.8 percent of those in the study were found to be legally intoxicated, and almost 5 percent of spectators with blood alcohol levels of .08 percent or higher claimed to be driving home.
Children as young as one year of age are being diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a Michigan State University pediatrician has found. In addition, children as young as two are being treated for the disorder with psychotropic drugs such as Ritalin, Prozac and Zoloft.
DALLAS, May 5 -- Infection by a particularly strong strain of bacteria normally associated with stomach ulcers could be a contributing factor to heart disease, according to a report in today's Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
For the first time, a school-based intervention called Planet Health, developed by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health, has been shown to reduce obesity in children.
In one of the first large, comprehensive studies to refute the longheld belief that cocaine-exposed babies often suffer major birth defects, University of Florida researchers found no consistent pattern of abnormalities in these children.
Researchers at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York have successfully disrupted the blood-brain barrier in lab rats and generated compacted protein/DNA complexes small enough to pass through the disrupted barrier, thereby achieving global delivery of genes to the brain for the first time.
The support of a doula, a female companion experienced in labor and delivery, adds a risk-free, human element to labor and delivery that lowers cesarean rates, shortens labor, and decreases the need for analgesia.
More than 3,500 incidences of children ingesting coins were reported to poison centers in 1996, with as many as 17 percent of the coins becoming lodged in the esophagus. Allowing for spontaneous passage, rather than performing more invasive procedures, may reduce related complications as well as institutional costs, a study at Boston Children's Hospital found.
Researchers at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto have determined that pregnancy is common among Toronto's female street youth and that risk of pregnancy is significantly associated with length of time on the street and age at which the youth enter street life. The researchers also discovered that fewer than one-third of street youth who deliver babies care for their children.
The increased risk of asthma in black children is due more to where they live than to their race, and air cleaners that remove tobacco smoke decrease the risk of asthma complications, according to two studies presented by Rochester pediatrician Andrew Aligne, MD, at the Pediatric Academic Societies annual meeting in New Orleans.
Clinicians in rural areas refer a higher percentage of their patients to public immunization clinics than their urban counterparts, reports a study to be presented at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting in New Orleans May 1-5.
Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch have found that a growing number of young women may be taking Rohypnol, commonly known as the date-rape drug, to minimize depression and increase self-esteem.
Organon Inc. has received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to market MircetteË™ (desogestrel/ethinyl estradiol and ethinyl estradiol) Tablets, the first oral contraceptive to use a shortened hormone-free interval.
Though the recent Carnegie Foundation report found fault with many U.S. research universities--arguing that undergraduates are too often simply "receiving what is served out to them," mainly by untrained graduate assistants--the University of Delaware was one of only five institutions cited for "making research-based learning the standard."
Shattering a record established just 6 weeks ago, astronomers have discovered the most distant object ever seen, an infant galaxy that lies some 12.3 billion light-years from Earth. That immense distance means that the light now reaching Earth left the galaxy when it less than 800 million years old. Details about the finding appear in the May 2 Science News.
The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine named The Boeing Company, IBM, First Chicago NBD, and Johnson & Johnson as the "healthiest companies" in its 1998 Corporate Health Achievement Award competition.
Few people are cut out for pressure-cooker jobs such as being a 911 operator or an air traffic controller. University of Washington psychologist have determined that certain people seem to possess a common trait that enables them to handle these kinds of jobs, sometimes involving life and death, and have developed a new test that identifies these individuals.
Christopher C. Cummins, 32, chemistry professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will receive the Alan T. Waterman Award for 1998, which is the National Science Foundation's most prestigious prize for young researchers.
The National Science Board (NSB) will host a ceremony and reception on May 6 honoring annual winners of key awards in science and engineering, and public service. The awards will be presented at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
Researchers at Michigan State University have found that DDE, a by-product of DDT, the now-banned pesticide that continues to have a presence within the Earth's soils and sediments, is degrading naturally in the environment.
Just as humans may use naphthalene "moth balls" to fumigate their closets, termites may use naphthalene to protect their nests, according to a research group led by urban entomologist Gregg Henderson, Ph.D., at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.