news 2012

A University of Melbourne study has backed tough government measures to "coerce" early school leavers back in to education. Researchers investigated what happens to teenagers who leave school prematurely and what likelihood there is of them re-engaging in learning. The study - A Second Chance at Education for Early School Leavers - found the longer a teenager stays away from study, the less likely they are to return.

A study from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, published August 22 online by PLoS ONE , reports that muscle problems reported by patients taking statins were related to the strength or potency of the given cholesterol-lowering drugs. Adverse effects such as muscle pain and weakness, reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) were related to a statin's potency, or the degree by which it typically lowers cholesterol at commonly prescribed doses.

A research team from the University of Melbourne is working on a new therapy that can potentially control the pain caused by diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis. The research relates to a family of molecules firstly discovered in Melbourne that applied to blood cell development.

A new study of nine coastal cities around the world suggests that Shanghai is most vulnerable to serious flooding. European cities top the leader board for their resilience. These finding are based on a new method to calculate the flood vulnerability of cities, developed by a team of researchers from the Netherlands and the University of Leeds.

When mimicry becomes less effective, evolving to look completely different can be a successful trick. Our research shows that individuals assess disguises not only from personal experience, but also by observing others. However, because their learning is so specific, this social learning then selects for alternative cuckoo disguises and the arms race continues." —Dr Rose Thorogood, co-author on the paper from the Departement of Zoology To minimise the chance of being recognised and thus attacked by the birds they are trying to parasitize, female cuckoos have evolved different guises.

Two treatments found previously to be the most effective for patients with chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME) have now been found to be the most cost-effective treatments evaluated in a large clinical trial. The latest results from the PACE trial show that both cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) and graded exercise therapy (GET), as supplements to specialist medical care, offer good value for money for healthcare providers when the cost of treatment is weighed up against improvement in quality of life.

New research by the University of Oxford has found that the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREG) programme has increased real agricultural wages rates by 5.3% across India since its introduction in 2006. The study, led by Oxford, also involved researchers from the Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore, India.

Community policing methods - based on dialogue, support and trust - are significantly helping counter-terrorism efforts in post 7/7 Britain, new research at the University of Birmingham has revealed. Researchers looked at the effective use of partnership work with Muslim groups, including those deemed as 'radicals', in so called 'soft' policing methods, and found that the increased trust and access to community-based expertise is helping to prevent extremist propaganda and acts of violence.

As part of the Affordable Care Act, hospitals and medical centers are required to report their quality-of-care and risk-standardized outcomes for stroke and other common medical conditions. But reporting models for mortality that don't consider stroke severity may unfairly skew these results. Now, A UCLA-led national study has found that when reporting on 30-day mortality rates for Medicare beneficiaries hospitalized with acute stroke, using a model that adjusts for stroke severity completely alters performance outcomes and rankings for many hospitals.

The University of Glasgow has been named as an Arthritis Research UK (ARUK) Experimental Arthritis Treatment Centre - the first in Scotland. The Centre will recruit local patients to test new and existing drugs and to find new approaches that can predict which treatment works best in individuals. With joint start-up funding of £225,000 over three years from medical research charity Arthritis Research UK and the Scottish Government's Chief Scientist Office, the centre aims to take forward the recent advances in the treatments available for people with arthritis.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-More than half of factory workers who thought they had excellent or good hearing actually suffered hearing loss and didn't even recognize the problem, a new study shows. The University of Michigan School of Nursing study found significant differences between measured and perceived hearing loss, and suggests health care providers need better methods of testing and protecting hearing among factory workers.

Researchers at the University of Leeds have found that while UK local authorities are willing to think strategically about energy sustainability, their limited resources make it difficult to act. A study published in the journal Energy Policy , shows that while local authorities may have a vision to make cities sustainable in terms of energy use, it is difficult to implement a strategy to make this happen during this challenging time for local government.

A journal has published an edition of articles which have been edited and peer reviewed by people with learning disabilities, in a first for academia anywhere in the world. A University of Manchester team of academics and people with learning disabilities worked together on the British Journal of Learning Disabilities edition, which is published this week.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-Satiric news coverage-a format seen on programs such as "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"-decreases Arab American prejudice and bias against Al Jazeera English. A new University of Michigan study finds that Americans can change their views about Al Jazeera English, a global news network, depending on how it is covered by other media.

A new study has found the reorganisation of NHS services for children in the UK with cleft lip and palate has improved standards of care. It has also led to a co-ordinated approach to national cleft research that has the potential to improve health and treatment worldwide. The study by researchers at the University of Bristol, and published in the British Dental Journal , found the audit has informed the process of centralisation and a research strategy and infrastructure have been developed and embedded in the emerging clinical networks.

How can we make nuclear waste safe for millennia? Fundamental research led by the University of Cambridge will help find the answers. Our aim is to predict the chemical alteration of the fuel for ages between 1,000 and 100,000 years, which spans the lifetime of the disposal canisters." —Dr Ian Farnan The timescale for keeping hazardous nuclear waste isolated from living organisms is unimaginably long, with times specified by nuclear regulators in Europe and the USA ranging from 10,000 to 1,000,000 years.

Changes to just three genetic letters among billions contributed to the evolution and development of the mammalian motor sensory circuits and laid the groundwork for the defining characteristics of the human brain, Yale University researchers report. In a study published in the May 31 issue of the journal Nature, Yale researchers found that a small, simple change in the mammalian genome was critical to the evolution of the corticospinal neural circuits.

Reinforcing that the best things in life are free, a new study from the University of California, Berkeley, shows that online freebie-exchange communities such as "Freecycle" and "Couchsurfing" foster greater team spirit among their members than do cash-for-goods websites. The results, published earlier this month in the journal Administrative Science Quarterly , may help explain why a growing number of recession-weary Americans are participating less in monetary-based consumerism in favor of "gift economies” built on freebies and community spirit.

A major study of the closure of care home beds across Birmingham has shown that for the majority of older people affected the process did not have a negative impact on their lives.

An international collaborative study to map the genome of a South American butterfly has identified the secret behind its mimetic nature. The genome sequence of the Postman butterfly, Heliconius melpomene, was used as a reference to study species that live together in the Peruvian Amazon. Several of these share bright wing patterns in order to reinforce a warning signal that they are bad to eat - dissuading predators from attack.