news 2014

Smokers trying to quit often light up a cigarette to deal with stress. Now an interdisciplinary team of Yale researchers has shown that guanfacine, a medication approved for treating hypertension that reduces stress and enhances cognition, shows promise as a smoking cessation aid. The study was published online Dec.

Researchers from The University of Queensland have found managers can increase productivity levels and prevent burnout by helping employees feel part of a group. The study also shows that leaders who create a shared sense of purpose and identity within their work teams can help improve employee health and wellbeing.

Researchers at the University of Toronto have found that sodium levels in Canadian chain restaurant meals have changed little since 2010, despite the food industry's commitment to offer more meals with less sodium. The researchers analyzed nutrition information from 61 sit-down and fast-food restaurants in 2013 and found that compared to levels in 2010, 54 per cent of foods did not change.

Researchers at the University of Toronto say it's a discovery that could mean a major advance in the emerging field of human regenerative medicine. But to understand its importance you must first consider the relationship between an air traffic controller and a pilot. Everyone knows the pilot gets the passengers to their destination while the air traffic controller decides when the plane can take off and when it must wait.

Researchers have been eavesdropping on 'conversations' between calves and their mothers — measuring the process of how cows communicate using detailed acoustic analysis for the first time. The team from The University of Nottingham and Queen Mary University of London, spent ten months studying to the ways cows communicate with their young, carefully examining acoustic indicators of identity and age.

Discovery is another step toward prevention and treatment of 1.6 million Americans with inflammatory bowel disease A new study by an international team of researchers shows for the first time that people may inherit some of the intestinal bacteria that cause Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, collectively know as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

MIT researchers have discovered a new mathematical relationship - between material thickness, temperature, and electrical resistance - that appears to hold in all superconductors. They describe their findings in the latest issue of Physical Review B . The result could shed light on the nature of superconductivity and could also lead to better-engineered superconducting circuits for applications like quantum computing and ultralow-power computing.

Psychopaths generally do not feel fear and fail to consider the emotions of others, or reflect upon their behavior - traits that make them notoriously difficult to treat. However, a study published Dec. 18 in Clinical Psychological Science suggests it may be possible to teach psychopaths to consider emotion and other pieces of information when they make decisions.

Scientists from Imperial College London have developed a way to make the conclusions drawn from mathematical models more reliable. The work has implications for fields as diverse as medical research and ecology. Models are, by necessity, gross simplifications and, as such, there is always the risk that the model - and so the conclusions we draw - are wrong Most scientists choose to work with one mathematical model and change the input parameters to see what different outcomes result.

An analysis of the ongoing Ebola outbreak reveals that transmission of the virus occurs in social clusters, a finding that has ramifications for case reporting and the public health. Prior studies of Ebola transmission were based on models that assumed the spread of infection occurred between random pairs of individuals.

16 December 2014 GPs should consider a more overt discussion with patients when referring them for further investigation of symptoms which may indicate cancer, according to a paper published in the British Journal of General Practice. In an NIHR-funded study, researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Durham and Exeter conducted's with patients being referred for possible lung and colorectal cancer.

Social media such as Twitter and Facebook can be valuable in the fight against HIV in the United States, where research has demonstrated they can prompt high-risk populations to request at-home testing kits for the virus that causes AIDS, suggesting a way to potentially boost testing rates. But does it lead to actual testing, and can it work outside the United States? A new study from the UCLA AIDS Institute and Center for AIDS Research published online Dec.

Women who eat fewer than two serves of fruit a day face a greater risk of developing depression, University of Queensland research shows. UQ School of Population Health 's Professor Gita Mishra said the findings of a six-year study of more than 6000 Australian women revealed a clear link between fruit consumption and the development of depressive symptoms.

A major new class of antibodies that can make the four different types of dengue virus (DENV) non-infectious has been discovered by a group of international researchers, including from the University of Melbourne. The discovery could lead to the development of better vaccines and laboratory tests  that eventually could lead to reductions in the incidence of dengue.

Researchers at Yale and Boston University and their Russian collaborators have found that occasional heroin use by HIV-positive patients may be particularly harmful to the immune system and worsens HIV disease, compared to persistent or no heroin use. The findings are published in the journal AIDS and Behavior.

An international team of geoscientists have demonstrated how magma-filled cracks form and spread underneath volcanic systems, such as the one extending from Iceland's Bárðarbunga volcano to an eruptive site which has now been active for more than 100 days. This is probably the best-documented eruption ever Bob White Using the most extensive dataset ever gathered from a volcanic eruption, an international team of researchers have developed a model of how huge magma-filled cracks form underneath volcanic systems and how they spread.

Predictions of Greenland ice loss and its impact on rising sea levels may have been greatly underestimated, according to scientists at the University of Leeds. The finding follows a new study, which is published today , in which the future distribution of lakes that form on the ice sheet surface from melted snow and ice – called supraglacial lakes – have been simulated for the first time.

Researchers have understood very little about how blood and lymphatic vessels form in the mammalian gut - until now. A new Cornell study reports for the first time how arteries form to supply the looping embryonic gut with blood, and how these arteries guide development of the gut's lymphatic system.

Malnutrition is a major cause of stunted growth in children, but new UCL research on mothers and children in Egypt suggests that the problem is not just about quantity of food but also quality. Obesity and malnutrition are often thought of as problems at opposite ends of the nutrition spectrum, but the study found that 6.7% of Egyptian mothers were obese and had stunted children.

Economists discover the introduction of neutral umpires in Test cricket led to a drop in Leg Before Wicket (LBW) decisions going in favour of home teams Findings published amid debate over whether neutral umpiring is still required following introduction of Decision Review System The introduction of neutral umpires in Test cricket led to a drop in the number of Leg Before Wicket (LBW) decisions going in favour of home teams, a study has revealed.