news 2018

From gaseous jets shooting out the center of supermassive black holes to fluorescent tags elucidating the intricacies of the brain, science has a close relationship with light. As a multi-purpose tool, light can reveal hidden functions, magnify areas of interest, provide a means of measurement and trigger activity.

Exercise more, lose weight, spend less money, learn a new skill - these common New Year's resolutions can be hard to keep. That's why Stanford researchers have looked at how to positively change one's lifestyle. Here are some of their findings. In January, many will set a goal for the New Year that for most will be hard to keep.

This year, researchers at Imperial made several important breakthroughs in understanding and potentially treating aggressive cancer types. The past few decades have seen remarkable progress in the survival rates of some cancers - particularly in the developed world, and particularly for cancers of the breast, prostate, lung and bowel.

FINDINGS Emergency medical personnel in Alameda County, California, use a screening process for determining whether to "medically clear" patients experiencing psychiatric emergencies before transporting them. They identify patients who are at low risk for medical emergencies and take them directly to a special psychiatric emergency service facility specifically designed for people experiencing psychiatric crises.

Advances in artificial intelligence have created new threats to the privacy of health data, a new UC Berkeley study shows. The study, led by professor Anil Aswani of the Industrial Engineering & Operations Research Department (IEOR) in the College of Engineering and his team, suggests current laws and regulations are nowhere near sufficient to keep an individual's health status private in the face of AI development.

New research shows that a comprehensive, coordinated care program for people with dementia and their caregivers significantly decreased the likelihood that the individuals would enter a nursing home. The study also shows that the program saved Medicare money and was cost-neutral after accounting for program costs.

A new study suggests rolling out a Type 2 diabetes remission programme in the NHS could cost around £1,067 per participant in its first year - or, factoring in the likelihood of success, £2,564 for each case of remission. Researchers say findings 'make the case for shifting resources to offer remission' in the future.

The pneumonia causing pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa has developed a twin-track strategy to colonize its host. It generates two different cells - motile spreaders and virulent stickers. Researchers at the University of Basel's Biozentrum have now elucidated how the germ attaches to tissue within seconds and consecutively spreads.

CMU's epidemiological forecasting systems get top marks four years in a row The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has announced that Carnegie Mellon University's forecasts of national and regional influenza activity during the 2017-2018 flu season were the most accurate of the 30 systems in its flu forecasting initiative.

Health + Behavior UCLA RESEARCH ALERT Sarah C.P. Williams FINDINGS An experimental drug known as A03, which was previously developed to treat depression, increases the levels of the enzyme Sirtuin1, or SirT1, and improves memory in mice. The mice were genetically modified to have a protein called ApoE4, the most common genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease in humans that has been linked to some forms of the disease.

The number of people living with dementia globally more than doubled between 1990 and 2016 from 20.2 million to 43.8 million, prompting researchers to call for more preventative action. A new paper published in The Lancet Neurology also found that 22.3 per cent of healthy years lost due to dementia in 2016 were due to modifiable risk factors.

Patients with suspected bowel cancer could be offered a quicker test to assess their cancer risk. This is the finding of new research from Imperial College London. The study, which tracked 7375 patients referred to hospital with suspected bowel cancer, compared two methods of examining the inside of the bowel - whole colon investigation and flexible sigmoidoscopy.

An active ingredient in eye drops that were being developed by experts in Nottingham has shown promise for treating an aggressive form of blood cancer, research has shown. Researchers from the University of Nottingham worked on the research led by scientists at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, University of Cambridge, and other collaborators which found that the compound, which targets an essential cancer gene, could kill leukaemia cells without harming non-leukemic blood cells.

Scientists at the University of Glasgow have discovered a potential combination therapy for the treatment of chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL), the most common form of leukaemia in the Western world, diagnosed in more than 3,500 people in the UK each year. The research, carried out in collaboration with NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (NHSGGC) and published in Clinical Cancer Research , found that the combination of ibrutinib, a targeted treatment already in clinical use, with a new inhibitor called AZD8055, helped promote CLL cell death in a preclinical study.

Policies aimed at removing sweets and crisps from checkouts could lead to a dramatic reduction in the amount of unhealthy food purchased to eat 'on the go' and a significant reduction in that purchased to take home, suggests new research led by the University of Cambridge.

Researchers have found that gently stroking a baby seems to reduce activity in the infant brain associated with painful experiences. The results, published in the journal Current Biology , suggest that lightly brushing an infant at a speed of approximately 3cm per second could provide effective pain relief before clinically necessary medical procedures.

Buruli ulcer is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) resulting in debilitating skin lesions, disabilities and stigmatisation. The current antibiotic treatment is long and has severe adverse side effects. Researchers from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH) together with colleagues from Singapore have discovered a highly effective compound against Buruli ulcer which has the potential to become a powerful alternative to the existing treatment options.

Smoking during pregnancy causes chemical changes to a baby's DNA that affect its risk of smoking-related conditions in adulthood, a study has found. The research, led by scientists at Imperial College London and the University of Oulu in Finland, analysed data from more than 18,000 people in several countries, including the UK, US and Australia, to study the impacts of maternal smoking on cardiovascular health.

The visual inspection of a suspicious skin lesion using the naked eye alone is not enough to ensure the accurate diagnosis of skin cancer, a group of experts have concluded following a largescale systematic review of research. Published today in The Cochrane Library, the Special Collection of Cochrane Systematic Reviews brings together a review of a large body of research on the accuracy of tests used to diagnose skin cancer.

Buruli ulcer is a neglected tropical disease (NTD) resulting in debilitating skin lesions and disabilities. The current antibiotic treatment is long and has severe adverse side effects. Researchers from the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (Swiss TPH), which is associated with the University of Basel, together with colleagues from Singapore have discovered a highly effective compound against Buruli ulcer.