Science News SciGuru.com

Quality of Patient Care Drives Physician Satisfaction; Doctors Have Concerns About Electronic Health Records, Study Finds
No serious adverse reactions to HPV vaccination
Whites More Prone to Certain Heart Condition than Other Ethnic Groups
Postpartum Depression Spans Generations
Clues to foam formation could help find oil
HIV vaccines elicit immune response in infants
Scientists Invent a Better Way to Make Antibody-Guided Therapies
Sunscreen saves superhero gene
Truth or Consequences? The Negative Results of Concealing Who You Really Are on the Job
Working together: bacteria join forces to produce electricity

Quality of Patient Care Drives Physician Satisfaction; Doctors Have Concerns About Electronic Health Records, Study Finds

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 05:25 AM PDT

Being able to provide high-quality health care is a primary driver of job satisfaction among physicians, and obstacles to quality patient care are a source of stress for doctors, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

While physicians note some advantages of electronic health records, physicians complain that the systems in use today are cumbersome to operate and are an important contributor to their dissatisfaction, the study found.

No serious adverse reactions to HPV vaccination

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 05:01 AM PDT

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and their Danish colleagues have monitored HPV-vaccinated girls via patient data registries in order to examine the incidence of a wide range of diseases and thus determine if there are any serious adverse effects of the vaccine. Their results show no significant increase of the examined diseases in the vaccinated girls relative to their unvaccinated peers.

Whites More Prone to Certain Heart Condition than Other Ethnic Groups

Posted: 09 Oct 2013 04:35 AM PDT

An individual’s race or ethnic background could be a determining factor when it comes to risk of atrial fibrillation, the most frequently diagnosed type of irregular heart rhythm, according to a new study at UC San Francisco.

Researchers discovered that self-described non-Hispanic whites are more likely to develop atrial fibrillation than people from other race or ethnic groups.

Gregory Marcus, MD

Postpartum Depression Spans Generations

Posted: 08 Oct 2013 12:07 PM PDT

A recently published study suggests that exposure to social stress not only impairs a mother’s ability to care for her children but can also negatively impact her daughter’s ability to provide maternal care to future offspring.

Researchers at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University conducted a transgenerational study with female rats, examining the behavioral and physiological changes in mothers exposed to chronic social stress early in life as a model for postpartum depression and anxiety.

Clues to foam formation could help find oil

Posted: 08 Oct 2013 11:05 AM PDT

Blowing bubbles in the backyard is one thing and quite another when searching for oil. That distinction is at the root of new research by Rice University scientists who describe in greater detail than ever precisely how those bubbles form, evolve and act.

A new study led by Rice chemical and biomolecular engineer Sibani Lisa Biswal and published in the journal Soft Matter describes two previously unknown ways that bubbles form in foam.

HIV vaccines elicit immune response in infants

Posted: 08 Oct 2013 10:59 AM PDT

A new analysis of two HIV vaccine trials that involved pediatric patients shows that the investigational vaccines stimulated a critical immune response in infants born to HIV-infected mothers, researchers at Duke Medicine report.

The finding, reported Oct. 8, 2013, at the AIDS Vaccine 2013 meeting in Barcelona, Spain, examined samples from two previously completed pediatric HIV vaccine trials – called PACTG 230 and PACTG 326 - to determine whether they elicited a key immune response that has only recently been associated with reduced HIV infection.

Scientists Invent a Better Way to Make Antibody-Guided Therapies

Posted: 08 Oct 2013 08:07 AM PDT

Chemists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have devised a new technique for connecting drug molecules to antibodies to make advanced therapies.

Antibody-drug conjugates, as they’re called, are the basis of new therapies on the market that use the target-recognizing ability of antibodies to deliver drug payloads to specific cell types—for example, to deliver toxic chemotherapy drugs to cancer cells while sparing most healthy cells. The new technique allows drug developers to forge more stable conjugates than are possible with current methods.

Sunscreen saves superhero gene

Posted: 08 Oct 2013 07:52 AM PDT

Next time your kids complain about putting on sunscreen, tell them this: Sunscreen shields a superhero gene that protects them from getting cancer.

It is widely accepted that sunscreen stops you from getting burnt but to date there has been academic debate about the effectiveness of sunscreen in preventing skin cancers.

Now QUT has undertaken a world-first human study to assess the impact of sunscreen at the molecular level.

Truth or Consequences? The Negative Results of Concealing Who You Really Are on the Job

Posted: 08 Oct 2013 07:46 AM PDT

Most know that hiding something from others can cause internal angst. New research suggests the consequences can go far beyond emotional strife and that being forced to keep information concealed, such as one’s sexual orientation, disrupts the concealer’s basic skills and abilities, including intellectual acuity, physical strength, and interpersonal grace—skills critical to workplace success.

Working together: bacteria join forces to produce electricity

Posted: 08 Oct 2013 07:41 AM PDT

Bacterial cells use an impressive range of strategies to grow, develop and sustain themselves. Despite their tiny size, these specialized machines interact with one another in intricate ways.

In new research conducted at Arizona State University’s Biodesign Institute, Jonathan Badalamenti, César Torres and Rosa Krajmalnik-Brown explore the relationships of two important bacterial forms, demonstrating their ability to produce electricity by coordinating their metabolic activities.