Saturday 11 May 2019

Trial remedies racial disparities in treatment for early-stage lung and breast cancer patients

Results from a study published in the Journal of the National Medical Association show that a pragmatic system-based intervention within cancer treatment centers can nearly eliminate existing disparities in treatment and outcomes for black patients with early-stage lung and breast cancer. The treatment completion rates before this intervention were 87.3 percent for white patients versus 79.8 percent for black patients. With the intervention in place, treatment completion climbed to 89.5 percent for white patients and 88.4 percent for black patients.

* This article was originally published here

Storm water banking could help Texas manage floods and droughts

Massive, destructive floods such as those caused by Hurricane Harvey in 2017 are a stark reality in Texas, but so are prolonged ground-cracking droughts.

* This article was originally published here

Hong Kong to cull 6,000 pigs as first swine fever case found

Hong Kong will cull 6,000 pigs after African swine fever was detected in an animal at a slaughterhouse close to the border with China, the first case of the disease in the densely populated financial hub.

* This article was originally published here

Opioid doctor and pharmacy 'shoppers' may also shop at home, study finds

As states crack down on doctor and pharmacy "shopping" by people who misuse opioids, a new study reveals how often those individuals may still be able to find opioids to misuse in their family medicine cabinets.

* This article was originally published here

Can medical marijuana help kids with autism?

(HealthDay)—Medical marijuana extracts appear to help children with autism, reducing their disruptive behavior while improving their social responsiveness, a new Israeli clinical trial reports.

* This article was originally published here

Smallest pixels ever created could light up color-changing buildings

The smallest pixels yet created—a million times smaller than those in smartphones, made by trapping particles of light under tiny rocks of gold—could be used for new types of large-scale flexible displays, big enough to cover entire buildings.

* This article was originally published here

WHO warns Ebola could spread elsewhere if attacks don't stop

The World Health Organization warned Friday that it may not be possible to contain Ebola to the two affected provinces in eastern Congo if violent attacks on health teams continue.

* This article was originally published here

Penis extensions don't work, can be risky, study says

Penis extensions don't work and can be risky, a new study says.

* This article was originally published here

Walmart's robot zips along in tech revolution that's raising big questions for workers

When an autonomous floor scrubber was rolled out in Walmart's Bonney Lake store last month, shoppers mistook the teal blue scrubber zipping down the aisles for a runaway machine, said manager David Klein. "Some customers are a little freaked out."

* This article was originally published here

Study shows native plants regenerate on their own after invasive shrubs are removed

Invasive shrubs have become increasingly prevalent in the deciduous forests of eastern North America—often creating a dense understory that outcompetes native plants. Many land managers would like to remove the invaders, but worry about what happens afterwards. Will they need to launch a costly remediation program to reestablish native plant communities?

* This article was originally published here

75 years later, French 'HistoPad' offers new view of D-Day

The French and the Americans are working together again on a D-Day project—this time to give museum visitors the opportunity to travel back in time and experience the milestone World War II invasion 75 years later.

* This article was originally published here

A friction reduction system for deformable robotic fingertips

Researchers at Kanazawa University have recently developed a friction reduction system based on a lubricating effect, which could have interesting soft robotics applications. Their system, presented in a paper published in Taylor & Francis' Advanced Robotics journal, could aid the development of robots that can efficiently manipulate objects under both dry and wet conditions.

* This article was originally published here

Clean fuel cells could be cheap enough to replace gas engines in vehicles

Advancements in zero-emission fuel cells could make the technology cheap enough to replace traditional gasoline engines in vehicles, according to researchers at the University of Waterloo.

* This article was originally published here

Cancer screening rates decline when patients see doctors later in day

Compared to patients who see their primary care doctor earlier in the day, cancer screening rates decline significantly as the day goes on, according to a new study from researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine and the Wharton School both of the University of Pennsylvania. The researchers, whose findings were published today in JAMA Network Open, believe these rates of decline may be in part due to "decision fatigue"—which results from the cumulative burden of screening discussions earlier in the day—and doctors falling behind in their busy schedules.

* This article was originally published here

Prehospital Tx guidelines may improve outcomes in severe TBI

(HealthDay)—Implementation of prehospital traumatic brain injury (TBI) guidelines is associated with improvement in survival to hospital discharge for patients with severe TBI, according to a study published online May 8 in JAMA Surgery.

* This article was originally published here

A multi-scale body-part mask guided attention network for person re-identification

Person re-identification entails the automated identification of the same person in multiple images from different cameras and with different backgrounds, angles or positions. Despite recent advances in the field of artificial intelligence (AI), person re-identification remains a highly challenging task, particularly due to the many variations in a person's pose, as well as other differences associated with lighting, occlusion, misalignment and background clutter.

* This article was originally published here