Friday, August 29, 2014

100,000 avoidable deaths


Withholding results costs lives - The results of a 1980s clinical trial on heart drug Lorcainide were never published. Doctors didn’t know that more people died in the trial who were given Lorcainide than who were taking the placebo. It has been estimated that over 100,000 people died avoidably because they were prescribed drugs in the same class.
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A Doctor prescribed the antidepressant Reboxetine for a patient but says he was “misled.” Results from trials which showed it was worse than other drugs were withheld, while the smaller number of trials which showed it worked better were published.

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The UK Government has spent £424 million stockpiling Tamiflu, an anti-flu treatment, but we still don’t know if this treatment works any better than placebo. Regulators weren’t given information from all the clinical trials done on Tamiflu. The manufacturers of Tamiflu didn’t break any laws by withholding the information

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Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Why do humans grow up so slowly? Blame the brain

Humans are late bloomers when compared with other primates—they spend almost twice as long in childhood and adolescence as chimps, gibbons, or macaques do. But why? One widely accepted but hard-to-test theory is that children’s brains consume so much energy that they divert glucose from the rest of the body, slowing growth. Now, a clever study of glucose uptake and body growth in children confirms this “expensive tissue” hypothesis
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Friday, August 22, 2014

Earth's missing heat may be hiding in the deep Atlantic

There’s a new lead in the hunt to explain the global warming hiatus. The mystery is why average global surface air temperatures have remained essentially steady since 2000, even as greenhouse gases have continued to accumulate in the atmosphere. Many scientists believe the answer lies in the Pacific, which is sending massive slugs of cold water to the surface, helping cool the planet. But a new investigation, published online today in Science, presents sea temperature data implying that most of the missing heat has been stored deep in the Atlantic.
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Thursday, August 21, 2014

Here's How The Human Brain Gets Its Wrinkles

The reason our brains have that wrinkly, walnut shape may be that the rapid growth of the brain's outer brain — the gray matter — is constrained by the white matter, a new study shows.

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7 Science-Backed Methods To Get You Out Of Your Head

People get stuck in their heads all the time – some of us more than others. Although it’s lovely to ponder life and be inquisitive about yourself, the problem is that the majority of our thoughts are not so upbeat.
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Points increase for science and technology courses

Demand for science and technology courses has grown considerably this year in a sign that Government and industry efforts to attract school leavers to these high growth sectors are bearing fruit.
Today’s Central Applications Office(CAO) figures show the entry requirement for the country’s biggest science course at UCD rose by 10 points to 515, an 18 per cent increase over five years.

Talking to ourselves: the science of the little voice in your head

If we want to understand what’s happening in the brain when people ‘hear voices’, we first need to understand what happens during ordinary inner speech
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Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Life Sciences International Summit, 15th October 2014, Gibson Hotel, Dublin 1

Join Business & Finance, Enterprise Ireland and Science Foundation Ireland at the third annual Life Sciences International Summit, as we explore how the convergence of technology, medicine and regulation will impact Ireland’s fastest-growing sector. The 2014 Summit will offer expert insight and analysis on the key topic of Smart Ageing.

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