Controlling Heart’s Irregular Rhythm No Better Than Controlling Rate

The preferred and most frequently used initial therapy for the common heart rhythm disorder atrial fibrillation (AF) is a strategy to restore and maintain a normal heart rhythm. However, a study supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health found that this “heart rhythm” strategy prevents no more deaths than the alternative, often secondary, approach to treatment which merely controls the rate at which the heart beats – and may have some disadvantages, including more hospitalizations and adverse drug effects.

Patient Safety Study Documents Medication Errors in Hospitals

According to a new national report issued today by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP)’s Center for the Advancement of Patient Safety (CAPS), administering drugs using incorrect techniques continues to be a serious cause of injury to hospital patients, increasing costs to insurers. The study collected reported medication errors voluntarily provided by 368 health care facilities nationwide, including community, government, and teaching institutions. Of the 105,603 errors documented, the vast majority were corrected before causing harm to the patient. But 2.4 percent of the total errors were more serious, resulting in patient injury, prolonged hospitalization and even death.

Addicts’ Brains Work Harder to Control Behavior

A brain-imaging study conducted at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory reveals that recently abstinent methamphetamine abusers who reported they avoided harmful situations had higher resting metabolic rates in a part of the brain responsible for making decisions and modifying behaviors than those with low harm-avoidance scores. In non-addicted, comparison subjects, there was no significant association between harm avoidance and metabolism in this brain region. The findings, reported in the December 3, 2002, issue of NeuroReport, suggest that this higher-level brain center — the orbitofrontal cortex — is involved in drug addiction, and might be working extra hard in addicts trying to stay off drugs.

Revolutionary new theory for origins of life on Earth

A totally new and highly controversial theory on the origin of life on earth, is set to cause a storm in the science world and has implications for the existence of life on other planets. Researchers in the United Kingdom claim that living systems originated from inorganic incubators – small compartments in iron sulphide rocks. The first cells were not living cells, they say, but inorganic ones made of iron sulphide and were formed not at the earth’s surface but in total darkness at the bottom of the oceans. Life, they say, is a chemical consequence of convection currents through the earth’s crust and in principle, this could happen on any wet, rocky planet.

Satellite Could Help Predict Hantaviral Transmission Risk

Researchers report that satellite imagery could be used to determine areas at high-risk for exposure to Sin Nombre virus (SNV), a rodent-born disease that causes the often fatal hantaviral pulmonary syndrome (HPS) in humans. According to the researchers, satellite imaging detects the distinct environmental conditions that may serve as a refuge for the disease-carrying deer mice. Higher populations of infected deer mice increase the risk of HPS to humans.

Religious high schoolers more optimistic, have better self-esteem

High school seniors who consider themselves religious have significantly higher self-esteem and hold more positive attitudes about life than do their less religious peers, a new study shows. The research, part of the larger National Study of Youth and Religion, revealed a statistical association between religion and higher self-esteem among 12th-graders who went to religious services at least once a week or who professed deeply held spiritual views. “This was contrary to the belief held by some people that religion is associated with psychological neurosis or dysfunction,” said the study’s lead author. “These findings seem to suggest the opposite — that religion is associated with a constructive outlook.”

Study Identifies SIDS Risk Factors Among American Indian Infants

A study of Northern Plains Indians found that infants were less likely to die of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) if their mothers received visits from public health nurses before and after giving birth. The study also found that binge drinking (five or more drinks at a time) during the mother’s first trimester of pregnancy made it eight times more likely that her infant would die of SIDS. Any maternal alcohol use during the periconceptional period (three months before pregnancy or during the first trimester) was associated with a six-fold increased risk of SIDS. The study also found that infants were more likely to die of SIDS if they wore two or more layers of clothing while they slept.

Dark Edge of Sunspots Reveal Magnetic Melee

In what may be one of the most important steps in understanding sunspots since they were discovered by Chinese sky watchers more than two millennia ago, researchers have discovered that the lines of magnetic force that surge out of sunspots appear to peel apart like husk off an ear of corn as some of the lines are dragged back beneath the surface by a sort of solar quicksand. This “quicksand” and the magnetic fields it bends create the penumbrae around some sunspots, the strange rings of mid-darkness that have eluded explanation by astronomers since Galileo first sketched them. With the help of sophisticated computer models and data from solar telescopes that give spectacular views of the sun, researchers at the University of Rochester, University of Colorado, University of Cambridge, and University of Leeds have reported an answer to several mysteries of sunspots in the current issue of Nature.

Evidence Lacking on Use of Routine Prostate Cancer Screening

Although screening for prostate cancer is a common part of a routine checkup for American men, a new finding issued today from the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force concludes there is insufficient scientific evidence to promote routine screening for all men and inconclusive evidence that early detection improves health outcomes. The finding is published in the December 3 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Even in fish, one parent does more

Like bickering spouses in an underwater episode of “Dr. Phil,” parents in the fish world want their mates to take more responsibility for child-rearing – so they can do less, says CSUS biological sciences professor Ronald Coleman. In convict cichlids, for example, Coleman finds that while parenting duties are shared, they’re not shared equally. “Both hope the other will do the work,” he says. Convict cichlids are good parents who defend their children, Coleman says. But individual pairs vary in determining how much each parent should do for their offspring.

Family lives with 2,000-plus brown recluse spiders without bites

Have you had a skin wound lately and did a physician tell you a brown recluse spider was the culprit? A California study, focusing on 2,055 brown recluse spiders in a Kansas home, notes that many skin lesions are misdiagnosed by doctors as “brown recluse spider bites.” The study finds that even where brown recluses can be very common, bites from these spiders are uncommon. Moreover, the study finds that in non-endemic areas, there aren’t enough brown recluses to account for skin conditions diagnosed as “brown recluse bites.”