Obtaining consent for genetic studies can be an opportunity for researchers to foster respectful engagement with participants, not merely to mitigate legal risk. This shift is proposed in a policy forum appearing tomorrow, Jan

The blood test procedure used on newborn infants for 40 years is finding a second life in the search for new lifesaving medications, according to an article in the current edition of Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), ACS' weekly newsmagazine. C&EN Senior Editor Celia Henry Arnaud notes that collecting drops of blood from patients and depositing the drops on special paper cards to dry has been used for decades to screen newborns for hereditary disorders and infectious disease

A multifaceted quality improvement intervention that included education, reminders and feedback through a collaborative telecommunication network improved the adoption of evidenced-based care practices in intensive care units at community hospitals for practices such as preventing catheter-related bloodstream infections and ventilator-associated pneumonia, according to a study that will appear in the January 26 issue of JAMA . The study is being published early online to coincide with its presentation at the annual meeting of the Society of Critical Care Medicine

Preliminary research suggests that use of a type of molecular imaging procedure may have the ability to detect the presence of beta-amyloid in the brains of individuals during life, a biomarker that is identified during autopsy to confirm a diagnosis of Alzheimer disease, according to a study in the January 19 issue of JAMA . “Both diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer disease (AD) are hampered by the lack of noninvasive biomarkers of the underlying pathology

Older adults without dementia and with lower levels in plasma of the biomarkers beta-amyloid 42/40 (protein fragments) had an increased rate of cognitive decline over a period of 9 years, according to a study in the January 19 issue of JAMA . The researchers also found that this relationship was stronger among individuals with less education and lower levels of literacy. An estimated 36 million people currently have dementia, with the prevalence expected to double every 20 years, according to background information in the article.

Women who were either in the transition to menopause or postmenopausal experienced a reduction in the frequency and severity of menopausal hot flashes with the use of the antidepressant medication escitalopram, compared to women who received placebo, according to a study in the January 19 issue of JAMA .

One of the most important predictions of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity is the existence of black holes.