The decision to jettison the controversial approach to dying known as the Liverpool Care Pathway was "too extreme" given that its principles were considered by proponents as the best examples of palliative care in the world, argues a senior ethicist in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Whether an insect will have a male or female offspring depends on the weather and temperature, according to a study led by Joffrey Moiroux and Jacques Brodeur of the University of Montreal's Department of Biological Sciences.

As part of this study, which was funded by the Ouranos Consortium, Moiroux tried to understand the possible role of global warming on the relationship between crop pests and their natural enemies – parasitoids and predators. Among the issues addressed, he sought to determine whether there is an effect of "phenological asynchrony" between parasitoids and their hosts, and therefore an impact on the availability of host eggs and on pest control by their natural enemies. 

Following a genetic marker for breast cancer, the actress Angelina Jolie had a preventative double mastectomy. Cancer experts were horrified - and with good reason. About 70 percent of women who have both breasts removed following a breast cancer diagnosis do so against doctor recommendations, so healthy women certainly should not.  And they certainly should not take medical advice from a women who wrote her first husband's name in her blood on their wedding day.
 
Yet she is not alone. Recent studies have shown an increase in women with breast cancer choosing this more aggressive surgery, called contralateral prophylactic mastectomy, which raises the question of potential over-treatment among these patients.

DOWNERS GROVE, Ill. – May 21, 2014 – According to a new systematic review article, radiofrequency ablation and complete endoscopic resection are equally effective in the short-term treatment of dysplastic Barrett's esophagus, but adverse event rates are higher with complete endoscopic resection. The article comparing the two treatments appears in the May issue of GIE: Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, the monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy (ASGE).

A home-based exercise program helped people with clogged leg arteries walk farther and faster, according to new research in the Journal of the American Heart Association. The program was beneficial even 12 months after participants started the program.

Previously, studies have shown that supervised exercise can improve walking and lessen the symptoms of peripheral artery disease (PAD), but this is the first to document the long-term benefits of a home-based walking program.

Newly analyzed tooth samples from the great apes of the Miocene indicate that the same dietary specialization that allowed the apes to move from Africa to Eurasia may have led to their extinction, according to results published May 21, 2014, in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Daniel DeMiguel from the Institut Catalá de Palontologia Miquel Crusafont (Spain) and colleagues.