(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — A device that can monitor the levels of specific drugs as they flow through the bloodstream may soon take the guesswork out of drug dosing and allow physicians to tailor prescriptions to their patients' specific biology. Developed by UC Santa Barbara researchers Tom Soh, Kevin Plaxco and Scott Ferguson, the biosensor combines engineering and biochemistry and has far-reaching potential.

Doctors and pharmaceutical companies can generally determine reasonable drug doses for most patients through batteries of tests and trials. However, the efficacy of a drug treatment relies on maintaining therapeutic levels of the drug in the body, a feat not so easily accomplished.

A new paper in Trends in Endocrinology  &  Metabolism  finds that regular exposure to mild cold may be a healthy and sustainable way to help people lose weight. Obviously so would eating less.

Their work suggests our warm and cozy homes and offices might be partly responsible for our expanding waistlines rather than our buffet lunches.

An analysis of routine insurance data from the Barmer GEK statutory health insurance company shows that during the years 2005 to 2012, antipsychotic prescriptions for kids in Germany increased a lot. 

Airline-related complaints made to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) from 2002 to 2012  reveal that passengers were less likely to make a formal complaint about service quality if they were on a long-established "network" carrier.

Passengers of low-cost upstarts tended to complain less, even though the quality of service may have been just as poor.

Responsive holograms that change colour in the presence of certain compounds are being developed into portable medical tests and devices, which could be used to monitor conditions such as diabetes, cardiac function, infections, electrolyte or hormone imbalance easily and inexpensively.

Texting on your phone while walking alters posture and balance according to a study published in PLOS ONE on January 22, 2014 by Siobhan Schabrun and colleagues from the University of Queensland.

Sending text messages has become an increasingly popular form of communication, but little is known about how sending text messages impacts our lives. Scientists studied the effect of mobile phone use on body movement while walking in 26 healthy individuals. Each person walked at a comfortable pace in a straight line over a distance of approximately 8.5 m while doing one of three tasks: walking without the use of a phone, reading text on a mobile phone, or typing text on a mobile phone. The body's movement was evaluated using a three-dimensional movement analysis system.