Euthanasia with the use of physicians is supported by a majority of California and Hawaii residents, regardless of their ethnicity - as reliable as an Internet survey can be, that is.

Older people were more likely than younger people to feel it is acceptable for physicians, who obey the Hippocratic oath, to prescribe life-ending drugs for terminally ill patients who request them. Even among people who consider themselves spiritual or religious, about 52 percent supported the practice.

Following record-high temperatures and melting records that affected northwest Greenland in summer 2015, a new study provides the first evidence linking melting in Greenland to the anticipated effects of a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification.

Clermont, Fla, (June 9, 2016) ­ Rather than make appointments to see their family doctor on a regular basis, men are often more likely to make excuses for not going, according to a new survey that lists the top excuses men most often make.

The survey, commissioned by Orlando Health, and found that the top excuse men make to avoid scheduling annual appointments with their primary care physician, is that they are too busy. The survey showed that the second most common excuse men make is that they are afraid of finding out something might be wrong with them. Men also say that they are uncomfortable with certain body exams such as prostate checks, which rounds up the top three excuses.

DETROIT - The yuck factor may be an effective tool for boosting hand hygiene compliance among health care workers, according to a study at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

Infection Prevention and Control specialists observed that showing magnified images of bacteria found on things common in the health care environment like a mouse pad or work station, even a person's hand, swayed workers in four patient care units to do a better job of cleaning their hands. Compliance rates improved on average by nearly 24 percent.

Ashley Gregory and Eman Chami, Henry Ford Infection Prevention and Control specialists and study co-authors, say they both were surprised by the results.

People with cancer are often told by their doctors approximately how long they have to live, and how well they will respond to treatments, but what if there were a way to improve the accuracy of those predictions?

A new method could help, using data about patients' genetic sequences to produce more reliable projections for survival time and how they might respond to possible treatments. The technique is an innovative way of using biomedical big data -- which gleans patterns and trends from massive amounts of patient information -- to achieve precision medicine -- giving doctors the ability to better tailor their care for each individual patient.

I have recently put a bit of order into my records of activities as a science communicator, for an application to an outreach prize. In doing so, I have been able to take a critical look at those activities, something which I would otherwise not have spent my time doing. And it is indeed an interesting look back.


The blogging

Overall, I have been blogging continuously since January 4th 2005. That's 137 months! By continuously, I mean I wrote an average of a post every two days, or a total of about 2000 posts, 60% of which are actual outreach articles meant to explain physics to real outsiders. 

My main internet footprint is now distributed in not one, but at least six distinct web sites:

Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) is not a single disorder, but at least 11 different diseases, and that genetic changes explain differences in survival among young AML patients, according to a new study on the genetics of AML in New England Journal of Medicine.

Analysis of a wealth of new data contradicts an earlier claim that LB1, an ~80,000 year old fossil skeleton from the Indonesian island of Flores, had Down syndrome, and further confirms its status as a fossil human species, Homo floresiensis.

From the start, fossils of a tiny population of human-like creatures from Flores (the so-called "Hobbits" of Southeast Asia) have been controversial. Are these remains evidence of a new species of fossil human, Homo floresiensis? Or are these remains simply a population of small-bodied humans (Homo sapiens), like ourselves, but with one or more individuals suffering from a developmental disorder? Researchers recently diagnosed LB1, the most complete individual recovered, with Down syndrome.

At the center of a galaxy cluster, 1 billion light years from Earth, a voracious, supermassive black hole is preparing for a chilly feast.

For the first time, astronomers have detected billowy clouds of cold, clumpy gas streaming toward a black hole, at the center of a massive galaxy cluster. The clouds are traveling at speeds of up to 355 kilometers per second -- that's almost 800,000 miles per hour -- and may be only 150 light years away from its edge, almost certain to fall into the black hole, feeding its bottomless well. The observations, which will be published in the journal Nature, represent the first direct evidence to support the hypothesis that black holes feed on clouds of cold gas.

A research team from Oxford University have shown how different colours of light could affect our ability to sleep.

The researchers, led by Dr Stuart Peirson from Oxford's Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute were aiming to understand why exposing mice to bright light caused two - physically incompatible - responses.

Dr Peirson explained: 'When we expose mice to light during the night, it causes them to fall asleep. Yet, at the same time, it also increases levels of corticosterone, a stress hormone produced by the adrenal gland that causes arousal - wakefulness. We wanted to understand how these two effects were related and how they were linked to a blue light-sensitive pigment called melanopsin, known to play a key role in setting our body clock.'