Month: April 2019

  • BMC Geriatrics – Highlights of 2018

    BMC Geriatrics – Highlights of 2018

    Staying active: how older adults choose to exercise For any regular at the gym, there’s a noticeable phenomenon around the beginning of the year: an influx of new members followed by a quick drop-off just a few weeks later. Exercising more is a perennially common New Year’s resolution, but it can be difficult to stick…

  • Commonly Held Myths of Head and Neck Cancers

    Commonly Held Myths of Head and Neck Cancers

    Myth: Decreased smoking rates have had no impact on incidence of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) © buenaventura13 / stock.adobe.com Fact: Between 1974 to 1999, there was a decrease in oral cavity, laryngeal, and hypopharyngeal cancers in the United States. This was largely attributed to a decreasing incidence in smoking. Notably, there was no…

  • Black holes in virtual reality

    Black holes in virtual reality

    This is a cross-post from the SpringerOpen blog. In our most recent paper in Computational Astrophysics and Cosmology we present our latest Virtual Reality visualization. The simulation is based on the black hole in the center of our own Galaxy; Sagittarius A* (Sgr A*). The mass of it; four million times more massive than our…

  • Should I, or should I not? The ‘tricky business’ about healthcare decision making

    Should I, or should I not? The ‘tricky business’ about healthcare decision making

    We often put a lot of effort into making important decisions for our lives. We ponder things like: “Should I apply for this new job?”, “Should I buy this car?”, or maybe even “Where should we go for our next holiday?” We often spend lots of time gathering information on our options. We seek advice…

  • The CYBATHLON Wheelchair Series to be held in Japan in May

    The CYBATHLON Wheelchair Series to be held in Japan in May

    Team RT-Movers JPN ETH Zürich/Alessandro Della Bella While the Olympics and Paralympics are contests of human abilities and strictly restrict the involvement of devices, the CYBATHLON is a competition in which technologies complement disabilities, symbolizing the future of the relationship between humans and technology. The CYBATHLON poses to society the question; “to what extent can…

  • Is there a link between caregiving and female baby boomers’ mental health?

    Is there a link between caregiving and female baby boomers’ mental health?

    © Ocskay Bence / Fotolia Caregiving, defined as providing unpaid assistance to relatives or acquaintances that have physical, psychological or developmental needs, is of great importance to society – unpaid care has been valued at $3.2 trillion in the US and £57 billion in the UK. However multiple studies have suggested that caregivers experience increased…

  • Detaining vulnerable immigrants negatively affects their mental health

    Detaining vulnerable immigrants negatively affects their mental health

    Our systematic review found that detention had a detrimental effect on an individual’s mental health, over and above the negative impact caused by uncertain immigration status. Not exactly a shocking revelation, I know. However, this finding supports those of a previous review by Robjant and colleagues that demonstrated adverse mental health consequences of immigration detention…

  • Moving towards universal health coverage: engaging non-state providers

    Moving towards universal health coverage: engaging non-state providers

    Where you live in the world dramatically affects your access to essential health services – WHO Making sure people have access to health services is a challenge everywhere. In a country like Afghanistan – where infrastructure is missing, communities can be remote, safety concerns are ongoing, and trained staff are lacking – it is even…

  • Intermittent fasting: a promising approach to reset glucose metabolism?

    Intermittent fasting: a promising approach to reset glucose metabolism?

    A calorie-restricted diet has long been recognized and proven as a positive contributor to longevity and better metabolic health. For more than 50 years, experiments on rodents showed caloric reduction in diet could increase their longevity. Following studies on primates also had similar findings – monkeys given a calorie-restricted diet were healthier than their standard-calorie…

  • Quiz: Public Health Weeks 2019

    Quiz: Public Health Weeks 2019

    © Romolo Tavani / Fotolia As a leading open access publisher, BMC is advancing discovery with over 60 journals spanning the spectrum of public health – making public health research available to anyone, anywhere. We’ve rounded up a few of the most interesting topics and themes in recent public health research to put you to…