Science

High blood glucose is associated with poor outcomes in hospitalized patients, and use of intensive insulin therapy (IIT) to control hyperglycemia is a common practice in hospitals. But the recent evidence does not show a consistent benefit and even shows harms associated with the use of IIT, according to the American College of Physicians.

With IBM colleague Gerd Binnig, Rohrer invented the scanning tunneling microscope, which can show individual atoms on a surface and move them around.The electron microscope revolutionized biology in the 1930s by providing magnifications thousands of times higher than that of light microscopes, allowing scientists to discern the inner workings of cells for the first time.

Student loan defaults in the United States are now at a record high and recent graduates are on average accumulating more debt than ever.

Scientists have made an advance in breast cancer research which shows how some enzymes released by cancerous cells could have a protective function.

A new article on the archaeology of the Search for Richard III reveals for the first time specific details of the grave dug for King Richard III and discovered under a car park in Leicester.

sciencehabit writes "Only a few years after roach motels were introduced in the 1980s, they lost their allure for an increasing number of German cockroaches. Researchers soon realized that some roaches had developed an aversion to glucose—the sugary bait disguising the poison—and that the insects were passing that trait on to their young. Now, scientists have figured out how this behavior evolved." Read more of this story at Slashdot.

[video] The best of our #InMotionVideo contest entries so far. It gets really adorable at 1:17

In an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine today, two doctors from the University of Michigan described how they saved an infant with a life-threatening respiratory disorder using a custom-designed 3D-printed device. Printed with bio-absorbable plastic, the device is holding the child's airway open and allowing him to breathe normally. The child, Kaiba Gionfriddo, suffered from tracheobrochomalacia—a collapse of the airway to one of his lungs. The condition prevented him from breathing out carbon dioxide and getting sufficient oxygen. At six weeks old, he was out with his family at a restaurant when he started to turn blue. By the time he was two months old, he had to have a breathing tube inserted into his trachea to keep him alive. Dr. Glenn Green, MD, the associate professor of pediatric otolarygololgy at the University of Michigan, was called in by Kaiba's doctors to consult on the case. He and Dr. Scott Hollister, Ph.D., a professor of biomedical engineering at Michigan, worked together to design a tracheal splint for Kaiba, using a CT scan of his respiratory tract to create a model of the device. They obtained emergency clearance from the Food and Drug Administration to surgically implant their creation and installed the splint on the bronchus of Kaiba's left lung on February 9, 2012. Read 1 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Slovenian adventurer Matevz Lenarcic landed on Thursday in Western France after having overflown the North Pole in an ultra-light plane equipped to measure air pollution.