Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory have generated extremely short pulses of light that are the strongest of their type ever produced and could prove invaluable in probing the ultra-fast motion of atoms and electrons. The scientists also made the first observations of a phenomenon called cross-phase modulation with this high-intensity light - a characteristic that could be used in numerous new light source technologies. [click link for full article]

Efforts to address problems with the “shattered” New Orleans health care system in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina might prove the most important to the “economic revival” of the city, the New York Times reports. Before the hurricane, the health care system served as the largest employer in New Orleans after tourism and retail stores and paid much higher wages. [click link for full article]

Currently, there is a debate about how asthma should be defined, so that progress can be made in the understanding of underlying mechanisms and, particularly, in the identification of genes involved in this disease. Emmanuelle Bouzigon (INSERM U794, Evry, France) and her colleagues examined 110 asthmatic families who were already part of the French Epidemiological Study on the Genetics and Environment of Asthma (EGEA). The study involved more than 2,000 subjects aged 4 to 70 years. [click link for full article]

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is frequent in patients undergoing mechanical ventilation and is associated with substantial morbidity and mortality. 10% of intensive care unit (ICU) patients receive invasive mechanical ventilation through a tracheotomy cannula during their ICU stay. Several recent studies identified tracheotomy as a risk factor for VAP. [click link for full article]

The safety profile of bosentan (Tracleer®), an endothelin receptor antagonist approved for the treatment of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), has been confirmed in a unique large-scale pan-European surveillance programme, according to a study undertaken by Marc Humbert (Antoine Beclere Hospital, Clamart, France) and his colleagues. [click link for full article]

Drinking more than one soft drink daily — whether it’s regular or diet — may be associated with an increase in the risk factors for heart disease, Framingham researchers reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.”We were struck by the fact that it didn’t matter whether it was a diet or regular soda that participants consumed, the association with increased risk was present,” said Ramachandran Vasan, M.D. [click link for full article]

Leptin, a protein secreted by fat cells, seems to be involved in mechanisms of ventilatory control in humans. Leptin induces satiation and reduction of appetite, and increases the rate of metabolism. This leads to the maintenance or reduction of weight (from the Greek leptos, meaning thin). Since most obese people have very high levels of leptin, obesity has been postulated as a state of leptin resistance. [click link for full article]

A food scientist has developed a peanut that is free from the most common peanut allergen, Ara h 1. This may provide the tens of thousands of Americans with peanut…

A follow up to a previous study on group therapy in breast cancer patients finds group therapy does not prolong the lives of women with metastatic breast cancer. Published in the September 1, 2007 issue of CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, the new case-control trial finds patients with metastatic breast cancer who took part in weekly group psychotherapy had similar survival rates as those given literature-based patient education. [click link for full article]

Although it has been customary at many Japanese companies for women to leave when they have children or become married, an increasing shortage of labor in the country is prompting companies to retain female workers with “new vigor,” the Wall Street Journal reports. According to the Journal, shortly after a birth rate spike from 1947 to 1949, the birth rate in Japan has fallen because of increased contraception access and legalized abortion. [click link for full article]