According to a study conducted at the School of Public Health at the University of Adelaide in Australia, advances in precision medicine—defined by the National Institutes of Health as “treatment that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle”—could predict patient 5-year mortality with up to 70 percent accuracy.

For the study, researchers gathered more than 15,000 CT scan images of internal organs and tissues—including the heart and lungs—from patients over the age of 60 and identified imaging features linked to 5-year mortality. Then they programmed this information into a computer, “teaching” the machine to analyze and understand the CT scan images and predict outcomes.

When researchers used the computer to analyze chest CT scans of 48 additional patients, it predicted 5-year mortality at an accuracy rate (69 percent) comparable to that of health care professionals. According to Dr. Luke Oakden-Rayner, lead study author, more research—involving tens of thousands of patients—is the next step.

Sourced from: MNT

A small study conducted by scientists at Rutgers University-New Brunswick in New Jersey dispelled the popular myth that washing your hands in warm water gets rid of more germs than washing them in cold water.

The study involved 20 participants asked to wash their hands, which had been exposed to harmless germs, 20 times each. Water temperature ranged from cold (59 degrees F), to warm (79 degrees F), to hot (100 degrees F), and participants used varying amounts of soap.

According to the researchers, neither water temperature nor the amount of soap used affected the number of germs removed. What did make a difference? Washing hands for at least 20 seconds and and taking care to wash every surface of the hand with soap and water.

Sourced from: BBC

It’s Monday morning…where did the weekend go? If this is your lament as you head back to work each week, there’s something you can do about it. According to neuroscientist David Eagleman, a professor at Stanford University and author of The Brain: The Story of You, the trick to prolonging your days off is to try new activities and/or a new setting.

Time spent doing something unfamiliar seems to last longer because your brain is focused on gathering new information and creating new memories. Eagleman says that’s the same reason time seems to go by more slowly when we’re young and faster when we get older. Remember endless summer vacations when you were a kid? As we age, we’ve seen most of the patterns of daily life before.

But time really does fly when you’re having fun (seemingly). Therefore, a weekend spent on a new adventure will only seem to have lasted longer in hindsight—at the time, it will fly by much faster than a weekend spent on your couch binge watching your favorite television shows.

Sourced from: CNN