Patients’ experience of healthcare should be a greater part of assessing quality
Research shows that despite frequent evaluations, a lot remains unknown about the quality of municipal health and care services.
Health
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A little exercise goes a long way
Micro workouts are all the talk right now: researchers have found that effective physical activity in small doses provides great health benefits – both for the individual and society as a whole.
The smallest premature babies are less physically active as adults
Poorer gross motor skills, such as the ability to walk quickly, run, or jump, may explain some of the correlation between being born prematurely and the tendency to engage less in physical activity.
How hot does a firefighter get?
Firefighters do hard physical work while being exposed to great heat strain. Now we know more about what happens to their body temperature during a smoke dive.
Our breath holds more secrets than we realize
SINTEF experts on microchip technology are working on a method to detect biomarkers in our breath and to miniaturize a monitoring device. The project can help to discover symptoms of COPD earlier and change the lives of millions of people suffering from this disease.
How new medicines will find their way from the research laboratory into your body
Nanomedicines save lives, but they don’t reach the market or the patient’s body fast enough. Researchers have now come up with a recipe to accelerate and improve the process.
Why a groundbreaking discovery about tiny RNA molecules may be helpful for humans and wildlife
Short strands of genetic material called microRNA have implications for human health – but they could also revolutionize species identification, and perhaps even allow monitoring of wildlife health. Here’s how they work and the potential they offer.
Researcher warns against technostress
New technology aims to enable us to always do even more. A researcher has issued a warning about what this ‘efficiency hysteria’ is doing to us and our workplaces.
PFAS: found 180 times more ‘forever chemicals’ in birds
These man-made toxic substances are often referred to as ‘forever chemicals’. There are thousands of different variants, and researchers are finding more and more of them.
Why is it so hard to bring clean cookers to Africa?
Despite decades of innovation, more than a billion people in sub-Saharan Africa still don’t have access to clean cooking. Low-tech, affordable cookers exist, yet firewood remains the go-to fuel. Why?
Young people can be helped to develop more grit
A recent study shows that a new programme can increase ‘grit’ and self-efficacy in adolescents. Approximately 16,000 young people will soon have access to this programme each year.
Aiming to improve the results of home training with an AI app
Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) and Parkinson’s can get better if they train at a high intensity, because high-intensity exercise activates the nervous system and helps to boost strength. Researchers are now developing an app to make training at home more effective, using a mobile phone as a personal trainer.
For Twenty Years, Grid Cells Kept a Secret
Rather than simply tracking an animal’s real-time location, grid cells coordinate to perform rapid, rhythmic sweeps into the space ahead of the animal.
Just a few hours of yoga can greatly reduce stress
Ten years of research on yoga as a stress-reducing activity provides a clear answer: A little effort offers real health benefits.
New findings could lead to better treatment for blood cancer
A rare type of blood cancer called chronic myelogenous leukaemia could benefit from new research that can help identify which medicine will work best.
Pelvic floor disorders affect sexual function
Women with severe pelvic floor disorders are four times more likely to avoid sex than women who experience milder symptoms.
Volunteers should not become friends with patients
Volunteers are increasingly providing care when family and public services cannot provide enough. But how close should the helper and the person being helped become?
Women born prematurely are at greater risk of committing suicide
Children born prematurely are more at risk of dying from road traffic accidents, suicide and substance abuse in late adolescence. A new Nordic study shows that women who were born prematurely are particularly at significantly greater risk of committing suicide.
People with a positive attitude are built differently
Those who believe they will be able to achieve their goals are also more passionate and have greater willpower.
Tiny brains, hearts and lungs can help cure disease
Many great discoveries and inventions spring from basic research. That’s particularly true for medicine, but also for many other research areas.
From running rats to brain maps: A Nobel odyssey
It’s been 10 years since Norwegian neuroscientists May-Britt and Edvard Moser won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with their former mentor and colleague John O’Keefe. Listen to the Mosers themselves tell the story of how they came to discover grid cells, the neurons that help form a GPS in the brain.
“May offer us a new cure for lung cancer”
The delivery of nanomedicines using gas bubbles has shown itself to be a unique way of transporting cytotoxins to the lungs of cancer patients. The method enables precise and focused treatments, and the local action of the drugs also prevents a range of side-effects.
Identifying health problems of the future
It wasn’t that long ago that we knew very little about the state of people’s health around the world. NTNU’s new honorary doctors have used 300,000 sources to provide us with an overview.
As our energy demands increase, the planet continues to overheat. But there is hope.
A cure for global warming: Technologies exist that can get us out of this mess. Let’s take a look at them.