Blog Buzz: August 4 – August 10

Interesting news from the blogs and elsewhere this week…

Jonathan Eisen over at The Tree of Life gives a great analysis of the new Google Scholar “Updates” feature and gives it a 9.4 out of 10 when it comes to sifting through science literature for relevant content! Here’s more information from the official Google Scholar Blog.

Scientists at the University of Wyoming have discovered a possible new way to target certain genes for anti-cancer therapy using nematode worms. They used worms that carried a gene mutation “similar to one that is inactivated in some human cancers”. The gene is thought to be linked to tumor progression and cancer cell growth. LabSpaces has more about the study.

Have you noticed? In its latest issue, NLM’s Technical Bulletin highlights updates to PubMed Central, now known as PMC, and gives details about the popular site’s cleaner, more organized feel. Check out what’s new and improved.

To continue our coverage of the Open Access debate… Bo-Christer Björk and David Solomon have published “Open access versus subscription journals: a comparison of scientific impact.” As an open access article itself, perhaps not surprisingly, it is available for free from BMC Medicine.

MSKCC in the News: July 28 – August 8

  • Donna Marie Curran of MSKCC was quoted in an article published by Nurse.com about the impact that oncology nurses have on guiding head and neck cancer patients through survivorship struggles.
  • MSKCC was featured in a PRWeb announcement for saving $1 million per year in energy costs.
  • A recent MSKCC study found men and women who had ever used 100 cigarettes in their lifetime were 1.45 times as likely as non tobacco users to die from gastric cancer after curative surgical resection.

Blog Buzz: July 28 – August 3

Here are a few blog highlights from this week:

One aspect of the Affordable Care Act that is the buzz of many a blog these days is the expected doctor shortage due to the influx of 33 million currently uninsured Americans who will enter the healthcare system in 2014, as well as the economic advantages for medical students choosing specialized fields over primary care. WSJ’s Health Blog, NY Times and the Washington Post’s Wonkblog have more on this.

Ed Yong over at Not Exactly Rocket Science had an interesting recent post about a cancer drug that has been discovered to “awaken” dormant HIV cells, which could provide a big step forward in the evolution of HIV treatment.

Shhhhh! Dr. Pauline Chen of the NY Times’ Well blog discusses the effect of hospital noise on patient recovery.

NLM has just introduced a new search feature that allows searchers to look for structured abstracts in PubMed.