Studies and Analyses

Microchips may be small, but their impact on our world has been huge. And this impact goes beyond the obvious effects of e-mail, cell phones and electronic organizers: A new study shows that the “environmental weight” of microchips far exceeds their small size.

Scientists have estimated that producing a single two-gram chip — the tiny wafer used for memory in personal computers — requires at least 3.7 pounds of fossil fuel and chemical inputs. The findings were reported Oct. 25 on the Web si

Computer prescriptions are three times less likely to contain errors than handwritten prescriptions

Have you ever received a drug prescription from a physician that looked like chicken scratch? You’re not alone. Pharmacists sometimes have a hard time reading prescriptions and in some cases they also are incomplete. To avoid errors, pharmacists have to spend precious time tracking down prescribers to clarify illegible or possibly inaccurate prescriptions. A new study by researcher

Soy protein enriched with isoflavones appears to have no effect on bone mineral content and bone mineral density in young women, according to a new study. Researchers say the finding will disappoint nutritionists hoping to document benefits from diets containing the nutrients, not to mention the soy industry.

A report on the study, conducted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, appears in the current (October) issue of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. Isofla

Broad community initiatives that use local coalitions to reduce alcohol and drug abuse are largely ineffective and may even have a negative effect for some goals, according to a new study of Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Fighting Back campaign.

“Supporting the activities of local coalitions is both intuitively attractive (bringing the community together to address local problems) and politically popular (spreading the money around),” says Denise Hallfors, Ph.D., of the Pacific Instit

People who live, work or travel within 165 feet downwind of a major freeway or busy intersection are exposed to potentially hazardous particle concentrations up to 30 times greater than normal background concentrations found at a greater distance, according to two recently published UCLA studies.

The studies — published in the Journal of the Air and Waste Management Association and in Atmospheric Environment — show that proximity to a major freeway or highway dramatically increases exposu

A new study at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston helps explain why practice makes perfect. Baylor researchers found that neurons in the visual cortex, the part of the brain responsible for vision, were more active when study monkeys anticipated the occurrence of predictable events. The results of the study were published in the Oct. 10 issue of Nature. “We really don’t have a great understanding of what changes in the brain when we practice things,” said Dr. Geoffrey M. Ghose, first author o