Despite high wages, there has been a shortage of primary care physicians in America and the Affordable Care Act, coupled with an increased 'teach to the protocol' environment in medical school, is going to make the shortage worse. 

With medical school costing so much, and increasing procedural limitations on how patients can be treated, doctors are starting to wonder how much of medicine actually requires a general practitioner. Becoming a general medical doctor may not be worth it, according to recent recommendations from doctors that qualified students pursue careers as nurse practitioners rather than as primary care physicians.

Researchers have solved a puzzle in traffic research, namely why so many people 'jerk' the wheel when they steer a car. 

A new study shows that plasma waves buffeting the planet's radiation belts are responsible for scattering charged particles into the atmosphere, creating the most detailed analysis so far of the link between these waves and the fallout of electrons from the planet's radiation belts.

The belts are impacted by fluctuations in "space weather" caused by solar activity that can disrupt GPS satellites, communication systems, power grids and manned space exploration.

Acoustic levitation has been done in the past but it required a precise setup where the sound source and reflector were at fixed "resonant" distances. This made controlling the levitating objects difficult and isn't really proof-of-concept for anything practical.

Now a team of researchers have developed a new device that can levitate polystyrene particles by reflecting sound waves from a source above off a concave reflector below  - with more control than any instrument created before. Changing the orientation of the reflector allows the hovering particle to be moved around. 

Older men with locally advanced prostate cancer benefit by adding radiation treatment to hormone therapy versus hormone therapy alone, according to a new study which found that hormone therapy plus radiation reduced cancer deaths by nearly 50 percent in men aged 76 to 85 compared to men who only received hormone therapy.

Past studies have shown that 40 percent of men with aggressive prostate cancers are treated with hormone therapy alone, exposing a large gap in curative cancer care among "Baby Boomers" as they approach their their 70s. 

Researchers have developed a detailed explanation of how white-nose syndrome is killing bats in parts of North America - the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans makes bats die by increasing the amount of energy they use during winter hibernation.

Researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Wisconsin created a model for how the disease progresses from initial infection to death in bats during hibernation. Since bats must carefully ration their energy supply during this time to survive without eating until spring, they tested the energy depletion hypothesis by measuring the amounts of energy used by infected and healthy bats hibernating under similar conditions.