News Articles

There is a national consensus among policy makers and educators that residents should factor the cost of care into decision making - but doctors and those who teach them are not buying in.
In a culture of defensive medicine and unlimited malpractice lawsuits, over-testing is common. And there have been decades of stories and television programs stating that doctors should decide how to treat patients, not insurance companies or hospital management.  Of the
nearly $3 trillion a year spent on health care costs,  30 percent - over $750 billion annually - is considered wasted care that could be avoided without affecting quality, reports the Institutes of Medicine. 

Low-income, Hispanic and African-American Californians need to have a tax on sodas and other sugary beverages if they are going to have reduced risk of diabetes - which could be a substantial cost for taxpayers in a world of government health care.
Over the course of the next decade, the scholars estimate that lowered incidence of these diseases would save over half a billion dollars in medical costs. 2 or perhaps 3 of each 20,000 people.

Young adults want to live n cities. No surprise there, cities have more nightlife and activity. What is a surprise is the claims that young adults instead want to live in cities because of mass transit, and high-density housing. If those were so terrific, people would not move to the suburbs when they have families. 
Professor Markus Moos of the Faculty of Environment at the University of Waterloo sought to debunk ideas of neighborhood gentrification defined along class lines, so he focused on urban core areas increasingly populated by young adults who have delayed child-bearing and education and economic prospects in return for an extended youthful phase.

Endocrinologists are warning us in a paper for an upcoming issue of the
journal Endocrinology
that some of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing - fracking - can disrupt the body's hormones. 

Individuals with a family history of premature heart disease, heart attacks or stroke in a first degree relative before the age of 60 years, continue to have a higher risk of dying despite earlier referral to general physicians, lifestyle changes and drug treatments. 
 Doctors are aware of the increased risk individuals with family history of heart disease face, with around a 40% higher chance of being affected than the average population. In response, these individuals are usually referred earlier for interventions to reduce the risk, but research published by the University of Glasgow in the European Heart Journal has shown that even when early interventions are instituted, these patients are still 12-20% more likely to die prematurely. 

Tests conducted by scientists from Rice, Nankai and Tianjin universities at two wastewater treatment plants in northern China revealed antibiotic-resistant bacteria were not only escaping purification but also breeding and spreading.  
The "superbugs" were carrying New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase (NDM-1), a multidrug-resistant gene first identified in India in 2010, in wastewater even after being disinfected by chlorination. Significant levels of NDM-1 were found in the effluent released to the environment and even higher levels in dewatered sludge applied to soils. 

Want to boil water in less than a trillionth of a second?
Now you can, if you are at the Hamburg Center for Free-Electron Laser Science and can find someone to build your theoretical concept.
Still, heating water 600 degrees Celsius in just half a picosecond seems like a fun application. If it ever does get built, it will be the fastest water-heating method on earth.  

It seems like common sense to want to avoid foodborne illnesses but the naturalistic fallacy regarding food has extended to milk - with claims that raw milk somehow wards off disease and is better for you.
While no one should drink it if they aren't absolutely sure how it was produced, like cigarettes, raw milk should especially be avoided by pregnant woman and kids.
A new policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics

Americans' perceptions of income inequality are largely over-inflated due to political and cultural grandstanding, at least when compared with actual census data.

In America, where the Obama administration is using surveillance cameras, tracking website visits and monitoring citizens using GPS, many people feel their privacy is slipping away.
It's no surprise that, if there is a choice, like with electronic health records, people out opt - at least until the Afforadable Care Act requires it. Already, health records and clinical tissues are being used for medical research purposes, even without patient consent but completely compliant with federal regulations. 

Like most government spending programs, once environmental lobbyists got their way and renewable ethanol biofuels became mandated and subsidized, they have been difficult to eliminate.
Perhaps the news that blending more ethanol into fuel to supposedly cut air pollution from vehicles carries a hidden risk of toxic or even explosive gases in buildings may help. 
Those problems would likely occur in buildings with cracked foundations that happen to be in the vicinity of fuel spills. Vapors that rise from contaminated groundwater can be sucked inside, according to Rice University environmental engineer Pedro Alvarez. Once there, trapped pools of methane could ignite and toxic hydrocarbons could cause health woes, he said.

Short term over-eating is no problem - just don't make a habit of it and you will be fine, according to a paper in The Journal of Physiology and thousands of years of common sense.
Some studies have said that even a few days of excess calorie intake, where you consume more calories than you burn, brings detrimental health impacts, but the new paper found that a daily bout of exercise generates vast physiological benefits even when you consume thousands of calories more than you are burning. Exercise clearly does a lot more than simply reduce the energy surplus.