Culture
Offering a government-sponsored health plan with publicly determined payment rates to people who buy their own insurance could lower the cost of premiums, but on its own it is unlikely to substantially increase the overall number of people with coverage, according to a new RAND Corporation study.
Modeling four scenarios for adding a public option for individual coverage available nationwide, researchers found that premiums for public plans could be 10% to 27% lower than private insurance plans because of lower provider payment rates in the public option.
WASHINGTON -- The amount of scarring in damaged kidneys as a result of diabetes or acute injury, is a key factor in determining treatment. But it has not been possible, using traditional techniques, to quickly and accurately assess how widespread this kind of wounding extends within the organ. Now, however, a physicist and chemist at Georgetown University Medical Center has shown that a microscope he began developing with colleagues at University of California-Irvine can provide an immediate answer.
Perennial warm-season grasses do not provide high-quality forage during mid to late-summer, which limits yearling stocker cattle from maintaining high rates of growth in the Southern Great Plains. This shortage has resulted in a continual search by researchers for annual legumes that can provide sufficient amounts of nutritious forage during August through September.
Among dinosaurs of ancient Colorado, scavenging and possibly cannibalism were responses to a resource-scarce environment, according to a study published May 27, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Stephanie Drumheller of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and colleagues.
Meta-analysis research studies in psychology aren't always reproducible due to a lack of transparency of reporting in the meta-analysis process, according to a new study published May 27, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Esther Maassen of Tilburg University, the Netherlands, and colleagues.
For many patients with a bicuspid aortic valve that needs replacing, transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) appears to be a safe treatment option with low complication rates, according to a study published in JACC: Cardiovascular Interventions. The study found patients with bicuspid valves who were at increased risk for surgery had a 30-day and one-year mortality rate and stroke rate that was similar to patients with the more common tricuspid valves.
What The Study Did: Researchers looked at trends in diversity by sex and race/ethnicity among applicants to U.S. surgical residency and fellowship programs from 2008-2018 to see if diversity was increasing.
Authors: Issam Koleilat, M.D., of the Montefiore Medical Center in New York, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2020.1018)
PHILADELPHIA -- The majority of commercially insured patients who visited the emergency department (ED) for an opioid overdose didn't receive the timely follow-up care known to help prevent a future overdose or death, according to a new study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Of nearly 6,500 patients treated in EDs nationwide for an overdose or other opioid-related medical complications, only 16 percent accessed opioid use disorder (OUD) medications or another form of treatment within three months of the ED visit.
What The Study Did: Clinical characteristics of patients with asymptomatic or symptomatic COVID-19 are described in this case series from Wuhan, China.
Authors: Yong Xiong, Ph.D., of Wuhan University in China, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.10182)
What The Viewpoint Says: How psychiatrists can contribute to diminish the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is discussed.
Authors: Jurjen J. Luykx, M.D., Ph.D., of University Medical Center Utrecht and Utrecht University in the Netherlands, is the corresponding author.
To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/
(doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2020.1225)
A new understanding of our planet's deepest earthquakes could help unravel one of the most mysterious geophysical processes on Earth.
Electronic Cigarettes Trigger an Inflammatory Response That May Set the Stage for Gum Disease
Melanoma is a malignant tumour resulting from the transformation of melanocytes, the cells in the skin that undertake to synthesise melanin, a complex polymer which protects us from the negative effects of solar radiation. Although melanoma is the least common among skin cancers, it is the one with the highest mortality rate, largely because of its high potential for metastasis.
Kyoto, Japan -- A staple in every science classroom is the periodic table of elements, and for many it is their first introduction to the vast mysteries of the natural world.
Now physicists from Kyoto University have unveiled a new table that provides a different perspective on the building blocks of the universe. While the traditional table is based on the behavior of electrons in an atom, this new table is based on the protons in the nucleus.
A re-analysis of dinosaur skulls from northern Alaska suggests they belong to a genus that lived over a broad latitudinal range extending into the Arctic.
The plant-eating, broad-beaked dinosaurs that lived in northern Alaska some 69 million years ago belong to the genus Edmontosaurus, and not to the genus recently proposed by scientists in 2015. The finding suggests this group of dinosaurs existed over a broad latitudinal range, extending from northern Colorado all the way up into the Arctic.