Culture

A "Perspective" piece in today's New England Journal of Medicine by Peter B. Bach, MD, MAPP, points out that policy makers are relying on hospital ratings from the Dartmouth Atlas that could be misleading.

A new study confirms that rates of obesity and other chronic health problems have risen in American children in recent years, but it also shows that many children's conditions will improve or resolve over time. The findings that appear in the Feb. 17 Journal of the American Medical Association support the need for continuous access to health services and suggest directions for future research.

Waters from warmer latitudes — or subtropical waters — are reaching Greenland's glaciers, driving melting and likely triggering an acceleration of ice loss, reports a team of researchers led by Fiamma Straneo, a physical oceanographer from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI).

"This is the first time we've seen waters this warm in any of the fjords in Greenland," says Straneo. "The subtropical waters are flowing through the fjord very quickly, so they can transport heat and drive melting at the end of the glacier."

Governments and experts are calling for action to combat the medical, economic and social costs of rising rates of preventable conditions like obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancers, states an article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) (pre-embargo link only) "http://www.cmaj.ca/embargo/cmaj091403.pdf.

OKLAHOMA CITY – New research by the Oklahoma Tobacco Research Center (OTRC) shows that concentrations of secondhand tobacco smoke inhaled in smoking rooms of restaurants and bars are exceptionally high and hazardous to health.

According to the study, which appears in the center's new report "Tobacco Smoke Pollution in Oklahoma Workplaces," the average particulate level measured in restaurant smoking rooms was beyond the hazardous extreme based on levels established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The level found in bars was even worse.

Diners who are skeptical of the food safety practices in ethnic restaurants have new research to back up some of their assumptions.

In a study of independently owned restaurants in 14 Kansas counties, Kansas State University researchers found a significantly higher number of food safety violations in ethnic restaurants than in nonethnic restaurants. The next step for their research is to understand the reasons for these differences and to work alongside restaurant operators to remedy the problems.

Does Dragons' Den, Alan Sugar, Richard Branson and the way other celebrity entrepreneurs are depicted by the media show what it's really like to start up and run businesses?

The answer's no, according to most respondents in the two latest in-depth surveys of small business owners and business advisers from Nottingham University Business School.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Data from a study conducted by the Battelle Memorial Institute shows Mayo Clinic is responsible for $22 billion in economic impact nationwide, including $9.6 billion in Minnesota. The $9.6 billion impact in Minnesota is larger than that of the hotel and lodging industry ($1.8 billion), motor vehicle manufacturing ($3.9 billion) or professional sports ($717 million).

A paper published in this week's issue of PLoS Medicine provides a substantial new resource for the developers of guidelines of the reporting of health research. The authors of the paper have been key in the development of many of the most important health research guidelines published over the past few years, including the CONSORT guidelines for clinical trials and the PRISMA guidelines for systematic reviews.

California's coastal fog has decreased significantly over the past 100 years, potentially endangering coast redwood trees dependent on cool, humid summers, according to a new study by University of California, Berkeley, scientists.

It is unclear whether this is part of a natural cycle of the result of human activity, but the change could affect not only the redwoods, but the entire redwood ecosystem, the scientists say.

Westchester, Ill. –A study in the Feb. 15 issue of the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine shows that sleepiness at the wheel and poor sleep quality significantly increase the risk of motor vehicle accidents in adolescents.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Watching TV medical shows might not be the best way to learn what to do when someone has a seizure. Researchers screened the most popular medical dramas and found that doctors and nurses on the shows responded inappropriately to seizures almost half the time, according to a study released today that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology's 62nd Annual Meeting in Toronto April 10 to April 17, 2010.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., By creating diamond-based nanowire devices, a team at Harvard has taken another step towards making applications based on quantum science and technology possible.

The new device offers a bright, stable source of single photons at room temperature, an essential element in making fast and secure computing with light practical.

The finding could lead to a new class of nanostructured diamond devices suitable for quantum communication and computing, as well as advance areas ranging from biological and chemical sensing to scientific imaging.

While many of us enjoyed constructing little houses out of toy bricks when we were kids, this task is much more difficult if bricks are elementary particles. It is even harder if these are particles of light – photons, which can only exist while flying at an incredible speed and vanish if they touch anything.