Culture

FORT COLLINS, Colorado - Reports of bat deaths worldwide due to human causes largely unique to the 21st century are markedly rising, according to a new USGS-led analysis published in Mammal Review.

Collisions with wind turbines worldwide and the disease white-nose syndrome in North America lead the reported causes of mass death in bats since the onset of the 21st century. These new threats now surpass all prior known causes of bat mortality, natural or attributed to humans.

Children whose GPs are easy to access are less likely to visit A&E than those whose GPs are less able to provide appointments. During weekdays, children's visits to A&E peak after school hours.

High levels of tax evasion are linked to higher interest rates and can be a predictor of a country's credit risk, according to a new study led by the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Researchers investigated the controversial role of the 'informal' or 'shadow' sector -- activities that are not officially registered but do make an economic contribution -- in the economies of 64 countries in the run-up to the current Eurozone crisis.

Genetics play a key role in knee pain sensitivity, according to a team of researchers studying knee osteoarthritis patients.

"This work was part of a larger study focused on the daily lives of couples in which one person has arthritis," said Lynn Martire, professor of human development and family studies, Penn State.

The researchers looked at how arthritis affects mood and interactions with each other.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) severity has a statistically significant association with depression symptom severity among pregnant women and new mothers living in poor neighborhoods in Cape Town, South Africa, according to a cohort study published the week in PLOS Medicine. The study, conducted by Alexander C.

Socio-economic status may influence the use of health resources among children with epilepsy, even in a universal health insurance system.

In a study of more than 19,000 children in Ontario, Canada who were diagnosed with epilepsy, children with lower socio-economic status had fewer neurology visits, which may reflect transportation-, cultural-, or employment-related barriers in accessing specialized care. Children with lower socio-economic status had more frequent emergency department visits and hospitalizations.

According to the latest federal data, the U.S. science and engineering (S&E) enterprise still leads the world. The United States invests the most in research and development (R&D), produces the most advanced degrees in science and engineering and high-impact scientific publications, and remains the largest provider of information, financial, and business services. However, Southeast, South, and East Asia continue to rapidly ascend in many aspects of S&E.

A new report by a Task force of the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research provides guidance on the use of bisphosphonates, which are the most commonly used medications for osteoporosis.

The Task Force suggests that after 5 years of oral bisphosphonates or 3 years of intravenous bisphosphonates, clinicians should reassess the drugs' potential benefits and risks. The former includes continued reduction in the risk of vertebral fractures, and the latter, rarely, osteonecrosis (localized bone death) of the jaw and unusual fractures of the femur (thigh bone).

A new study indicates that transplant centers that receive low scores on performance evaluations tend to remove more patients from the transplant waiting list. According to US data from the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients on 315,796 candidates on the kidney transplant waiting list from 2007 to 2014, the rate of removal was approximately 60% higher for centers that received low performance evaluations compared with all other centers, even after adjusting for candidates' demographic and clinical characteristics.

WASHINGTON --While emergency department visits for young adults ages 19 to 25 decreased slightly overall following the implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), visits for mental illnesses in this age group increased "significantly," as did diseases of the circulatory system, according to a study published online this month in Annals of Emergency Medicine ("Relationship of ACA Implementation to Emergency Department Utilization Among Young Adults').

Four years after Japan's Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster that led to major releases of radioactivity to environment, questions still remain regarding the original sources of radioactive contamination. Investigators have now used rice, soil, mushroom, and soybean samples taken 100 to 250 km from the plant and tested them with a method called cesium isotopic analysis to help discriminate between environmental contamination from different nuclear reactor cores at the plant.

Many of the 1,300 species of bat are considered to be threatened and declining. A new analysis reveals trends and causes of death in bats around the world, shedding new light on the possible factors underlying population declines.

In the analysis, 1180 mortality events, each involving more than 10 bats, were represented in a detailed canvassing of the literature dating from 1790 to 2015, and could be divided into 9 categories.

The bacteria that causes plague, Y. pestis, may have persisted long-term in Europe from the 14th to 17th century in an unknown reservoir, according to a study published January 13, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Lisa Seifert from Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany, and colleagues.

Twice as many patients with non-serious injuries, such as fractures or neck strain, are undergoing CT scans in emergency departments at California hospitals, according to a UCSF-led study, which tracked the use of the imaging from 2005 to 2013.

While CT scans enable clinicians to swiftly pinpoint life-threatening conditions, exposure to its ionizing radiation is associated with an increased risk of cancer. According to a 2009 report by the FDA, a single CT scan may be associated with a fatal cancer in one in 2,000 patients.

A new study from Umeå University in Sweden shows that age plays a huge role when it comes to patients' access to psoriasis treatment. Researchers who have examined if patients of varying ages have the same access to the most efficient psoriasis treatment, found that an age increase of 30 years resulted in an average 65 per cent reduction in likelihood of obtaining treatment with biologics. The study is described in an article published in the British Journal of Dermatology.