Many emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, especially zoonotic diseases such as ebola or new coronaviruses, emerge as the result of intensified human activities such as deforestation, expansion of agricultural land, and increased hunting and trading of wildlife. In a new study, published in the scientific journal Lancet Planetary Health, researchers identified public and private companies operating...
911 is the most well-known phone number in the country. When 911 launched in 1968, its original intent was to alert responders to emergency situations such as fire, crime, and accidents. Today, though, about two-thirds of calls to 911 are for nonemergency situations like power outages or general requests for information: What time is it? What day is recycling...
Nothing calls to mind nonsensical treatments and bizarre religious healing rituals as easily as the notion of Dark Age medicine. “The Saturday Night Live” sketch Medieval Barber Theodoric of York says it all with its portrayal of a quack doctor who insists on extracting pints of his patients’ blood in a dirty little shop. Though...
People frequently exposed to racial or ethnic discrimination may be more susceptible to obesity and related health risks in part because of a stress response that changes biological processes and how we process food cues. These are findings from UCLA researchers conducting what is believed to be the first study directly examining effects of discrimination...
Hospital visits from alcohol- and substance-related disorders are driven by elevated temperatures and could be further affected by rising temperatures due to climate change, according to new research by environmental health scientists at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The study, which is published in the peer-reviewed journal Communications Medicine, is likely the first comprehensive investigation of...
A genetic testing company publicly stored consumers’ genetic data with no encryption. The FTC stepped in. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has finalized an order with 1Health.io (formerly Vitagene), a genetic testing company that was the subject of a June 2023 FTC complaint. 1Health.io, to quote the FTC’s recent press release, “left sensitive genetic and health data unsecured,...
ChatGPT could help to increase vaccine uptake by debunking myths around jab safety, say the authors of a study published in the peer-reviewed journal Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics. The researchers asked the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot the top 50 most frequently-asked Covid-19 vaccine questions. They included queries based on myths and fake stories such as the...
Pregnant and recently postpartum women who suffer with mental health disorders may be vulnerable to using cannabis to self-medicate, according to a Rutgers-led study. In a nationally representative survey, Qiana L. Brown, an assistant professor at the Rutgers School of Social Work, examined the relationship between mental health disorders, cannabis use and cannabis use disorder (CUD) among...
Although you might never have consciously considered it, it’s very likely that when you receive a reward, part of the value that you place on it depends on what other people have received as similar rewards. In a recent study published in Nature Communications, Japanese researchers have identified an important brain circuit for this specific process. Although...
The closure in January 2016 of one of Pittsburgh’s biggest coal-processing plants led to immediate and lasting declines in emissions of fossil fuel-related air pollutants. These in turn were linked to near-instant decreases in local heart-related emergency department visits and hospitalizations for cardiovascular diseases, a new study shows. The impact of the closure persisted through...
