In his mid-60s, my father unfolded a United States road atlas, laid a ruler across it, and drew a straight line from Cape Flattery, Wash., to Key West, Fla. “It’s downhill all the way!” he boomed. Then he drove that line, from the northwest corner of the continental United States to its southeastern endpoint —…
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An outbreak is spreading. Here’s what you need to know: ImageA hospital worker washes the entrance to the Wuhan Medical Treatment Center, where some infected with a new virus were being treated.Credit…Dake Kang/Associated Press A city of 11 million is put on lockdown. Chinese authorities on Thursday morning closed off Wuhan — a major port…
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In closing off Wuhan, a city of more than 11 million people, China is deploying a centuries-old public health tactic to prevent the spread of infectious disease — this time, a mysterious respiratory infection caused by a coronavirus. Experts said the stunning scale of the shutdown, isolating a major urban transit hub larger than New…
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There is some truth to the longstanding anecdote that your locks can lose color when you’re stressed. A team of researchers has found that in mice, stressful events trigger damage the stem cells that are responsible for producing pigment in hair. These stem cells, found near the base of each hair follicle, differentiate to form…
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A major group of insurers said it would invest $55 million to create cheaper versions of expensive generic drugs for which there is little competition, in a further sign of dissatisfaction with the pharmaceutical industry’s price-setting practices. The decision by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and 18 of its member organizations, which insure about…
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Washington, DC – January 23, 2020 – Government and academic investigators have developed a vaccine against African swine fever that appears to be far more effective than previously developed vaccines. The research appears this week in the Journal of Virology, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology. Currently, there is no commercially available vaccine…
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According to an article published ahead-of-print in the April issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR), a Stanford University team has developed a quantitative framework able to sonographically differentiate between benign and malignant thyroid nodules at a level comparable to that of expert radiologists, which may prove useful for establishing a fully automated system…
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Family caregivers of the deceased rated the quality of end-of-life care in the intensive care unit (ICU) higher than the end-of-life care in other hospital departments (also called wards), according to new, large Penn Medicine study in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. The research challenges a common belief that dying in…
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Global climate change has raised concerns that mosquito-borne diseases could become increasingly prevalent in the United States as warmer temperatures lead to increased mosquito activity. The 2015-2016 Zika outbreak, which impacted much of the Americas, prompted efforts to accelerate the development of a Zika vaccine. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC),…
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The International Sweeteners Association (ISA) welcomes the publication this month of a new scientific report* by Ashwell et al. in Nutrition Research Reviews.(1) This new publication points to the extensive body of robust scientific evidence that shows that low/no calorie sweeteners: – Are safe: all of them have undergone an extensive safety evaluation process by…
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