Culture

Troy, N.Y. – Most medical imaging equipment is not designed with overweight and obese patients in mind. As a result, these individuals can be exposed to higher levels of radiation during routine X-ray and CT scans.

A new study from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is the first to calculate exactly how much additional radiation obese patients receive from a CT scan. Research results show the internal organs of obese men receive 62 percent more radiation during a CT scan than those of normal weight men. For obese women, it was an increase of 59 percent.

WELLESLEY, Mass.—New research reveals the surprising economics behind the high U.S. teen birth rates, and why Texas teens are giving birth at triple the rate of Massachusetts youth: high income inequality and low opportunity cost.

April 5, 2012, New York, NY—Consumers nationwide would have received an estimated $2 billion in rebates from health insurers if the new medical loss ratio (MLR) rules enacted as part of the Affordable Care Act had been in effect in 2010, according to a new study from The Commonwealth Fund. The MLR rules, which went into effect in 2011, aim to control private insurance costs for consumers and government by requiring a minimum percentage of premium dollars to be spent on medical care and health care quality improvement, as opposed to administrative costs and corporate profits.

Many Christians give up certain foods for Lent, however ecologists have discovered these changes in human diet have a dramatic impact on the diet of wild animals. In Ethiopia, members of the Orthodox Tewahedo Church stop eating meat and dairy products during a 55-day fast before Easter. As a result, spotted hyenas too change their eating habits – from scavenging waste from butchers and households to hunting – new research in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Animal Ecology has found.

What: The Case for the New Medical College Admission Test: Why the MCAT must reflect physicians' current public health challenges. A Perspective in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Who: The authors, Drs. Robert M. Kaplan, NIH; Jason M. Satterfield, University of California, San Francisco; and Raynard S. Kington, Grinnell College, support the new MCAT. They are available to discuss:

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Although use of the internet has been credited with helping spur democratic revolutions in the Arab world and elsewhere, a new multinational study suggests the internet is most likely to play a role only in specific situations.

Researchers at Ohio State University found that the internet spurs pro-democratic attitudes most in countries that already have introduced some reforms in that direction.

COLUMBIA, Mo. ¬— Popular music videos have been criticized as having misogynistic messages and images. While more female music artists have gained visibility and created successful "brands" in recent years, critics argue that many of these artists are pushing the boundaries of acceptable norms with regard to race, gender and sexuality in popular culture.

Usain Bolt can achieve faster running times with no extra effort on his part or improvement to his fitness, according to a study published today in Significance, the magazine of the Royal Statistical Society and the American Statistical Association. Cambridge Professor of Mathematical Sciences John D. Barrow illustrates how, based on concrete mathematical evidence, Bolt can cut his world record from 9.58 seconds to 9.45.

WASHINGTON— A report released today finds that a wide variety of existing laws offer important opportunities to improve Americans' health. The first comprehensive study of its kind found an unexpectedly large number of laws that facilitate the consideration of health effects, in fields such as transportation, energy, and agriculture. Many of these legal requirements may be satisfied by conducting health impact assessments (HIAs), a type of study that helps decision makers identify and address the potential and often unrecognized health risks and benefits of their decisions.

Allegations of widespread, sustained torture and other human rights violations by the Government of Sudan and Janjaweed forces against non-Arabic-speaking civilians are corroborated in a study published in this week's PLoS Medicine. In the study medical forensic experts reviewed the medical records of patients seen at a clinic in Darfur.

CHICAGO – Although data indicate that between 2003-2009 there was a substantial decline in the U.S. in hospitalizations for pneumonia and inpatient deaths, analysis suggests that trends in documentation and diagnostic coding, rather than improvements in actual outcomes, may explain much of the observed changes, according to a study in the April 4 issue of JAMA.

Memory devices based on magnetism are one of the core technologies of the computing industry, and engineers are working to develop new forms of magnetic memory that are faster, smaller, and more energy efficient than today's flash and SDRAM memory.

Do an online search for sex offenders living in your neighborhood and you may be alarmed by how many you find. But a new study of sex-offender registries in five states shows that they overestimate the number of offenders actually living in the community by as much as 60 percent.

Higher-spending hospitals do have better outcomes for their emergency patients, including fewer deaths, according to a Vanderbilt study released as a working paper through the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Vanderbilt's John Graves, Ph.D., assistant professor of Preventive Medicine, along with colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Cornell University, examined Medicare ambulance and hospital data from 2002-2008, finding that higher-cost hospitals have significantly lower one-year mortality rates compared to lower-cost hospitals.