The structures of the simplest symmetric primary ethers [(CnH2n+1)2O, n = 1–3] determined under high pressure revealed their conformational preferences and intermolecular interactions. In three new polymorphs of di­ethyl ether (C2H5)2O, high pressure promotes intermolecular CH⋯O contacts and enforces a conversion from the trans–trans conformer present in the α, β and γ phases to the trans–gauche conformer, which is higher in energy by 6.4 kJ mol−1, in the δ phase. Two new polymorphs of di­methyl ether (CH3)2O display analogous transformations of the CH⋯O bonds. The crystal structure of di-n-propyl ether (C3H7)2O, determined for the first time, is remarkably stable over the whole pressure range investigated from 1.70 up to 5.30 GPa.

Investigation of isostructurality leads to a deeper understanding of close-packing principles and contributes to the ability of crystal engineering. A given packing motif may tolerate small molecular changes within a limit. Slight alterations of a crystal packing arrangement are carried out in order to fine-tune the structural and macroscopic properties, keeping the balance of the spatial requirements and electrostatic effects of the altered molecules in the crystals, preserving their isostructurality. Even so, the definition of isostructurality is not explicit about several issues. Are the corresponding structures required to have the same stoichiometry, Z', symmetry elements and the same space group? Because it is not obvious in the definition, studies on structure analysis and software calculating various numerical descriptors developed for the quantitative comparison of the degree of similarity of isostructural crystals self-define their criteria. The extent of the difference between corresponding crystal structures referred to as isostructural is not limited. Should it be determined numerically? There is nothing in the definition about a demand for similar supramolecular arrangements in isostructural crystals. Should the similarity of supramolecular interactions be a criterion of isostructurality? The definition of isostructurality deserves reconsideration regarding symmetry, measure of similarity and formation of supramolecular interactions.

Single crystals of tricadmium orthophosphate, Cd3(PO4)2, have been synthesized successfully by the hydro­thermal route, while its powder form was obtained by a solid-solid process. The corresponding crystal structure was determined using X-ray diffraction data in the monoclinic space group P21/n. The crystal structure consists of Cd2O8 or Cd2O10 dimers linked together by PO4 tetra­hedra through sharing vertices or edges. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) was used to investigate the morphology and to confirm the chemical composition of the synthesized powder. Infrared analysis corroborates the presence of isolated phosphate tetra­hedrons in the structure. UV–Visible studies showed an absorbance peak at 289 nm and a band gap energy of 3.85 eV, as determined by the Kubelka–Munk model.

The tetra­kis complex of neodymium(III), tetra­kis­{μ-N-[bis­(pyrrolidin-1-yl)phos­phor­yl]acet­am­id­ato}bis(pro­pan-2-ol)neodymiumsodium pro­pan-2-ol monosol­vate, [NaNd(C10H16Cl3N3O2)4(C3H8O)2]·C3H8O or NaNdPyr4(i-PrOH)2·i-PrOH, with the amide type CAPh ligand bis(N,N-tetra­methylene)(tri­chloro­acetyl)phos­phoric acid tri­amide (HPyr), has been synthesized, crystallized and characterized by X-ray diffraction. The complex does not have the tetra­kis­(CAPh)lanthanide anion, which is typical for ester-type CAPh-based coordin­ation compounds. Instead, the NdO8 polyhedron is formed by one oxygen atom of a 2-propanol mol­ecule and seven oxygen atoms of CAPh ligands in the title compound. Three CAPh ligands are coordinated in a bidentate chelating manner to the NdIII ion and simultaneously binding the sodium cation by μ2-bridging PO and CO groups while the fourth CAPh ligand is coordinated to the sodium cation in a bidentate chelating manner and, due to the μ2-bridging function of the PO group, also binds the neodymium ion.

Syntheses of the acyclic amidinium salts, morpholino­formamidinium hexa­fluorido­phosphate [OC4H8N—CH=NH2]PF6 or C5H11N2O+·PF6−, 1, and pyrrolidinoformamidinium hexa­fluorido­phosphate [C4H8N—CH= NH2]PF6 or C5H11N2+·PF6−, 2, were carried out by heating either morpholine or pyrrolidine with triethyl orthoformate and ammonium hexa­fluorido­phosphate. Crystals of 1 obtained directly from the reaction mixture contain one cation and one anion in the asymmetric unit. The structure involves cations linked in chains parallel to the b axis by N—H⋯O hydrogen bonds in space group Pbca, with glide-related chains pointing in opposite directions. Crystals of 1 obtained by recrystallization from ethanol, however, showed a similar unit cell and the same basic structure, but unexpectedly, there was positional disorder [occupancy ratio 0.639 (4):0.361 (4)] in one of the cation chains, which lowered the crystal symmetry to the non-centrosymmetric space group Pca21, with two cations and anions in the asymmetric unit. In the pyrrolidino compound, 2, cations and anions are ordered and are stacked separately, with zigzag N—H⋯F hydrogen-bonding between stacks, forming ribbons parallel to (101), extended along the b-axis direction. Slight differences in the delocalized C=N distances between the two cations may reflect the inductive effect of the oxygen atom in the morpholino compound.

The title compound dipotassium gadolinium(III) phosphate(V) molybdate(VI), K2Gd(PO4)(MoO4), was synthesized from a high-temperature melt starting from GdF3 as a source of gadolinium. Its structure is isotypic with other MI2MIII(MVIO4)(PO4) compounds, where MI = Na, K or Cs, and MIII = rare-earth cation, MVI = Mo or W. The three-dimensional framework is built up from [Gd(PO4)(MoO4)] anionic sheets, which are organized by adhesion of [GdPO4] layers and [MoO4] tetra­hedra stacked above and below these layers. The inter­stitial space is occupied by K cations having eightfold oxygen coordination. The polyhedron of GdO8 was estimated to be a triangular dodeca­hedron by the continuous shape measurement method.

Single crystals of two basic cadmium phosphates, dicadmium orthophosphate hydroxide, Cd2(PO4)OH, and penta­cadmium bis­(orthophosphate) tetra­kis­(hydroxide), Cd5(PO4)2(OH)4, were obtained under hydro­thermal conditions. Cd2(PO4)OH adopts the triplite [(Mn,Fe)2(PO4)F] structure type. Its asymmetric unit comprises two Cd, one P and five O sites, all situated at the general Wyckoff position 8 f of space group I2/a; two of the O atoms are positionally disordered over two sites, and the H atom could not be localized. Disregarding the disorder, distorted [CdO6] polyhedra form a tri-periodic network by edge-sharing with neighbouring [CdO6] units and by vertex-sharing with [PO4] units. The site associated with the OH group is coordinated by four Cd atoms in a distorted tetra­hedral manner forming 1∞[(OH)Cd4/2] chains parallel to [001]. The oxygen environment around the OH site suggests multiple acceptor atoms for possible O—H⋯O hydrogen-bonding inter­actions and is the putative reason for the disorder. Cd5(PO4)2(OH)4 adopts the arsenoclasite [Mn5(AsO4)2(OH)4] structure type. Its asymmetric unit comprises five Cd, two P, and twelve O sites all located at the general Wyckoff position 4 a of space group P212121; the H atoms could not be localized. The crystal structure of Cd5(PO4)2(OH)4 can be subdivided into two main sub-units. One consists of three edge-sharing [CdO6] octa­hedra, and the other of two edge- and vertex-sharing [CdO6] octa­hedra. Each sub-unit forms corrugated ribbons extending parallel to [100]. The two types of ribbons are linked into the tri-periodic arrangement through vertex-sharing and through common [PO4] tetra­hedra. Qu­anti­tative structure comparisons are made with isotypic M5(XO4)2(OH)4 crystal structures (M = Cd, Mn, Co; X = P, As, V).

A lutetium(III) complex based on the anion of the ligand dimethyl (2,2,2-tri­chloro­acet­yl)phospho­ramidate (HL) and tetra­phenylphosphonium, of composition PPh4[LuL4] (L = CAPh = carbacyl­amido­phosphate), or (C24H20)[Lu(C4H6Cl3NO4P)4], has been synthesized and structurally characterized. The X-ray diffraction study of the compound revealed that the lutetium ion is surrounded by four bis-chelating CAPh ligands, forming the complex anion [LuL4]− with a coordination number of 8[O] for LuIII, while PPh4+ serves as a counter-ion. The coordination geometry around the Lu3+ ion was determined to be a nearly perfect triangular dodeca­hedron. The complex crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system, space group P21/c, with four mol­ecules in the unit cell. Weak hydrogen bonds O⋯HC(Ph), Cl⋯HC(Ph) and N⋯HC(Ph) are formed between the cations and anions. For a comparative study, HL-based structures were retrieved from the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD) and their geometries and conformations are discussed. A Hirshfeld surface analysis was also performed.

In the title salt, C6H16N22+ ·H2P2O72−, the complete dication is generated by a crystallographic centre of symmetry with the methyl groups in equatorial orientations. The complete dianion is generated by a crystallographic twofold axis with the central O atom lying on the axis: the P—O—P bond angle is 135.50 (12)°. In the crystal, the di­hydrogen diphosphate anions are linked by O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds, generating (001) layers. The organic cations bond to the inorganic layers by way of N—H⋯O and C—H⋯O hydrogen bonds. A Hirshfeld surface analysis shows that the most important contributions for the crystal packing are from O⋯H/H⋯O (60.5%) and H⋯H (39.4%) contacts.

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Many wild southern sea otters in California are infected with the parasite Toxoplasma gondii, yet the infection is fatal for only a fraction of sea otters, which has long puzzled the scientific community. A National Science Foundation-funded study identifies the parasite's specific strains that are killing southern sea otters, tracing them back to a bobcat and feral domestic cats from nearby watersheds. The study marks the first time a genetic link has been clearly established between the Toxoplasma strains in felid hosts and parasites causing fatal disease in marine wildlife. The study's results highlight how infectious agents like Toxoplasma can spread from cat feces on land to the sea, leading to detrimental impacts on marine wildlife.

Image credit: Trina Wood/UC Davis

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What an animal eats is a fundamental aspect of its biology, but surprisingly, the evolution of diet had not been studied across the animal kingdom until now. Scientists at the University of Arizona report several unexpected findings from taking a deep dive into the evolutionary history of more than one million animal species and going back 800 million years, when the first animals appeared on our planet. The study revealed several surprising key insights: Many species living today that are carnivorous, meaning they eat other animals, can trace this diet back to a common ancestor more than 800 million years ago; A plant-based, or herbivorous, diet is not the evolutionary driver for new species that it was believed to be; Closely related animals tend to share the same dietary category -- plant-eating, meat-eating, or both. This finding implies that switching between dietary lifestyles is not something that happens easily and often over the course of evolution.

Image credit: Daniel Stolte/UANews

A friend is investigating the use of generative AI in his classes. I asked two different popular chatbots to write MATLAB programs for a mathematically nontrivial problem. Both chatbots understood my query and both wrote plausible MATLAB programs, but one of the programs was not correct. My recommendation for coursework: carefully read and test programs produced by generative AI and repair any incorrect ones.... read more >>

A teen gets a dose of Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine at Holtz Children's Hospital in Miami on May 18. Nearly 7 million U.S. teens and pre-teens (ages 12 through 17) have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, so far, the CDC says.; Credit: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images

It's been a little more than a month since adolescents as young as 12 became eligible in the United States to receive the Pfizer vaccine against COVID-19, and nearly all reports have been positive: The vaccine is very effective in this age group, and the vast majority of kids experience mild side effects, if any — the same sore arm or mild flu-like symptoms seen among adults who get the shot.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended that everyone 12-years-old and older get vaccinated against COVID-19, and the rollout is well underway: According to the CDC, nearly 7 million U.S. teens and pre-teens (ages 12 through 17) have received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, so far.

Still, soon after the FDA authorized the use of Pfizer's vaccine in young people, federal agencies began receiving reports of mild chest pain or other signs of possible heart inflammation (known as myocarditis) in a very small percentage of recently vaccinated teens.

CDC director Rochelle Walensky said at a White House briefing Friday that there have been more than 300 cases of heart inflammation reported among more than 20 million teens and young adults who have received one of the vaccines made by Moderna or Pfizer. She said that in the "vast majority" of cases, the inflammation went away.

An expert advisory committee to the health agency is expected to review the cases in more depth at a meeting Friday.

So, in the meantime, should parents of teens hesitate to have their kids vaccinated against COVID-19? Vaccine experts and the American Academy of Pediatrics say no, don't hesitate. It's good for doctors and patients to be aware that there might be a connection between the mRNA vaccines and heart inflammation, and to report to their pediatrician anything they see in that first week after vaccination. But it is also important, the CDC notes, to recognize that even if this does turn out to be an extremely rare side effect of the vaccine, "most patients who received care responded well to medicine and rest and quickly felt better." And the serious risks of COVID -19 — even for young healthy people — outweigh the risks of any possible side effects from the vaccine. Here are some questions you may have, and what's known:

What exactly is myocarditis?

Myocarditis is an inflammation of the heart muscle, and pericarditis, also being investigated, is an inflammation of the sac around the heart.

Long before the pandemic, thousands of cases of myocarditis were diagnosed in the U.S. and around the world each year, often triggered by the body's immune response to infections. SARS-CoV-2 can trigger it, and so can cold viruses, and staph and strep and HIV. Other causes include toxins and allergies.

Symptoms include chest pain and shortness of breath. It's often mild enough to go unnoticed, but a full-blown case in adults can cause arrhythmias and heart failure that require careful treatment with multiple medications, and several months of strict rest. In a case study of seven teenagers who got myocarditis following vaccination published last week in the journal Pediatrics, all seven got better after routine treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs.

Pediatric cardiologist Dr. Stuart Berger of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, a spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, says vaccine-related myocarditis in teens is not all that worrisome. "Although they appear with some symptoms of chest pain, and maybe some findings on EKGs, all of the cases we've seen have been on the mild end of the spectrum," he says.

So, what's the concern?

Several hundred reports about the inflammation have been filed with the federal government's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS); that's a repository of reports sent in by health professionals and patients about any health events they spot in the hours or days after vaccinations. Many of the events reported turn out to be coincidental — not caused by a vaccine. The database is just meant as a starting point for further investigation and not proof of cause and effect. But as NPR's Geoff Brumfiel noted this week, "when millions of people are vaccinated within a short period, the total number of these reported events can look big."

That said, anecdotes reported by doctors in medical journals and reports to VAERS suggest that both of the mRNA vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. — the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines — might slightly increase the incidence of myocarditis in young people. In 2003, a report in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated the background incidence of myocarditis to be 1.13 cases in 100,000 children per year.

Paul Offit, professor of pediatrics at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a member of a Food and Drug Administration vaccine advisory committee says there likely is a causal link between the heart inflammation some doctors are seeing in these teens and the second dose of vaccine. "I think it's real," he says, but hastens to add that the effect is exceedingly small – based on the data collected so far, maybe one in 50,000 vaccinees between the ages of 16 and 39. "And the good news is at least so far it looks to be transient and self-resolving."

Still, maybe I should wait to get my teen vaccinated and see how this plays out?

Uhm, no, according to several vaccine experts contacted by NPR. And this is where a little math comes in handy.

"Take a stadium full of 100,000 people between the ages of 16 and 39, which is the subset that appears to be at greater risk," Offit says. "Vaccinate all of them, and two might get myocarditis." But if you don't vaccinate any of the 100,000, he estimates that about 1,300 would eventually get COVID-19. And those numbers are likely to increase this winter.

About one in 1,000 children who get COVID-19 have gone on to develop a condition called MIS-C (multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children), says Offit, and most of those kids have had some level of myocarditis. In addition, the new coronavirus has directly caused myocarditis in some children and adults. Which of the two stadiums in Offit's metaphor would have more cases of myocarditis — the vaccinated children or unvaccinated kids — is not known precisely. But Offit says he suspects it would be the unvaccinated group. And there's no doubt that 1,000 unvaccinated children would suffer more COVID-19-related illnesses. "A choice not to get a vaccine is not a choice to avoid myocarditis," he says. "It's a choice to take a different risk — and I would argue a more serious one" — of developing a bad case of COVID-19 or long-COVID or COVID-caused myocarditis.

Are the experts advising their own kids in this age group to get vaccinated?

Yes. "I understand people having concerns," says Dr. Judith Guzman-Cottrill. She's a parent and professor of pediatric infectious diseases at the Oregon Health and Science University, as well as the senior author on a small study that came out this month in the journal Pediatrics. In the report, Guzman-Cottrill and her colleagues analyzed the cases of seven boys around the country who developed myocarditis within four days of receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine.

She and her family recently faced the vaccination decision for her own 13-year-old daughter — and said a whole-hearted yes to the shot.

Guzman-Cottrill suspects there may turn out to be a slightly increased risk of heart inflammation from vaccination in young people, but she and her co-authors note in the Pediatrics report that a direct cause-and-effect connection — even in these seven cases — has yet to be established. And she's impressed that despite the millions of doses that have so far been delivered to teens, no clear and serious post-vaccination problems have shown up. "The emergency departments and urgent care clinics are not filled with teenagers complaining of chest pain," she says.

She's treated unvaccinated teens who developed severe myocarditis from an infection with the COVID-19 virus, and others who developed COVID-19 pneumonia and respiratory failure. Seeing those teens struggle — teens who lacked the powerful immune protection the vaccine provides — was enough for her to suggest vaccination to her daughter, who got her second vaccination earlier this week.

"She saw it as a pathway back to a normal post pandemic life," Guzman-Cottrill says.

And that's where public health comes in. "We really need a highly vaccinated student body when kids return to the classroom this fall," says Guzman-Cottrill, "so we don't see surges in COVID-19 cases."

Joanne Silberner, a former health policy correspondent for NPR, is a freelance journalist living in Seattle.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Many hospitals around the country, including Medstar Washington Hospital in Washington DC., have started sharing their prices online in compliance with a recent federal rule.; Credit: DANIEL SLIM/AFP via Getty Images

A colonoscopy might cost you or your insurer a few hundred dollars — or several thousand, depending on which hospital or insurer you use.

Long hidden, such price variations are supposed to be available in stark black and white under a Trump administration price transparency rule that took effect at the start of this year. It requires hospitals to post a range of actual prices — everything from the rates they offer cash-paying customers to costs negotiated with insurers.

Many have complied.

But some hospitals bury the data deep on their websites or have not included all the categories of prices required, according to industry analysts. A sizable minority of hospitals have not disclosed the information at all.

While imperfect and potentially of limited use right now to the average consumer, the disclosures that are available illustrate the huge differences in prices — nationally, regionally and within the same hospital. But they're challenging for consumers and employers to use, giving a boost to a cottage industry that analyzes the data.

While it's still an unanswered question whether price transparency will lead to overall lower prices, KHN took a dive into the initial trove of data to see what it reveals. Here are five takeaways from the newly public data and tips for how you might be able to use it to your benefit

1) As expected, prices are all over the map

The idea behind the requirement to release prices is that the transparency may prompt consumers to shop around, weighing cost and quality. Perhaps they could save a few hundred dollars by getting their surgery or imaging test across town instead of at the nearby clinic or hospital.

Under the Trump-era rule, hospitals must post what they accept from all insurers for thousands of line items, including each drug, procedure or treatment they provide. In addition, hospitals must present this in a format easily readable by computers and include a consumer-friendly separate listing of 300 "shoppable" services, bundling the full price a hospital accepts for a given treatment, such as having a baby or getting a hip replacement.

The negotiated rates now being posted publicly often show an individual hospital accepting a wide range of prices for the same service, depending on the insurer, often based on how much negotiating power each has in a market.

In some cases, the cash-only price is less than what insurers pay. And prices may vary widely within the same city or region.

In Virginia, for example, the average price of a diagnostic colonoscopy is $2,763, but the range across the state is from $208 to $10,563, according to a database aggregated by San Diego-based Turquoise Health, one of the new firms looking to market the data to businesses, while offering some information free of charge to patients.

2) Patients can look up the information, but it's incomplete

Patients can try to find the price information themselves by searching hospital websites, but even locating the correct tab on a hospital's website is tricky.

Typically, consumers don't comparison-shop, preferring to choose convenience or the provider their doctor recommends. A recent Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker brief, for instance, found that 85% of adults said they had not researched online the price of a hospital treatment.

And hospitals say the transparency push alone won't help consumers much, because each patient's situation is different and may vary from the average— and individual deductibles and insurance plans complicate matters.

But if you do want to try, here's one tip: "You can Google the hospital name and the words 'price transparency' and see where that takes you," says Caitlin Sheetz, director and head of analytics at the consulting firm ADVI Health in the Washington, D.C., metro area.

Typing in "MedStar Health hospital transparency," for example, likely points to the MedStar Washington Hospital Center's "price transparency disclosure" page, with a link to its full list of prices, as well as its separate list of 300 shoppable services.

By clicking on the list of shoppable services, consumers can download an Excel file. Searching it for "colonoscopy" pulls up several variations of the procedure, along with prices for different insurers, such as Aetna and Cigna, but a "not available" designation for the cash-only price. The file explains that MedStar does not have a standard cash price but makes determinations case by case.

Performing the same Google search for the nearby Inova health system results in less useful information.

Inova's website links to a long list of thousands of charges, which are not the discounts negotiated by insurers, and the list is not easily searchable. The website advises those who are not Inova patients or who would like to create their own estimate to log into the hospitals' "My Chart" system, but a search on that for "colonoscopy" failed to produce any data.

3) Third-party firms are trying to make searching prices simpler – and cash in

Because of the difficulty of navigating these websites — or locating the negotiated prices once there — some consumers may turn to sites like Turquoise. Another such firm is Health Cost Labs, which will have pricing information for 2,300 hospitals in its database when it goes live July 1.

Doing a similar search for "colonoscopy" on Turquoise shows the prices at MedStar by insurer, but the process is still complicated. First, a consumer must select the "health system" button from the website's menu of options, click on "surgical procedures," then click again on "digestive" to get to it.

There is no similar information for Inova because the hospital has not yet made its data accessible in a computer-friendly format, said Chris Severn, CEO of Turquoise.

Inova spokesperson Tracy Connell said in a written statement that the health system will create personalized estimates for patients and is "currently working to post information on negotiated prices and discounts on services."

Firms like Turquoise and Health Cost Labs aim to sell the data gathered from hospitals nationally to insurers, employers and others. In turn, those groups may use it in negotiations with hospitals over future prices. While that may drive down prices in areas with a lot of competition, it might do the opposite where there are few hospitals to choose from, or in situations where a hospital raises its prices to match competitors.

4) Consumers could use this data to negotiate, especially if they're paying cash

For consumers who go the distance and can find price data from their hospitals, it may prove helpful in certain situations:

• Patients who are paying cash or who have unmet deductibles may want to compare prices among hospitals to see if driving farther could save them money.
• Uninsured patients could ask the hospital for the cash price or attempt to negotiate for the lowest amount the facility accepts from insurers.
• Insured patients who get a bill for out-of-network care may find the information helpful because it could empower them to negotiate a discount off the hospitals' gross charges for that care.

While there's no guarantee of success, "if you are uninsured or out of network, you could point to some of those prices and say, 'That's what I want,'" says Barak Richman, a contract law expert and professor of law at Duke University School of Law.

But the data may not help insured patients who notice their prices are higher than those negotiated by other insurers.

In those cases, legal experts say the insured patients are unlikely to get a bill changed because they have a contract with that insurer, which has negotiated the price with their contracted hospitals.

"Legally, a contract is a contract," says Mark Hall, a health law professor at Wake Forest University.

Richman agrees.

"You can't say, 'Well, you charged that person less,'" he notes, but neither can they say they'll charge you more.

Getting the data, however, relies on the hospital having posted it.

5) Hospitals still aren't really on board

When it comes to compliance, "we're seeing the range of the spectrum," says Jeffrey Leibach, a partner at the consulting firm Guidehouse, which found earlier this year that about 60% of 1,000 hospitals surveyed had posted at least some data, but 30% had reported nothing at all.

Many in the hospital industry have long fought transparency efforts, even filing a lawsuit seeking to block the new rule. The suit was dismissed by a federal judge last year.

They argue the rule is unclear and overly burdensome. Additionally, hospitals haven't wanted their prices exposed, knowing that competitors might then adjust theirs, or health plans could demand lower rates. Conversely, lower-cost hospitals might decide to raise prices to match competitors.

The rule stems from requirements in the Affordable Care Act. The Obama administration required hospitals to post their chargemaster rates, which are less useful because they are generally inflated, hospital-set amounts that are almost never what is actually paid.

Insurers and hospitals are also bracing for next year when even more data is set to come online. Insurers will be required to post negotiated prices for medical care across a broader range of facilities, including clinics and doctors' offices.

In May, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services sent letters to some of the hospitals that have not complied, giving them 90 days to do so or potentially face penalties, including a $300-a-day fine.

"A lot of members say until hospitals are fully compliant, our ability to use the data is limited," says Shawn Gremminger, director of health policy at the Purchaser Business Group on Health, a coalition of large employers.

His group and others have called for increasing the penalty for noncomplying hospitals from $300 a day to $300 a bed per day, so "the fine would be bigger as the hospital gets bigger," Gremminger says. "That's the kind of thing they take seriously."

Already, though, employers or insurers are eyeing the hospital data as leverage in negotiations, says Severn, Turquoise's CEO. Conversely, some employers may use it to fire their insurers if the rates they're paying are substantially more than those agreed to by other carriers.

"It will piss off anyone who is overpaying for health care, which happens for various reasons," he says.

KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation).

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Athletes compete during the cycling portion of the IRONMAN 70.3 Steelhead on June 27, 2021 in Benton Harbor, Michigan. ; Credit: Patrick McDermott/Getty Images for IRONMAN

Whether you’re new to running or you’ve finished your tenth triathlon, we want to hear from you about what motivates you and how that translates into pushing yourself physically. 

Guests: 

Mark Remy, longtime runner and writer in Portland, Oregon; creator of humor website dumbrunner.com; he is the author of many books, including The Runner's Rule Book: Everything a Runner Needs to Know--And Then Some (Runner's World) (Rodale Books, 2009)

Sharon McNary, infrastructure correspondent at KPCC; she finished her 11th Ironman Race last week at Coeur d’Alene; she tweets @KPCCsharon

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Progressive activists are watching the end of the Supreme Court session for a possible retirement announcement from Stephen Breyer, the court's oldest current justice. Breyer will turn 83 in August.; Credit: Erin Schaff/The New York Times via AP/Pool

For Erwin Chemerinsky, this is a familiar feeling: Seven years ago, the dean of the University of California Berkeley School of Law publicly called for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire from the Supreme Court because he reasoned too much was at stake in the 2016 elections.

Ginsburg didn't listen then, but he's hoping Justice Stephen Breyer will listen now — but Breyer has given no indication whether he plans to stay or go.

"If he wants someone with his values and views to take his place, now is the time to step down," Chemerinsky told NPR.

Progressive activists are hoping that Breyer, who will turn 83 in August, will announce he is retiring Thursday, the same day the Supreme Court delivers its final two opinions of the term. But a justice can decide to retire at any time — though both Anthony Kennedy and Sandra Day O'Connor announced their respective retirements at the end of the court's session.

Chemerinsky is part of a growing rank of progressives who are breaking with the polite, political norms of the past when it comes to questioning service on the Supreme Court. Ginsburg's death last year and the subsequent appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to deliver a conservative supermajority on the court had a lot to do with that.

"I think a lot of people who thought that silence was the best approach in 2013 came to regret that in the aftermath of [Ginsburg's] untimely passing last year," said Brian Fallon, executive director of Demand Justice. "I think it would be foolish of us to repeat this same mistake and to greet the current situation passively and not do everything we can to signal to Justice Breyer, that now is the time for him to step down"

Since Democrats took control of the Senate in January, Demand Justice has organized public demonstrations, billboard and ad campaigns, and assembled a list of scholars and activists to join their public pressure campaign for Breyer to retire.

The risk, as Fallon sees it, is twofold. The first is the perils of a 50-50 Senate.

"The Democrats are one heartbeat away from having control switch in the Senate," he said. "There's a lot of octogenarian senators, many of whom have Republican governors that might get to appoint a successor to them if the worst happened."

The second is the 2022 midterms when control of the Senate will be in play.

"If [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell reassumes the Senate majority leader post, at worst, he might block any Biden pick, and at best, Biden is going to have to calibrate who he selects in order to get them through a Republican-held Senate."

Both Chemerinsky and Fallon concede the public campaign is not without some risk.

"I've certainly heard from some that this might make him less likely to retire, perhaps to dig in his heels," Chemerinsky said.

The campaign has also not caught fire on Capitol Hill, where only a small handful of progressive senators have — tactfully — suggested they'd like to see Breyer retire of his own accord.

Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., told CNN this month he did not support any Senate-led pressure campaigns on the court, but he added: "My secret heart is that some members, particularly the 82-year-old Stephen Breyer, will maybe have that thought on his own, that he should not let his seat be subject to a potential theft."

Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., also distanced himself from the public retirement push, telling NPR: "I'm not on that campaign to put pressure on Justice Breyer. He's done an exceptional job. He alone can make the decision about his future. And I trust him to make the right one."

Absent any change in the status quo, Democrats will control the Senate at least until 2023. If the court's session ends without a retirement announcement, Fallon said he expects the calls for Breyer's retirement will grow louder. It's all part of what he said is a new, more aggressive position on the Supreme Court from the left.

"In some way, we are trying to make a point that progressives for too long, have taken a hands-off approach to the court," he said. "And they've been sort of foolish for doing so because the other side doesn't operate that way."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

The closely-watched New York City mayoral primary election tumbled into chaos this week as the NYC Board of Elections announced it had released incorrect preliminary results on Tuesday.

City officials admitted they failed to remove 135,000 test ballots from the election management system before starting to count the real votes from Election Day and early voting, skewing the results.

"The Board apologizes for the error and has taken immediate measures to ensure the most accurate up to date results are reported," the agency tweeted.

The error is complicated by the fact that New York City is using ranked-choice voting, in which each round of vote counting hinges on the results from the previous round.

Some of the top candidates vying to lead the country's largest city blasted the board's mistake as they — and about 8.5 million other New Yorkers — awaited the results of a revised tally expected to be released on Wednesday.

Ranked-choice voting, explained

Instead of choosing just one candidate to vote for, New York City voters in last week's election were able to rank their top five candidates in order of preference.

It was the first time in decades New York used ranked-choice voting, which city voters overwhelmingly approved in a 2019 ballot measure.

NPR's Domenico Montanaro explained how the process works:

1. "If someone gets 50% plus one after all the first-choice votes are counted, then the election is over and that candidate wins. 
2. "But if no one gets 50% plus one, it's on to Round 2.
3. "The person with the lowest number of first-place votes is eliminated, and that candidate's voters' second choices get redistributed as votes for other candidates.
4. "This reallocation of votes goes on until someone reaches 50% plus one."

If just two candidates remain at the end, the candidate with the most votes wins.

What happened this week

On Tuesday, the city Board of Elections released the first ranked-choice voting reports from the election.

With only first-preference votes counted as of election night, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams boasted a nine-point lead over attorney Maya Wiley. Those first reported ranked-choice results shrank Adam's lead to just two points ahead of former Sanitation Commissioner Kathryn Garcia, Gothamist reported.

But just hours later, the board tweeted that it had become aware of a "discrepancy" in the ranked-choice voting results and pulled them from its website.

In a follow-up apology, the board acknowledged that it had erroneously left 135,000 test votes in its election system, producing "additional records" that likely impacted an accurate tally.

"At this point it really seems like an issue of human error," WNYC reporter Brigid Bergin told NPR's Morning Edition.

"The board does conduct a lot of pre-election testing to make sure their systems are working and, obviously, that was even more important this time, because it was the first time they were using this new ranked-choice voting system," she added.

Bergin said the board is expected to release a corrected ranked-choice voting report Wednesday, but it will still be preliminary and it won't include 124,000 absentee ballots.

How the candidates are reacting

All of the mayoral contenders expressed frustration with the board's blunder.

"Today's mistake by the Board of Elections was unfortunate," Adams tweeted Tuesday. "It is critical that New Yorkers are confident in their electoral system, especially as we rank votes in a citywide election for the first time."

Garcia, who was fleetingly thrust into second place by the incorrect ranked-choice voting report, called for a more thorough accounting of what went wrong.

"The Board of Elections' release of incorrect ranked choice votes is deeply troubling and requires a much more transparent and complete explanation. Every ranked choice and absentee vote must be counted accurately so that all New Yorkers have faith in our democracy and our government," she tweeted.

Progressive candidate Maya Wiley said this week's misstep was just the latest in a string of mistakes by the board.

"This error by the Board of Elections is not just failure to count votes properly today, it is the result of generations of failures that have gone unaddressed," Wiley said. "Today, we have once again seen the mismanagement that has resulted in a lack of confidence in results, not because there is a flaw in our election laws, but because those who implement it have failed too many times."

WNYC's Bergin said she thought the misstep would not cause voters to question the election results but that it may diminish the board's reputation in the eyes of the public.

"This agency is really the last bastion of true patronage politics in New York," she said. "There's been a push to overhaul the agency, to give the staff more authority over political appointees. But ultimately that's all up to state lawmakers to do."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Full Text:

Needle pricks not your thing? A team of National Science Foundation-funded scientists is developing wearable skin sensors that can detect what's in your sweat. They hope that one day, monitoring perspiration could bypass the need for more invasive procedures like blood draws, and provide real-time updates on health problems such as dehydration or fatigue. In a new paper, the team describes a new sensor design that can be rapidly manufactured using a "roll-to-roll" processing technique that essentially prints the sensors onto a sheet of plastic like words on a newspaper. They used the sensors to monitor the sweat rate, and the electrolytes and metabolites in sweat, from volunteers who were exercising, and others who were experiencing chemically induced perspiration. The new sensors contain a spiraling microscopic tube, or microfluidic, that wicks sweat from the skin. By tracking how fast the sweat moves through the microfluidic, the sensors can report how much a person is sweating, or their sweat rate. The microfluidics are also outfitted with chemical sensors that can detect concentrations of electrolytes like potassium and sodium, and metabolites like glucose.

Image credit: Bizen Maskey/Sunchon National University

; Credit: /Katherine Du

Over the years, NPR's poetry community has turned both painful and joyful experiences into magnificent work.

As the world still endures the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S. also grieves over increased violence against Asian Americans and a mass shooting in Georgia that left six women of Asian descent dead.

"Let's be clear: Anti-Asian violence and discrimination are not new. But, this racism seems to be heightened," says Kwame Alexander, NPR's resident poet. "And the onus is not on Asian Americans to figure this out. Frankly, it's on white people, it's on the rest of us — individually, systemically, to talk about it, to pay attention to, advocate against it."

"Between Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice, Today," by Emily Jungmin Yoon, is a list poem that reflects the coldness of the world and how it wears on us. Yoon is a South Korean-born poet pursuing her Ph.D. in Korean literature at the University of Chicago.

Alexander and Morning Edition's Rachel Martin ask listeners: How do you cope with recent anti-Asian violence and discrimination? Tell us in a list poem.

Your poem doesn't have to rhyme. It just needs to have an ordered list with details that show your state of mind — and must begin with the word "today."

Share your poem through the form below. Then Alexander will take lines from some of your pieces and create a community crowdsourced poem. Alexander and Martin will read it on air, and NPR will publish it online, where contributors will be credited.

Submissions are due by noon ET on Monday, April 5.

Here are the terms of the callout:

By providing your Submission to us, you agree that you have read, understand and accept the following terms in relation to the content and information (your "Submission") you are providing to National Public Radio ("NPR," "us" or "our"):

You are submitting content pursuant to a callout by Morning Edition related to a segment with Kwame Alexander wherein he creates unique poetry based on listener submissions. You understand that you are submitting content for the purpose of having Kwame use that content to create a new poem or poems ("Poem") with the material you submit. You must be over the age of 18 to submit material.

You will retain copyright in your Submission, but agree that NPR and/or Kwame Alexander may edit, modify, use, excerpt, publish, adapt or otherwise make derivative works from your Submission and use your Submission or derivative works in whole or in part in any media or format and/or use the Submission or Poem for journalistic and/or promotional purposes generally, and may allow others to do so. You understand that the Poem created by Kwame Alexander will be a new creative work and may be distributed through NPR's programs (or other media), and the Poem and programs can be separately subject to copyright protection. Your Submission does not plagiarize or otherwise infringe any third-party copyright, moral rights or any other intellectual property rights or similar rights. You have not copied any part of your Submission from another source. If your Submission is selected for inclusion in the Poem, you will be acknowledged in a list of contributors on NPR's website or otherwise receive appropriate credit, but failure to do so shall not be deemed a breach of your rights.

Your submission will be governed by our general Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. As the Privacy Policy says, we want you to be aware that there may be circumstances in which the exemptions provided under law for journalistic activities or freedom of expression may override privacy rights you might otherwise have.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

#FreeBritney activists protest outside the Los Angeles Superior Court during one of Britney Spears' hearings this April.; Credit: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images

Pop star Britney Spears hasn't been in charge of her personal life or her finances for 13 years — that's how long she has been in a court-dictated legal arrangement called a conservatorship.

But on Wednesday, the artist will be speaking directly, albeit from a remote location, to a Los Angeles Superior Court judge about her situation. What exactly she intends to say in her appearance and what her goals might be are anyone's guess.

Before then, here's a quick look at what conservatorships are and why they exist, the specifics of Spears' arrangements, the #FreeBritney movement and what Spears and others have said publicly — and privately — about her conservatorship.

What is a conservatorship, and why does one get put in place?

Typically, legal and financial conservatorships are arranged for people who are unable to make their own decisions in their own best self-interest, such as in the case of an elderly person or someone with some kind of cognitive impairment.

Why does Britney Spears have one?

The exact reasons that the 39-year-old Spears is under a conservatorship have not been publicly disclosed. She lost her autonomy 13 years ago, in 2008, after apparently suffering a mental health crisis.

During the time that Spears has lived under this arrangement, though, she has released four albums (two of which, 2008's Circus and 2011's Femme Fatale, achieved platinum sales); appeared as a judge on both The X Factor and American Idol; and had a four-year residency in Las Vegas that reportedly grossed close to $138 million. Those accomplishments don't exactly line up with the typical profile of someone unable to look after themselves.

What does Spears' conservatorship cover?

Essentially, it controls all the major aspects of Spears' life, including decisions regarding her financial, medical and personal well-being. The conservators also oversee visitation arrangements with her two teenage sons, who are under the full custody of her ex-husband, Kevin Federline.

According to Forbes, Spears' current net worth is around $60 million.

Who controls Spears' conservatorship?

Up until recently, both the financial and personal arms of the conservatorship were controlled by Spears' father, Jamie Spears.

In 2020, her lawyer, Samuel D. Ingham III, stated in a filing that Spears "strongly opposed" her father as conservator and that she refused to perform if he remained in charge of her career. Spears asked the court for her father to be suspended from his role as conservator. (He had temporarily stepped away in 2019 for health reasons.)

In February, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brenda Penny overruled an objection from Jamie Spears to having a third party help look after his daughter's financial affairs. A wealth-management company, Bessemer Trust, is now a co-conservator for the financial side of Spears' situation. But Jamie Spears is still the main conservator for all other aspects of Spears' arrangement.

Why is Spears planning to talk to the court now?

Back in April, Spears' legal team asked Penny to allow her to speak to the court directly about the conservatorship, and they agreed that June 23 would be the date for this to happen. At the time, Ingham did not disclose why Spears wants to speak or what she intends to say.

Has Spears ever asked for the conservatorship to end?

Up until now, Spears has never voiced a desire for the conservatorship to be removed completely — at least not publicly. In a court filing, she has stated that the conservatorship "rescued her from a collapse, exploitation by predatory individuals and financial ruin" and allowed her to "regain her position as a world class entertainer."

But on Tuesday afternoon, The New York Times reported that it had obtained confidential court records that purport to show that Spears has opposed the conservatorship privately for years. The Times quoted a 2016 report from a court investigator assigned to Spears' case, in which the investigator wrote that Spears told her that the conservatorship had "become an oppressive and controlling tool against her" and that she wanted the arrangement to end quickly.

According to the Times, Spears told the court in 2019 that the conservatorship had forced her into a stay at a mental health facility, as well as into making public performances against her will. The article further reported that the conservatorship had dictated Spears' friendships, her dating life and her spending habits, even preventing her from refinishing kitchen cabinets according to her taste.

As early as 2014, the article states, Spears wanted to consider removing her father from his prime role in the conservatorship, citing his reportedly heavy drinking.

Does Spears herself support the #FreeBritney movement?

Certain Spears fans have organized themselves into a grassroots movement — #FreeBritney — to help Spears regain autonomy over her life. The dynamics between Spears and her dedicated #FreeBritney fans are murky, as are her various declarations on social media.

In a court filing last September, her lawyer, Ingham, wrote: "At this point in her life when she is trying to regain some measure of personal autonomy, Britney welcomes and appreciates the informed support of her many fans."

On the other hand, Spears to date has never publicly asked to be released from the conservatorship and regain her autonomy — which is the main goal of #FreeBritney.

A very sympathetic New York Times television documentary, Framing Britney Spears, debuted on FX in February. The project reckons with the way the media, comedians and the music industry itself characterized Spears during her ascent to global fame and during her later, very public struggles — and it also profiles some #FreeBritney activists.

After it aired, Spears wrote on Instagram: "My life has always been very speculated [sic] ... watched ... and judged really my whole life !!! ... I didn't watch the documentary but from what I did see of it I was embarrassed by the light they put me in ... I cried for two weeks and well .... I still cry sometimes !!!!"

Some #FreeBritney supporters don't believe Spears writes her own Instagram messages, leaving them to speculate about the pop star's true feelings. But Spears reportedly told TMZ in April that she writes her own captions.

What's next for Britney Spears?

Unclear. In an Instagram video posted last week, a visibly jittery Spears professed to be answering fans' most burning questions, including her shoe size and her favorite business trip (answer: "a trip to Italy [to] Donatella Versace. ... She fined [sic] and dined us").

The last question Spears put forward to herself was a crucial one: Would she ever return to the stage again?

"I have no idea," she said. "I'm having fun right now. I'm in transition in my life, and I'm enjoying myself."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

This sounds like a simple question.  What does value mean to you? And it may be simple for you to answer. But when we asked several groups this question, we found that there were about as many answers as there were people answering.  We also found that the answers varied depending on whether you were [...]

The permit center is in the process of adding QR Codes to the permit hard card.  The following is an explanation about how the code works from Steve Lackey.   By Steve Lackey Along with the use of smartphones and other related devices, QR Codes are becoming quite popular and useful.  Called “Quick Response Codes”, they store [...]

People come to Catawba County’s web site for many reasons. One is for the information and data that they find there.  The site has always been rich in information about the county and services that are provided. In recent years, as more and more people wanted data in digital format, many datasets were moved to [...]

Everyone sees the bright shiny fire truck arrive on the scene to put out the fire.  Everyone sees the EMS units rushing to help.   Everyone sees the Rescue units as they respond throughout the community.  Everyone sees the flashing blue lights as law enforcement work to keep our community safe.  Everyone sees State Highway Patrol [...]

The data in a QR code is a series of dots in a square grid. Each dot represents a one and each blank a zero in binary code, and the patterns encode sets of numbers, letters or both, including URLs.

D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine, pictured in 2019, is hoping to change how the justice system handles cases involving 16- and 17-year-olds who are charged as adults.; Credit: Claire Harbage/NPR

A new proposal from D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine could overhaul the way juveniles are charged as adults and offer greater opportunities for rehabilitation than a federal prison.

If passed, the proposal would impact people like Charlie Curtis, who was charged with armed robbery and sent to adult court at the age of 16 — a decision that he said left him confused and adrift.

Curtis said he had problems reading and writing back then, let alone asking the court to appoint him a lawyer. After his conviction, he spent years in a federal prison in New Jersey.

"It's a little bit of everything," Curtis said. "A little scary, a little nervous, you got to grow up real fast. You're not in the high school gym no more."

Curtis returned home when he was 22. It would be a while before he stabilized, got a good job driving a truck and started a family that grew to include three children. He now volunteers to help other young people leaving jail and prison — trying to offer the support he got too late.

What the legislation would change

NPR has learned Racine will introduce legislation in the D.C. Council Wednesday to ensure that 16- and 17-year-olds accused of certain crimes start in the family court system.

"Children should be treated like children, including 16- and 17-year-olds, notwithstanding the seriousness of their alleged offense," Racine said.

The proposed legislation would apply to teens charged with murder, first-degree sexual abuse, and armed robbery, among other crimes. Currently, the lead federal prosecutor in D.C. can file those kinds of cases directly in adult court — without any say from a judge — even if those defendants ultimately plead guilty to lesser charges.

D.C. has no federal prisons of its own, so young people convicted as adults can spend years in other states, at great distances from their families. The D.C. attorney general said the majority of underaged defendants charged as adults return home to the District before they are 21, but without the benefit of access to educational programs, vocational training and mentoring they could have received if their cases had been handled in the family courts.

"The adult system doesn't work that way," Racine said. "Federal Bureau of Prisons people will tell you the adult system is not made for kids."

Eduardo Ferrer, the policy director at the Georgetown Juvenile Justice Initiative, said research demonstrates charging young people in the adult system decreases public safety by making it more likely they'll break the law in the future. Most charging decisions in these cases in D.C. are made within a half a day, without the benefit of a longer review of the facts of the case and the background of the teenager, he said.

"The process in D.C. right now, because the U.S. Attorney's Office does not exercise discretion often in terms of keeping kids down in juvenile court, is more of a sledgehammer," Ferrer said. "What we really need is a scalpel."

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington and the Metropolitan Police Department did not return calls for comment about the proposal. But its supporters expect some resistance when it's ultimately considered by the City Council.

Ferrer pointed out that the legislation still leaves room for a judge to transfer a young person in D.C. into adult court if the judge has concerns about the ability for rehabilitation and worries about public safety. "The reality is that a young person still can be transferred to adult court," he said. "The difference is we're taking the time to get it right."

The potential impact

The vast majority — 93% — of the 16- and 17-year-olds who are charged as adults in D.C. are Black. One of them is the son of Keela Hailes. In 2008, he was charged with armed robbery. Hailes said she wasn't consulted about decisions about what was best for her son.

"It's like my son went from a 16-year-old to a 30-year-old overnight," Hailes said.

Her son was convicted and sent to federal prison in North Dakota, too far for her to visit regularly as she had done in the D.C. area. Her son, now 30 years old, is incarcerated again. Hailes said she wishes he would have had more options years ago — a chance for an education, and time spent in a juvenile facility instead of around adults in prison.

She said science suggests young people have less judgment and maturity because their brains are still developing. She thinks the new proposal will make a "huge difference" for juveniles in the legal system in the District.

The proposal is the latest in a series of steps Racine has taken to overhaul juvenile justice in D.C. He pushed the courts to stop shackling young defendants; started a restorative justice program for juveniles to meet with and make amends to victims; and worked to limit the ability of police to put handcuffs on most people under age 12.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

There is sufficient evidence from tree rings, boreholes, retreating glaciers, and other proxies of past surface temperatures to say with a high level of confidence that the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years, according to a new report from the National Research Council.

Young athletes in the U.S. face a culture of resistance to reporting when they might have a concussion and to complying with treatment plans.

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome -- commonly referred to as ME/CFS -- is a legitimate, serious, and complex systemic disease that frequently and dramatically limits the activities of affected individuals, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine.

The latest and final in a series of congressionally mandated biennial reviews of the evidence of health problems that may be linked to exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides used during the Vietnam War changed the categorization of health outcomes for bladder cancer, hypothyroidism, and spina bifida and clarified the breadth of the previous finding for Parkinson’s disease.

To make the world safer against future infectious disease threats, national health systems should be strengthened, the World Health Organization’s emergency and outbreak response activities should be consolidated and bolstered, and research and development should be enhanced, says a new Policy Forum article that appears in the May 19 edition of PLOS Medicine.

Cognitive training, blood pressure management for people with hypertension, and increased physical activity all show modest but inconclusive evidence that they can help prevent cognitive decline and dementia, but there is insufficient evidence to support a public health campaign encouraging their adoption, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine takes a comprehensive look at evidence on the human health effects of e-cigarettes.

An emerging body of evidence suggests that integrating STEMM fields (science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine) with the humanities and arts in higher education is associated with positive learning outcomes that may help students enter the workforce, live enriched lives, and become active and informed citizens, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

The current process for planetary protection policy development is inadequate to respond to increasingly complex solar system exploration missions, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine highlights the dynamic process of learning throughout the life span and identifies frontiers in which more research is needed to pursue an even deeper understanding of human learning.

To achieve goals for climate and economic growth, “negative emissions technologies” (NETs) that remove and sequester carbon dioxide from the air will need to play a significant role in mitigating climate change, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Given the current state of quantum computing and the significant challenges that still need to be overcome, it is highly unlikely that a quantum computer that can compromise public-key cryptography – a basis for the security of most of today’s computers and networks – will be built within the next decade, says a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

As the coronavirus outbreak has spread throughout the United States, social distancing measures have taken many forms — such as business and school closures, cancelled events, and everyone being urged to keep six feet apart.

When it comes to COVID-19 testing, questions remain about which of the tests available are reliable, how much testing is needed, and how to ensure access to testing. The latest COVID-19 Conversations webinar explored the challenges ahead.

Instead of an “all-or-nothing” approach to disease prevention, Americans need guidance on how to safely return to school, work, and other activities mid-pandemic, said panelists at a May 13 COVID-19 Conversations webinar.

Last week, millions of Americans made a trip to the grocery store to buy a fuller cart than their usual weekly shopping. Thanksgiving is the beginning of the holiday season, centered on cooking, abundance, and plenty, even as celebration get-togethers are scaled back because of the pandemic.

Research by Gulf Research Program Early-Career Research Fellow Amina Schartup Explores How Mercury Levels in Fish May Rise with Climate Change

Discussion explores how to speed progress toward net-zero emissions.

Exporting just over half of U.S. crude oil exports in 2020, Corpus Christi, Texas, is on its way to becoming the Gulf of Mexico’s oil hub. As tankers equipped with millions of barrels of oil, cruise in and out of the city, safety is a top priority for the Gulf Research Program (GRP).

As COVID-19 vaccination programs across the country transition from meeting urgent demand to reaching people who are less eager to get the shot, leaders are looking for new vaccine communications strategies.

COVID-19 has offered several lessons about improving diagnosis — from expanding testing availability, to making at-home testing easier, to empowering people with data. At a recent workshop, experts discussed how to apply these lessons to the diagnosis of other health conditions.

Confucius Institutes are Chinese government-funded language and culture centers located worldwide. A new report proposes a set of criteria for the U.S. Department of Defense to consider in developing a waiver process that would potentially allow U.S. institutions of higher education to receive DOD funding while hosting a Confucius Institute.

Research funded by NIH that uses nonhuman primates is critical to the nation’s ability to respond adequately to public health emergencies and carry out high-impact biomedical research, but gaps in the systems that support research using these animal models are undermining national health emergency readiness.

As AI gets closer to the ability to cause physical harm and impact the real world, “it’s complicated” is no longer a satisfying response