Author: healthadmin
As temperatures in parts of Tennessee “felt” over 110 degrees last week due to the heat and humidity, the National Weather Service advised Tennesseans to stay indoors, stay hydrated and use air conditioning as “fans may not be enough.” But for an estimated 49,722 households in Tennessee, air conditioning isn’t an option. Data released in May by the U.S. Census Bureau estimates that about 2% of households in the state do not have access to any type of air conditioning. Christina Joan Rainey, a 31-year-old single mother in Carroll County, told Lookout that the temperature inside her home reached 82…
A new psychological study published in the journal Political Psychology suggests that people on the political left value distant strangers less than their own friends and family. Instead, research shows that liberals simply extend their moral concerns further outward, while prioritizing those closest to them. These findings help explain how different ideological groups balance local loyalty and global compassion. Humans naturally exhibit ingroup bias. This is a preference for family, friends, and familiar community members over outsiders. Social identity theory proposes that people derive strong self-esteem from group membership and develop deep loyalty to insiders. Evolutionary biology models suggest that…
A prototype quantum sensor developed by researchers at Imperial College London has demonstrated for the first time in real life that a key concept behind future quantum detectors may work beyond ideal laboratory assumptions. The study showed that experimental noise can be effectively removed by comparing two long-baseline atom interferometers, highly sensitive instruments that use lasers to track the movement of atoms. As a result, scientists can recover meaningful signals even when individual measurements seem completely overwhelmed. This advance could help pave the way for future searches for gravitational waves from the early universe and possible signatures of exotic forms…
Amy Bilafsky lived most of her life without health insurance. For 32 years, the 61-year-old has run her own entertainment company in Tucker, Georgia, installing bounce houses, petting zoos, stilt walkers and other attractions for family and corporate events. For several years, she did two specialties: face painting and balloon carving for children before Atlanta Hawks home games. One morning this spring, Mr. Bielawski delivered a singing telegram to a woman coming off her graveyard shift at Waffle House. Dressed as a chicken in a bikini, she sang a medley of songs by the Beatles and Stevie Wonder, and ended…
More than 150 million Americans have health insurance through their jobs, making it the primary way people in the United States obtain insurance. STAT examines this important source of insurance to understand how and why premiums are becoming unaffordable for workers and their families across the country. Health benefits are disappearing for small businesses Almost all large companies offer health insurance. However, less than 60% of small businesses with fewer than 200 employees currently offer insurance, an all-time low. The cost of health care is pushing small businesses, beloved by politicians and the bedrock of entire communities, over a fiscal…
listen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology. Mispronunciations may occur. We work with our partners to continually review and improve our results.Energy and environmental groups are reacting with alarm to a recent agreement between Canada and Alberta to build a new oil pipeline to the West Coast, questioning whether an overseas buyer will be found for the oil that could eventually flow through the pipeline.Under the Alberta government’s proposal, the pipeline would cost between $35.2 billion and $43.7 billion, and the federal and Alberta governments would remain majority owners of the…
Machine learning offers scientists a powerful new way to explore superconductors, materials that conduct electricity with zero resistance. The international team demonstrated that AI can quickly narrow down the nearly infinite number of possible material combinations and identify the most promising candidates. This approach could dramatically speed up the discovery of new superconductors, according to Aalto University professor Paivi Torma, who leads the SuperC consortium. Superconductors can conduct electrical current without losing energy, but only when cooled to extremely low temperatures where quantum effects emerge. These remarkable materials are already used in technologies ranging from quantum computers and medical neuroimaging…
We don’t think much about the shape of the universe. But my colleagues and I have published new research that suggests it may be asymmetric or biased. This means it’s not the same in all directions. Should we care about this? Now, today’s “standard cosmological model” that describes the dynamics and structure of the universe as a whole is based squarely on the assumption that it is isotropic (looks the same in all directions) and that it is uniform on average over large scales. But several so-called tensions, or data inconsistencies, challenge this idea of a homogeneous universe. We just…
As the world swells with increasingly dangerous heat, why are oil companies allowed to pump out more gasoline without paying the consequences of their greed?With heat domes burning across much of the Northern Hemisphere, temperature records being broken daily, children dying in locked cars, hospitals filled with heatstroke victims, and emergency services battling wildfires, this question should be on everyone’s mind.There is no question that oil, gas and coal companies have economic incentives to further disrupt the climate, even though they already bear a disproportionate share of the blame. These perverse incentives will continue unless generous government subsidies are replaced…
A large cohort study in China suggests that sleep patterns, particularly short sleep duration and poor sleep quality, may help identify people at increased risk of Parkinson’s disease before clinical diagnosis. Research: Sleep and Parkinson’s Disease: A population-based study from the CHARLS cohort. Image credit: Lightspring / Shutterstock In a recent study published as a magazine article, npj parkinson’s diseaseresearchers investigated the association between sleep and Parkinson’s disease (PD) risk. PD is the second most prevalent neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and primarily affects older adults. In addition to motor symptoms, PD patients often experience non-motor symptoms such as…