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Honey bees fly to flowers whenever the weather is right, and warmer autumns and winters are putting these crop pollinators at risk, researchers warn. Using climate and bee population models, a Washington State University team showed that longer and longer autumns with ideal flying weather increase the odds that bee colonies will collapse come spring.  “It’s not like this is something that can be expected 80 years from now,” lead author Kirti Rajagopalan, an assistant professor of biological systems engineering, said in a WSU news release. “It is a more immediate impact that needs to be planned for.” A potential intervention: Putting colonies into cold storage, where bees will cluster in their hive from October to April before too many workers wear out. The practice is relatively new.  But commercial beekeepers already rely on it to help manage logistics of moving more than 2 million hives from around the country to pollinate almond trees in California, researchers said. “A lot of beekeepers are already practicing this management technique of storing bees indoors because it has a lot of immediate potential to help in a number of ways,” study co-author Brandon Hopkins, a WSU entomologist, said in the news release.  He said the new study demonstrates that cold-storage has additional benefits for the survival of bee colonies in a changing climate. For the study, researchers used…  read on >  read on >

Ahead of a total solar eclipse arriving April 8, new research finds there was a temporary rise in U.S. traffic accidents around the time of a solar eclipse back in 2017. The area in the United States covered by the total eclipse seven years ago was relatively small (about 70 miles wide), but it was still tied to a 31% national rise in fatal traffic accidents.  “In absolute terms, this averaged to 1 extra crash-involved person every 25 minutes and 1 extra crash fatality every 95 minutes,” said a Canadian team led by Dr. Donald Redelmeier of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, in Toronto.  His team suspects the rise in accidents didn’t owe to any temporary change in visibility due to the eclipse. Instead, it more likely stemmed from a surge in people traveling to view the rare phenomenon.  In 2017, the total eclipse had an estimated 20 million people traveling to another city to view it, the Toronto team said. More traffic danger might loom on April 8, however, since this time the eclipse “is within driving range for more than 200 million individuals within the US,” the study authors said. The new study relied on U.S. data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration Fatality Analysis Reporting System.   Redelmeier’s team looked at the three days before, during and immediately after the Aug. 17,…  read on >  read on >

Federal regulators are taking a second stab at banning the controversial use of electroshock devices to manage the behavior of patients with intellectual and developmental disorders. The devices deliver electric shocks to a patient’s skin, in an attempt to stop them from harming themselves or lashing out physically at others, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in its Monday announcement. These devices — called electrical stimulation devices or ESDs — now are in use at just one U.S. facility, the Judge Rotenberg Education Center in Canton, Mass., the FDA said. “We estimate around 50 individuals currently have a treatment plan that includes the use, or potential use, of” these devices, the FDA statement said. A special United Nations report in 2013 concluded that the Rotenberg Center’s use of the shock devices on students constitutes a violation of the U.N. convention against torture. The FDA previously attempted to ban the use of the devices in 2020, but a federal court ruled that the agency didn’t have the authority to enact its proposed ban. “Since ESDs were first marketed more than 20 years ago, we have gained a better understanding of the danger these devices present to public health,” Dr. William Maisel, director of the Office of Product Evaluation and Quality in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in a news release…  read on >  read on >

Most parents are torn about letting their middle or high school students take a sick day. “In some cases, the decision to keep kids home from school is clear, such as if the child is vomiting or has a high fever,” said Sarah Clark, co-director of the Mott Poll from University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor. “But parents often have to guess at whether their child’s report of ‘not feeling well’ represents a good reason to miss school.” In the latest poll — based on 1,300 responses last month from parents of 11- to 18-year-olds — 2 in 3 said their child frets about how missing school will affect their grades. The same number worry about missing friends or school activities.  For parents, deciding whether kids need a sick day rests mainly on whether they think they can get through the entire academic day, whether they’re contagious and whether they will miss a test, presentation or after-school activity, the poll revealed. How any symptoms are causing them to behave is also key. When it’s not clear just how sick a child is, more than half of parents are likely to keep them home, according to the poll. Another 25% send them to school and keep their fingers crossed. About 1 in 5 let the child decide. The same number said…  read on >  read on >

Most folks know they’d be healthier if they ate more plant-based foods, but only a quarter are willing to follow through and do it, a new study shows. Surveys reveal that Americans’ beliefs about eating more plants for health are often at odds with their daily dietary choices, researchers say. “U.S. consumers have favorable perceptions of foods and beverages that support human and environmental health, but that’s not translating into what they’re purchasing and consuming,” said lead researcher Katherine Consavage Stanley, a doctoral student in human nutrition, foods and exercise at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. For the study, researchers looked at data from more than a decade of nationwide surveys gathered between 2012 and 2022 by the International Food Information Council, analyzing more than 1,000 participants’ responses. Across all the years, 73% of Americans said plant proteins were healthy, compared to 39% who said animal proteins were healthy. The percentage of Americans who follow a plant-rich dietary pattern more than doubled during the decade studied, rising from 12% to nearly 26%. At the same time, however, the percentage of people eating more red meat also rose, from 13% to 19%. Generation Z (born 1997-2012) and Millennials (1981-1996) were more likely to follow a plant-rich diet than Generation X (born 1965-1980) or Baby Boomers (1946-1964), results show. But about 25% of Generation Z and Millennials also…  read on >  read on >

Australian researchers say they have identified a gene mutation that causes the skin disease psoriasis. A chronic inflammatory condition, psoriasis causes red, scaly, itchy patches on the skin. Some patients also develop psoriatic arthritis, a condition marked by joint pain, swelling and stiffness. But researchers at the Australian National University (ANU) who have identified the gene mutation hope their findings will point the way to a cure. In the short term, they hope the discovery will lead to improved diagnosis and treatment of both diseases, which they say can stigmatize patients. “So many people are accused of having poor hygiene due to the plaques or even just minor skin lesions as they erupt,” said Rebecca Davey, CEO of Arthritis ACT and one of at least 500,000 Australians with psoriasis. “It’s not the individual’s fault that their skin is in the condition it’s in; psoriasis is a painful, debilitating condition.” But now there might be hope. Researchers used a mouse model to identify a mutation in a gene known as IKBKB that causes a group of immune cells called regulatory T-cells to misfire. Patients with two copies of this gene are at increased risk for psoriatic arthritis, they report March 25 in the journal Nature Communications. “These cells are normally considered gatekeepers of the immune system,” said Chelisa Cardinez, a postdoctoral fellow at ANU in Canberra.…  read on >  read on >

Vitamin supplements are a big business, with Americans spending roughly $45 billion out of more than $177 billion worldwide on pills, gummies and powders meant to boost health. About 59 million Americans regularly use some type of vitamin or supplement, spending an average $510 each year. But most folks are wasting that money, experts say. A balanced daily diet provides all the nutrients a person typically needs to maintain their health, said Dr. Matthew Silvis, vice chair of clinical operations for Penn State Health Family and Community Medicine. “If you have a well-balanced diet and you’re able to eat nutritious foods ― fruits, vegetables, etc. ― you don’t need a multivitamin or a supplement,” Silvis said in a news release. “The broad answer is most people don’t need them, despite the multibillion-dollar industry that the vitamin industry is,” he continued. “But there are populations of individuals who do need to consider a multivitamin or a supplement. And that is individualized.” Examples of people who do need specific supplements include: Pregnant women who need folic acid to prevent birth defects. Seniors with osteoporosis who can benefit from calcium and Vitamin D supplements. Vegans or people with Celiac disease who need a multivitamin to supplement the nutrients they aren’t absorbing from their diet. High-intensity athletes who regularly participate in draining workouts and fierce competition also might be…  read on >  read on >

Medicare will now cover the popular weight-loss drug Wegovy if patients using it also have heart disease, U.S. officials announced Thursday. The move comes after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved drugmaker Novo Nordisk’s application to add cardiovascular benefits to the medicine’s label earlier this month. As a result, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said it has informed insurers that provide Medicare Part D drug plans that they could cover the medication if it is approved for another use. “CMS has issued guidance to Medicare Part D plans stating that anti-obesity medications [AOMs] that receive FDA approval for an additional medically accepted indication can be considered a Part D drug for that specific use,” CMS said in a statement, CNN reported. Part D plans could begin covering the drug “some time this year,” Tricia Neuman, a Medicare policy specialist at KFF, told the Associated Press. “Medicare plans may be reluctant to move quickly to cover Wegovy given its relatively high price, particularly because they won’t be able to adjust premiums before next year,” she said. Wegovy costs just over $1,300 a month. Even if plans do allow coverage, they may still require higher out-of-pocket fees, prior authorizations or step therapy, where a patient must try a lower-cost drug before proceeding to the new treatment, Neuman noted. Wegovy is one of four popular…  read on >  read on >

Some people diagnosed with schizophrenia might instead be suffering from a rare visual condition that can cause other people’s faces to appear “demonic,” a new study argues. The condition, called prosopometamorphopsia (PMO), can cause others’ facial features to appear horrific — drooped, larger, smaller, out of position or stretched in disturbing ways. “Not surprisingly, people with prosopometamorphopsia often find it disturbing to look at other people’s faces,” researchers said on their website on the condition. “Fortunately, most cases last only a few days or weeks, but some cases perceive distortions in faces for years.” Unfortunately, this disorder in vision has led to a diagnosis of mental illness in some patients.  “We’ve heard from multiple people with PMO that they have been diagnosed by psychiatrists as having schizophrenia and put on anti-psychotics, when their condition is a problem with the visual system,” said senior study author Brad Duchaine, a professor of psychological and brain sciences and principal investigator of the Social Perception Lab at Dartmouth University. To help people understand PMO, Duchaine and his colleagues have produced the first case report to provide accurate and photorealistic examples of the facial distortions experienced by a specific patient with PMO. The patient, a 58-year-old man, sees faces without any distortions if they’re on a screen or on paper. But when he sees someone in person, their face appears…  read on >  read on >

Working stiffs in the United States are dying at higher rates than those in other wealthy nations, a new study finds. Death rates among working-age Americans are 2.5 times higher than the average of other high-income countries, researchers report in the March 21 issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology. These deaths among people ages 25 to 64 are being driven by car crashes, homicides, suicides, drug overdoses and other highly preventable causes, researchers said. For example, drug-related deaths increased up to tenfold between 2000 and 2019, a trend diverging dramatically from other countries. ‘Over the past three decades, midlife mortality in the U.S. has worsened significantly compared to other high-income countries, and for the younger 25- to 44-year-old age-group in 2019 it even surpassed midlife mortality rates for Central and Eastern European countries,” said researcher Katarzyna Doniec, a postdoctoral researcher with the Leverhulme Center for Demographic Science at the University of Oxford. “This is surprising, given that not so long ago some of these countries experienced high levels of working-age mortality, resulting from the post-socialist crisis of the 1990s,” Doniec added in a university news release. For the study, researchers used annual death data gathered by the World Health Organization between 1990 and 2019. The data included 15 major causes of death in 18 high-income countries, including the United States, the U.K. and seven…  read on >  read on >