The debate about caps in personal injury law has been an ongoing issue of contention between legal and medical communities and the public for many years. Before we can discuss the ramifications of caps, let's first explore what caps are. Caps are tort reforms (proposed changes in our civil justice system relating to personal injury claims) that limit the amount of non-economic compensation recoverable in specific lawsuits. In Missouri, the debate over caps has been related mainly to medical malpractice and wrongful death (as a result of medical malpractice) suits. Medical ...

"The U.S. health system is the most expensive in the world, but comparative analyses consistently show that United States underperforms relative to other countries on most dimensions of performance." That is the lead sentence of a recent comprehensive report by the non-partisan Commonwealth Fund called "Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall" - How the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally - June 2010 (see link below). According to the report, the U.S. ranks dead last on patient safety; although our system is far more costly than ...

Any construction worker knows that hazards on a job site are everywhere. Some dangers, however, are more serious than others. According to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA), just four types of accidents caused nearly 60 percent of fatal construction accidents in 2011. They are called the Fatal Four, and they include falls, electrocutions, being struck by objects and being caught in or between objects. In some situations, workers who were injured on the job are eligible only for workers' compensation benefits, which are designed to provide medical ...

Yeloworld has launched an Indiegogo campaign (http://www.igg.me/at/yelworld) today in order to put its smart low-cost calling App into the hands of 100,000 smartphone users by June. Yeloworld is able to offer rates up to 90% cheaper than SkypeOut in some destinations, making it a great alternative for international calling and roaming in over 200 countries. Yeloworld targets Indiegogo contributors, who have experienced high telephone bills and wondered why you have to pay a fortune when calling overseas or when travelling. Yeloworld gives away calling minutes in return ...

Admiral research has revealed two thirds of motorists eat when behind the wheel despite most drivers thinking it's dangerous and should be illegal. Almost one in six (15%) motorists have also crashed or had a near miss as a result of in-car eating. The survey of 2,000 motorists by Admiral has shown that while two thirds of drivers have eaten when driving, for one in twelve it's commonplace with them doing so between five and ten times a week. Admiral's study also revealed three quarters (77%) of British motorists believe eating when driving is dangerous and more than ...

To be blunt about it: yes. This article from Yahoo Finance reports that a Grammarly research study revealed that the quality of people's grammar has a strong correlation with their income level. In short, if you have good grammar, you are likely to earn more. They found that not only do professionals with fewer grammar errors in their LinkedIn profiles hold higher positions, but there was also a correlation between grammar errors and promotions - those professionals with fewer errors were receiving more promotions. As the article states, there are a number of reasons ...

The love affair between U.S. residents and salt is making us sick: high sodium intake increases blood pressure, and leads to higher rates of heart attack and strokes. Nonetheless, Americans continue to ingest far higher amounts of sodium than those recommended by physicians and national guidelines. A balanced review of the relevant literature has been published in the March 27, 2013 edition of The New England Journal of Medicine. Theodore A. Kotchen, M.D., professor of medicine (endocrinology), and associate dean for clinical research at the Medical College of Wisconsin, ...

(Chicago) – Northwestern Medicine scientists have identified a component of the herpesvirus that "hijacks" machinery inside human cells, allowing the virus to rapidly and successfully invade the nervous system upon initial exposure. Led by Gregory Smith, associate professor in immunology and microbiology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, researchers found that viral protein 1-2, or VP1/2, allows the herpesvirus to interact with cellular motors, known as dynein. Once the protein has overtaken this motor, the virus can speed along intercellular highways, ...

An effective vaccine against HIV-1 remains elusive, but one promising strategy focuses on designer antibodies that have much broader potency than most normal, exquisitely specific antibodies. These broadly neutralizing antibodies (bNAbs) can handle the high mutation rate of HIV particles that makes normal, very specific antibodies useless within a short space of time. A study published by Cell Press on March 28th in the journal Cell reveals surprising mutations in these antibodies that are crucial for strong protection against HIV-1. The findings could guide efforts to ...

People could learn a lot from vervet monkeys. When vervets need to work together, they don't tell each other what to do or punish uncooperative behavior. But according to evidence reported on March 28 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology, they do get by, with a little patience. "The vervets show us that tolerance towards group members and patience while others are learning how they can improve things individually can go a long way in solving coordination problems," said Ronald Noë of Université de Strasbourg in France. In the study, the researchers had groups of ...

Communities that act locally to limit their fish catches will reap the rewards of their action, as will their neighbors. That's the conclusion of a study reported on March 28 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology of the highly sought-after fish known as squaretail coral grouper living in five community-owned reef systems in Papua New Guinea. "We found that many larvae that were produced by the managed adults return to that same fish population, which means that the same fishers that agree to regulate their catch benefit from their actions," said Glenn Almany of the ...

VIDEO: These fish cells crawl towards the negative electrode, or cathode, and change direction when the electric field is reversed. Electric fields may recruit or guide cells into wounded tissue. Click here for more information. Like tiny crawling compass needles, whole living cells and cell fragments orient and move in response to electric fields — but in opposite directions, scientists at the University of California, Davis, have found. Their results, published April 8 in ...

WORCESTER, MA – Sometimes you just can't resist a tiny piece of chocolate cake. Even the most health-conscious eaters find themselves indulging in junk foods from time to time. New research by scientists at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) raises the striking possibility that even small amounts of these occasional indulgences may produce significant changes in gene expression that could negatively impact physiology and health. A pair of papers published in Cell by A.J. Marian Walhout, PhD, co-director of the Program in Systems Biology and professor ...

Messier 77 is a galaxy in the constellation of Cetus, some 45 million light-years away from us. Also known as NGC 1068, it is one of the most famous and well-studied galaxies. It is a real star among galaxies, with more papers written about it than many other galaxies put together! Despite its current fame and striking swirling appearance, the galaxy has been a victim of mistaken identity a couple of times; when it was initially discovered in 1780, the distinction between gas clouds and galaxies was not known, causing finder Pierre Mechain to miss its true nature and ...

A widely prescribed type 2 diabetes drug slows down the ageing process by mimicking the effects of dieting, according to a study published today using worms to investigate how the drug works. Following a calorie-restricted diet has been shown to improve health in later life and extend lifespan in a number of animals, ranging from the simple worm to rhesus monkeys. The type 2 diabetes drug metformin has been found to have similar effects in animals but until now it was not clear exactly how the drug delays the ageing process. Researchers supported by the Wellcome Trust ...

Washington, DC (March 26, 2013) – Why are audiences attracted to bloodshed, gore and violence? A recent study from researchers at the University of Augsburg, Germany and the University of Wisconsin-Madison found that people are more likely to watch movies with gory scenes of violence if they felt there was meaning in confronting violent aspects of real life. Anne Bartsch, University of Augsburg, Germany and Louise Mares, University of Wisconsin-Madison, will present their findings at the 63rd Annual Conference of the International Communication Association. Their study ...

Free bus travel has improved the social lives and independence of 12-18 year olds in London, according to research published today in the journal Mobilities. Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and UCL (University College London) found that free bus travel – which all young Londoners are entitled to by registering for a Zip Oyster Card – increased young people's ability to travel independently and extended their opportunities through facilitating extra trips, trips further afield and/or exploratory trips with friends. Travelling together ...

A study led by Zachary Mainen, Director of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme, and published today (March 28th) in the scientific journal, Neuron, reports that when rats were challenged with a series of perceptual decision problems, their performance was just as good when they decided rapidly as when they took a much longer time to respond. Despite being encouraged to slow down and try harder, the subjects of this study achieved their maximum performance in less than 300 milliseconds. 'There are many kinds of decisions, and for some, having more time appears to be ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (March 28, 2013) – Most commonly associated with such maladies as "mad cow disease" and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, prions are increasingly recognized for their ability to induce potentially beneficial traits in a variety of organisms, yeast chief among them. Now a team of scientists has added markedly to the job description of prions as agents of change, identifying a prion capable of triggering a transition in yeast from its conventional single-celled form to a cooperative, multicellular structure. This change, which appears to improve yeast's chances ...

An international team of physicists has proposed a revolutionary laser system, inspired by the telecommunications technology, to produce the next generation of particle accelerators, such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The International Coherent Amplification Network (ICAN) sets out a new laser system composed of massive arrays of thousands of fibre lasers, for both fundamental research at laboratories such as CERN and more applied tasks such as proton therapy and nuclear transmutation. The results of this study are published today in Nature Photonics. Lasers ...

Scientists have identified a key molecule responsible for triggering the chemical processes in our brain linked to our formation of memories. The findings, published in the journal Frontiers in Neural Circuits, reveal a new target for therapeutic interventions to reverse the devastating effects of memory loss. The BBSRC-funded research, led by scientists at the University of Bristol, aimed to better understand the mechanisms that enable us to form memories by studying the molecular changes in the hippocampus — the part of the brain involved in learning. Previous ...

Managing bacteria and other microorganisms in the body, rather than just fighting them, may be lead to better health and a stronger immune system, according to a Penn State biologist. Researchers have historically focused on microbes in the body as primarily pathogens that must be fought, said Eric Harvill, professor of microbiology and infectious disease. However, he said that recent evidence of the complex interaction of the body with microbes suggests a new interpretation of the relationship. "Now we are beginning to understand that the immune system interacts with ...

PHILADELPHIA – Clumps of α-synuclein protein in nerve cells are hallmarks of many degenerative brain diseases, most notably Parkinson's disease. "No one has been able to determine if Lewy bodies and Lewy neurites, hallmark pathologies in Parkinson's disease can be degraded," says Virginia Lee, PhD, director of the Center for Neurodegenerative Disease Research, at the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. "With the new neuron model system of Parkinson's disease pathologies our lab has developed recently, we demonstrated that these aberrant clumps ...

The most commonly occurring red alga in the algal order Bangiales in New Zealand has at last received a formal scientific name. Pyropia plicata, is an intertidal red alga, found in abundance in the North, South and Chatham Islands. It has been confused for many years with a species first collected from the New Zealand subantarctic islands in 1840. Recent research had clarified the identity and distribution of the southern species, Porphyra columbina, and also transferred it to the genus Pyropia. The description of Py. plicata was published in the open access journal PhytoKeys. The ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- It appears that the majority of spouses/partners of physicians in the United States are happy with their relationships, according to Mayo Clinic research. Of the about 900 spouses/partners of physicians who responded to a national survey, 85 percent said that they were satisfied in their relationship and 80 percent said they would choose a physician spouse/partner again if they could revisit their choice. These values are similar to those of married adults in the U.S. overall. The study appears in the March edition of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Consistent ...