Can we accurately classify physicians as high vs. low quality? "Medicare aims to tie 90% of reimbursement to quality measures. The potential for quality-linked reimbursement to incentivized improved quality of care, however, depends critically on whether physician quality can be measured reliably."
Source: healthcare-economist.com
Doctors call for ban on diesel engines in London - BBC News: A campaign led by medical professionals is calling for all diesel cars to be banned from London.
Source: bbc.co.uk
Surprise virus in child mummy unravels thousands of years of disease history: The oldest sample of smallpox is younger than we thought, bucking ancient reports.
Source: arstechnica.com
Of Nine Tech Companies, Only Twitter Says It Would Refuse to Help Build Muslim Registry for Trump - The Intercept
Source: theintercept.com
U.S. Life Expectancy Declines, Albeit Slightly, for First Time in 2 Decades: By Amy Orciari Herman
Edited by André Sofair, MD, MPH, and William E. Chavey, MD, MS
Life expectancy at birth decreased from 78.9 years in 2014 to 78.8 years in 2015 — the first … NEJM Journal Watch.
Source: jwatch.org
End-of-Rotation House Staff Changes Linked to Increased Patient Mortality: By Amy Orciari Herman
Edited by David G. Fairchild, MD, MPH, and Lorenzo Di Francesco, MD, FACP, FHM
Resident and intern service changes are associated with increased mortality among hospitalized patients, suggests a retrospective...
Source: jwatch.org
Brain Computation Is Organized via Power-of-Two-Based Permutation Logic: There is considerable scientific interest in understanding how cell assemblies - the long-presumed computational motif - are organized so that the brain can generate cognitive behavior. The Theory of Connectivity proposes that...
Source: frontiersin.org
Baby dinosaur tail found preserved in amber, complete with feathers - ExtremeTech: Still have a hard time accepting dinosaurs had feathers? Here are some preserved in amber.
Source: extremetech.com
The Simple Economics of Machine Intelligence. Technological revolutions tend to involve some important activity becoming cheap, like the cost of communication or finding information. Machine intelligence is, in its essence, a prediction technology, so the economic shift will center around a drop in the...
Source: digitopoly.org
“Pizzagate” conspiracy theory prompts gunman to “self-investigate” pizza parlor
Source: arstechnica.com
Can third-party inspections of whether healthcare organisations are fulfilling mandatory standards improve healthcare outcomes? | Cochrane
Source: cochrane.org
Study: White deaths exceeded births in one-third of states: More white deaths than births were reported in 17 US states, more than in any time in history, compared to only four in 2004. More than 121 million people -- roughly 38 percent of the total US population -- reside in the 17 states with white...
Source: eurekalert.org
Firefox zero-day can be used to unmask Tor browser users: The exploit code is reportedly a near match to the code used by the FBI in 2013 to deanonymize Tor users; Mozilla is aware of the zero-day and is working on a fix.
Source: computerworld.com
New computational model provides a tool for improving the production of valuable drugs: The model allows scientists to make comprehensive simulations without doing tedious experiments in the laboratory. Hence, the model will tell the scientist, which metabolic pathways are involved in the production...
Source: eurekalert.org
Global carbon growth stalls as US coal continues to slump - BBC News: Declining US coal consumption played a significant role in keeping down global emissions of carbon dioxide, says a report.
Source: bbc.co.uk
The US government is finally telling people that homeopathy is a sham: Companies that make homeopathic products will be required to spell out that their products are not based on science.
Source: vox.com
Grampound Bowling Club invites school pupils to try the game: IN 2014 the primary school in Grampound approached Grampound Bowling Club to see if it could offer the children an opportunity to learn to play bowls.
Source: northcornwall-today.co.uk
Nine ex-health secretaries 'dismayed' at mental health services - BBC News: Nine former health secretaries voice "alarm" at the failure to improve mental health services.
Source: bbc.co.uk