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IMAGE: Noting the lack of data concerning the physical effects of marijuana on the lungs, given that marijuana use is increasing, particularly within nations such as Canada, that have legalized the. view more
Credit: American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS)
Leesburg, VA, April 1, 2021 A Scientific E-Poster to be presented at the 2021 ARRS Virtual Annual Meeting reveals increased rates of emphysema in marijuana smokers, compared to both non-smokers and tobacco-only smokers, as well as greater rates of paraseptal emphysema. Marijuana smoking is also associated with airways disease, including bronchial wall thickening, bronchiectasis, and bronchiolar mucoid impaction, in comparison to both the control group and tobacco-only group, wrote first author Luke Murtha of Ottawa Hospital in Canada.
This observational study examined death and hospital readmission rates of patients with COVID-19 pneumonia after being discharged to home or quarantine housing with supplemental home oxygen.
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Telehealth has become a critical way for doctors to still provide health care while minimizing in-person contact during COVID-19. But with phone or Zoom appointments, it s harder for doctors to get important vital signs from a patient, such as their pulse or respiration rate, in real time.
A University of Washington-led team has developed a method that uses the camera on a person s smartphone or computer to take their pulse and respiration signal from a real-time video of their face. The researchers presented this state-of-the-art system in December at the Neural Information Processing Systems conference.
Now the team is proposing a better system to measure these physiological signals. This system is less likely to be tripped up by different cameras, lighting conditions or facial features, such as skin color. The researchers will present these findings April 8 at the ACM Conference on Health, Interference, and Learning.
A pointed editorial by Douglas DeLong, MD, Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine at Bassett Healthcare in Cooperstown, NY, suggests that it s time for physicians to move past talking and start taking action to protect patients from gun violence and unintentional injury. Dr. DeLong says that in addition to educating patients and their families about firearm safety, physicians must also act locally to stand up against the NRA and advocate for common sense gun laws.
While mass shootings were down overall in 2020, any cause for celebration was short-lived. In March 2021, the U.S. experienced 2 mass shootings taking a total of 18 lives within the span of less than 1 week. The first shooting targeted women and Asian Americans. The motive for the second shooting is not yet known, but the usual blah, blah, blah of thoughts and prayers was the predictable response from both sides of the political divide.
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IMAGE: Consuming spoiled beef is dangerous, but there are currently no simple and efficient methods to assess beef freshness. view more
Credit: Unsplash
Although beef is one of the most consumed foods around the world, eating it when it s past its prime is not only unsavory, but also poses some serious health risks. Unfortunately, available methods to check for beef freshness have various disadvantages that keep them from being useful to the public. For example, chemical analysis or microbial population evaluations take too much time and require the skills of a professional. On the other hand, non-destructive approaches based on near-infrared spectroscopy require expensive and sophisticated equipment. Could artificial intelligence be the key to a more cost-effective way to assess the freshness of beef?