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Friday, May 18
Highlighted News Items
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Global Impact , Research
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Tracking Ocean Sulfur Could Help Test Gaia Hypothesis
(Wired)
Geologists at the University of Maryland have published research that could help prove or disprove Gaia theory - the notion that the Earth is one single self-regulating system. The concept dates from the 70s and was initially formulated by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis. It proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings comprise a single system that maintains the conditions for life on Earth. It was initially met with skepticism from the scientific community, and remains somewhat controversial, but is now an important area of research in Earth
systems science and biogeochemistry.
Source:
Wired
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Sulfur finding may hold key to Gaia theory of Earth as living organism
(ScienceDaily)
Is Earth really a sort of giant living organism as the Gaia hypothesis predicts? A new discovery made at the University of Maryland may provide a key to answering this question. This key of sulfur could allow scientists to unlock heretofore hidden interactions between ocean organisms, atmosphere, and land -- interactions that might provide evidence supporting this famous theory. [One of numerous Web articles prompted by the following University Communications release.]
Source:
ScienceDaily
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DARPA to Unveil Initiative on Natural Language Analysis
(CCC)
According to Bonnie Dorr [UMD Computer Science Professor on sabbatical at DARPA], the DARPA program manager for DEFT: Overwhelmed by deadlines and the sheer volume of available foreign intelligence, analysts may miss crucial
links, especially when meaning is deliberately concealed or otherwise obfuscated. DEFT is attempting to create technology to make reliable inferences based on basic text. We want the ability to mitigate ambiguity in text by stripping away filters that can cloud meaning and by rejecting false information.
Source:
The Computing Community Consortium
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Faculty, Staff
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National Interest
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Studies find correlation between busy hospitals and higher readmission rates
(Healthcare Finance News)
According to two recent studies conducted by several researchers at the University of Marylands Robert H. Smith School of Business, there is a correlation between hospital readmission rates and how full the hospital was at the time of discharge. This suggests that many patients went home earlier than they should have.
Source:
Healthcare Finance News
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Study says hospitals discharging patients early to increase profits
(WSFA Channel 12)
A pair of studies showed hospitals could be discharging patients before they are actually healthy enough to leave.
Researchers found for-profit hospitals are trying to crank out as many surgeries as they can because those surgeries bring in cash. They gathered that if a bed is being used up by a patient who is recovering, doctors will send them home prematurely in order to get a new patient checked-in. These studies from the University of Maryland looked at patient movement at a large academic hospital in the United States. [this is part of the continuting coverage prompted by a University Communications release.]
Source:
WSFA Channel 12
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Private Equity Firms Push Dentists To Detrimentally Overtreat Patients: Report.
(Huffington Post)
A crown on a four-year-old's tooth? That's just one of the consequences of private equity's leap into the dentist's chair. That's because dental management companies frequently overtreat their patients when backed by private equity, often to those patients' detriment, according to a Bloomberg report.... In this case, over-treatment of dental patients would be just one unintended consequence of basing a health care system on a profit motive. Large hospitals, for example, are pushing some patients out before they're ready because of pressure to meet financial obligations, according to two studies by Bruce Golden, a professor at University of Maryland's business school.
Source:
Huffington Post
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Making Choices in the Age of Information Overload
(The New York Times)
Recently my wife and I went on an epic hunt to uncover everything possible about baby formula. ... Then we learned that none of it actually matters. Since the Infant Formula Act of 1980, the F.D.A. makes sure that all formula is pretty much the same, no matter which one you buy. ... The Internet is, among other things, a massive, chaotic marketplace. Too much information, it turns out, is a lot like no information. If we researched every single purchase, we wouldnt have time to make any purchases, says Anna Kirmani, a marketing professor at the University
of Maryland. I have better things to do with my time.
Source:
The New York Times
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Research
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Some fungal-farming ants loyal to their crops
(MSNBC)
A group of fungi-farming ants are not only loyal to particular species of fungus, the relationship is so close it appears the ants and the fungus may be evolving together, a new study indicates. "That is probably the most intriguing part of all this, it was driving speciation," said Ted Schultz, a research entomologist with the Smithsonian Institution and an adjunct professor at the University of Maryland. Speciation refers to the formation of new species.
Source:
MSNBC
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Vibrant State, Research
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Potomac River threatened by pollution, Congress, new report says
(The Washington Post)
A new report named the Potomac the nations most endangered river, saying it is threatened by nutrient and sediment pollution that lowers the quality of drinking water and kills marine life and will only get worse if Congress rolls back regulations in the Clean Water Act. Americas Most Endangered Rivers, the annual report from the nonprofit advocacy group American Rivers, is to be released early Tuesday. ... Ed Merrifield, the Potomac Riverkeeper, said the Potomac is not as dirty as it was before the Clean Water Act became law, but it is hardly clean. Its water quality received a D in a report card last year by EcoCheck, a University of Maryland and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration partnership.
Source:
The Washington Post
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In Today's News is maintained by the Office of University Communications.
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