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Feb 10 2025HEALTH

Cigarette Smoke and Saliva Enzyme: The Facts You Need to Know

Let's dive into the surprising link between smoking and an important enzyme found in our spit called alpha-amylase. This enzyme has a big job: it kicks off the process of breaking down food in your mouth. But here's where it gets interesting. The amount of this enzyme in your saliva can change based

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Feb 10 2025HEALTH

Older Adults and the Mystery of Slow-Healing Mouth Sores

Imagine a 70-year-old person with a strange mouth sore. But it isn't just any sore. It's caused by a virus that usually lies dormant in the body. This virus, Epstein-Barr, is known for causing mononucleosis. However, in older adults its behavior can change. In some cases, it can cause a rare conditi

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Feb 10 2025HEALTH

How Do Young People Cope with Terror Long Term?

Young individuals who were involved in the traumatic events from the Utøya island attack in Norway, have been studied for years to understand how they cope with the impact. The goal of the study was to see how their negative thoughts and posttraumatic stress reactions changed over time. Th

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Feb 10 2025TECHNOLOGY

AI in the Operating Room: Assistants or Obstacles?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been making waves in healthcare, bringing fresh ideas to improve how doctors make decisions and care for patients. There's a tricky part of medicine called peripheral nerve surgery, where cases are complex and need careful planning. This study had an idea. W

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Feb 10 2025HEALTH

Gender Bias in Medical Records: The Language That Speaks Volumes

Doctors could be unintentionally showing their opinions on patients based on the language they use to describe them. Using a type of artificial intelligence called Natural Language Processing, it's possible to identify subtle biases. This AI looks at the language used in the medical records to figur

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Feb 10 2025POLITICS

Federal Data Mixup

General Services Administration(“GSA”) employee records were basically being used without permission. Is that possible? An IBM employee got a peculiar request to share on GSA's 14, 000 employees. The request to obtain human resources records for all employees of the GSA was odd. The GSA wasn't thin

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Feb 10 2025POLITICS

Doge vs. DEI: The Unusual Protectors

The interim U. S. attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin, recently reached out to Elon Musk to offer protection for Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) workers. He did this to stop any threats or law-breaking issues that might happen. Martin spoke to Musk on X (formerly Twitter) an

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Feb 10 2025ENVIRONMENT

Our Need for Nature

People have a deep urge to connect with nature. This is what the biophilia hypothesis is all about. It's the idea that humans have an innate love for the natural world. But is this really true? Lets think about that. Biophilia suggests that we are drawn to nature automatically, like a magnet. This

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Feb 10 2025POLITICS

Goodbye, careers: A fresh start or a sudden end? .

They were fired at all times. One in the middle of the night, another termintated with no goodbyes. A lot of federal workers were researched by text for emails. These employees were hit by the mass firings within a small window of time from random to sudden stops of work. A behavioral scientist tha

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Feb 10 2025POLITICS

Closures and Suspensions: The workforce units shut down unexpectedly.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has been abruptly shut down. The directive was sent from Vought. It said the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau must cease nearly all of its work. It was created all the way back in 2010 when overtures from Obama and a disenfranchised public sparked the

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