If you are in a business where costs are both fixed and high, but your number of customers is slashed due to government regulations and public concern about leaving the house, it may not be worthwhile to continue. In more heavy-handed states like California, thousands of restaurants went out of business. In some places, so did doctors.

In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors faced reduced revenue, staff who stopped wanting to work, and decreased morale, according to an analysis of billing claims data. The work found that nearly twice as many family physicians stopped work in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to previous years.

Land mammals such as horses experience ‘pulses’ in their blood when galloping, where blood pressures inside the body go up and down on every stride. In all mammals, average blood pressure is higher in arteries, or the blood exiting the heart, than in veins. This difference in pressure drives the blood flow in the body, including through the brain. Locomotion can forcefully move blood, causing spikes in pressure, or ‘pulses’ to the brain.

The difference in pressure between the blood entering and exiting the brain for these pulses can cause damage. Long-term damage of this kind can lead to dementia in human beings while horses deal with the pulses by breathing in and out.

A recent survey found that even if the cost was 10X as much (though still a small amount), users would pay more if they liked the feel of a smartphone cover. This means designers might benefit more factoring that into product design.

The caveat; this was a small number of students and Hiroshima University staff so not representative even of Japan. Still, it showed willingness to pay more when the reference smartphone cover price was 100 yen and 1000 yen. The covers were differentiated by surface smoothness, height, slipperiness, dampness, granularity, stickiness, and dryness.

What correlation giveth, correlation can taketh away. Statins, taken by some 40 million Americans, may not be helping a lot of them.

Statins are used to lower cholesterol levels and reduce their risk of heart disease and stroke. They are endorsed by medical groups and the American Heart Association, but many won't benefit from these drugs based on new research. Basically, healthy people with high cholesterol aren't gaining anything.

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, from school closures to lockdowns, were important for health officials and implemented even after factoring in concerns about long-term psychological effects.

If results from 2015-2020 surveys are an indication, depression cases may go up sharply in future data. In 2020, past 12‒month depression was prevalent among nearly 20 percent of adolescents and young adults, and almost 10 percent of Americans.  

'Keeping time' is easy for humans, but not all can keep time equally. Some great drummers, and even more guitarists, use a device like a metronome to keep them on a precise beat, while others seem to do it effortlessly.

A new study finds human capacity to move in synchrony with a musical beat may be partially coded in the human genome.