Category: News

When one thinks of the type of wildlife inhabiting sewers, animals like rats, snakes, opossums and raccoons often come to mind. Baby deer, or fawns, in contrast, typically aren’t found lurking in these underground pipes.

In the town of Wentzville, MO, however, a fawn is running free once again after being rescued from a storm sewer by a few brave firefighters.

According to a KMCB article, residents of the eastern Missouri town reported hearing a high-pitched wail at about 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday, June 17, and contacted the fire department.

Soon after, firefighters from the Wentzville Fire Protection District arrived at the Stone Meadow Subdivision off Highway Z, where they found the fawn trapped in the storm sewer on Jonathan Cody Drive.

After about 20 minutes, firefighters successfully freed the baby deer, who didn’t appear to be injured by its ordeal, said John Schneider, assistant chief for the Wentzville Fire Protection District. Firefighters gently brought the fawn up using a rope and their bare hands.

It’s unclear how the fawn had fallen 12 to 24 inches into the bottom of the storm sewer, Schneider said. It’s likely that the fawn could simply have fallen in accidentally, or that the area’s recent rainfall swept the animal into the hole.

Upon being freed from the storm sewer, the baby deer left the area on its own. Schneider added that the mother deer had been spotted near the area where her fawn had gotten trapped, and authorities hope the two are reunited soon.

“We are hoping they’ve been reunited,” he said.

Across the world, 3D printing technology has slowly made its way into new housing constructions. There’s a 3D-printed home located in Amsterdam; in the Chinese city of Suzhou, plans are underway to construct a development of 3D-printed mansions.

And now, this technology has finally reached the U.S. housing market in the form of a sprawling luxury estate, constructed entirely through 3D printing.

According to CNN, the 3D-printed Upstate New York estate will consist of a 2,400 square foot mansion, as well as a swimming pool, jacuzzi and car port. New York City architect Adam Kushner, in collaboration with 3D-printing pioneer Enrico Dini and his D-Shape firm, plan to begin excavation and construction soon.

While the swimming pool and jacuzzi are set for completion by the end of this year, 3D printing of the house itself will continue through the end of 2017.

Kushner stressed that the entire project’s realization depends on whether or not he and Dini can acquire a 3D printer large enough to take on such a massive project. Currently, the only printer that can handle this workload is located in Italy, where it was designed and built for Italian military use. Kushner and Dini will require military clearance before it can be shipped to the U.S.

“If I had another printer I’d send it there tomorrow, but unfortunately we don’t have and must wait,” Dini told CNN.

But once construction does start, the results will be incredible to witness. D-Shape uses a distinctive printing process that involves collecting sand, dust and gravel on site and mixing these materials with a magnesium-based binding agent. The resulting building blocks closely resemble marble and allow D-Shape to create unique sculptural forms that other printing systems cannot, CNN reports.

In March 2015, the U.S. housing marketing saw 618,000 new single-family homes begin construction. Who knows how many of these homes will be built using 3D printing technologies someday? According to Kushner, the 3D-printed housing industry is only getting started.

“Why? Because it democratizes construction and architecture and puts it into everyone’s hands, just like the camera phone made everyone a photographer,” he said. “Not everyone is good at it, but everyone can become one.”

New studies on sleep come out practically every day with different recommendations for all kinds of demographics, and now there is another to add to the list. A panel from the University of Washington says that for optimal health, adults need to sleep for seven hours every night.

However, researchers say that this figure isn’t counting functioning effectively for day-to-day activity. If you habitually slam back a couple cups of coffee in the morning before you can get going, you may need even more sleep — seven hours is just the bare minimum.

The study looked at over 5,300 articles concerning links between sleep and health for people aged 18 to 60. For young adults, those recovering from a sleep deficit, or those who are sick, the number jumps up to nine hours a night. If you’re healthy, however, that may be too much. In other words, it’s all a balancing act.

Looking at current estimates from other studies, most adults sleep six hours or less each night, making this study an important but difficult message to get out. In a world where being busy means that you’re successful and driven, this may be a message some take lightly.

Not only does sleep improve your effectiveness throughout the day, but it also cuts down on health risks. Those who sleep less than the recommended amount per night can fall victim to a host of other issues, including weight gain, depression, diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, and even higher risk of death. You may also get sick easier and more often due to a lower-functioning immune system. Your body needs sleep to be able to run all necessary functions.

Those who still do not believe that enough sleep is necessary can refer to another study done by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which outlines other risks, such as heart attacks and strokes. As it is, over 42 million Americans say they are disrupted during sleep due to pain or discomfort a few times each week or more. Both of these studies concluded that a lack of sleep makes those aches and pains worse, in addition to lowering your threshold for pain.

The bottom line here is: to stay healthy, you need to strike a balance with your sleep. Sleep enough, but not too much, and remember that there is no substitute for a good night’s rest.

The federal government has charged 243 people in what may be the largest case medical billing fraud in U.S. history, officials announced on June 18.

The 243 doctors, nurses and other medical professionals charged had participated in “Medicare fraud schemes involving approximately $712 million in false billings,” according to Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

A nationwide investigation by the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services’ Medicare Fraud Strike Force in 17 districts revealed the fraudulent billing, which is the largest the task force has seen in terms of number of people charged and the amount lost.

“This action represents the largest criminal health care fraud takedown in the history of the Department of Justice and it adds to an already remarkable record of enforcement,” Lynch told reporters in a statement.

Several healthcare providers were also suspended by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services after the sweep. Although some healthcare providers outsource billing, which can speed up accounts receivable by one to three days, it was the doctors and other medical personnel who were held accountable.

Of the arrests made, 73 were from South Florida, including the Miami area. In total, the tried to take more than $262,567,878 from Medicare and Medicaid funds.

Lynch said that the defendants include “doctors, patient recruiters, home healthcare providers, pharmacy owners and others.”

Many of the healthcare providers took advantage of Medicare Part D. The program is supposed to allow the elderly and disabled to get prescription drugs through pharmacies who are later reimbursed by private insurers through Medicare.

But several pharmacies were caught submitting false prescriptions, which potentially costs the United States billions of dollars each year.

Since the strike force was initiated, the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services have charged more than 2,300 defendants guilty of billing Medicare in excess of $7 billion.

The Justice Department has also relied on the federal False Claims Act in order to recoup more than $15.2 billion in Medicare losses since 2009.

Hardwood floors are one of the most coveted luxuries one can have in his or her home. No other flooring surface is quite as elegant, versatile and reliable as a hardwood floor can be. It’s no surprise that more than half — about 54% — of home buyers say they’re willing to spend a little more to get a hardwood floor in their home.

But what if your brand new hardwood floor is secretly making you sick?

Sadly, it’s not entirely out of the realm of possibility. Some hardwood floors are produced with high levels of formaldehyde, which can be released into the air over time. Inhaling this toxin has been linked with health conditions like nose and throat cancer, difficulty breathing, coughing, sore throat and impaired respiratory function.

For one Colorado Springs, CO, couple, this nightmare became reality when their $6,000 hardwood floor gave them both respiratory illnesses, forcing them to rip out their beloved floor.

According to a June 10 KOAA article, Susan Bolduc and her husband are now involved in a class action lawsuit against Lumber Liquidators, the company that sold the Bolducs their formaldehyde-soaked floor. Lumber Liquidators is accused of selling hardwood floors manufactured in China that contained levels of formaldehyde that exceeded the EPA’s recommended level of .10 parts per million.

In fact, when Bolduc hired an independent inspection company to inspect her hardwood floors, the inspector found formaldehyde levels three to five times what the EPA recommends, even though Lumber Liquidators assured the couple that their floors were safe.

“I believe there are hundreds or thousands of people receiving letters from Lumber Liquidators saying their flooring is safe and if that’s not accurate people need to know,” she said.

To avoid unknowingly installing a formaldehyde-filled hardwood floor, Bill Magavern, policy director at the Coalition for Clean Air, recommends that homeowners steer clear of composite wood products like medium-density fiberboard, particle fiberboard and hardwood plywood. Because China seems to be the only source of this illegal flooring, it’s best to avoid floors made in this country, as well.

There’s a reason why 80-90% of the fence applications seen by U.S. zoning committees are for privacy fences. Some neighborhoods are just a little too much to handle. Zany neighbors, though, can’t always be stopped by fences, as one homeowner in Grand Rapids, Michigan recently discovered.

At the end of May, an elderly woman crashed her car through a fence separating a CVS Pharmacy and a home’s backyard. The woman was in CVS’s drive-thru when she put her car in reverse, hit the gas, and sped through the fence and into the homeowner’s pool.

Fortunately, the pool had no water in it at the time, and the elderly woman did not appear to be seriously hurt. According to Grand Rapids Police Officer Scott Klawon, the woman was sent to an area hospital with “not obvious” injuries.

Police at the scene requested a crane to get the elderly woman’s car out of the empty pool.

This sort of situation is not all that uncommon. At the beginning of June, a teenage, California-driver fell asleep at the wheel after studying for hours, sending his pickup truck careening through a fence, and crashing alongside a swimming pool. The teenager miraculously evaded death, as one of the fence’s two-by-fours speared the windshield, continued on through the steering wheel, and somehow missed impaling the driver.

“I guess in the rolling motion when the young man rolled off the roadway, it must have tossed him to the side and that board just missed his torso,” said Monica Zech of the City of El Cajon Heartland Fire and Rescue.

Although these incident were unfortunate, things could have been much worse. Jeremy McCracken, a 22-year-old, New Zealand man, died after his car crashed through a fence and down a bank, stopping just meters away from a home. Police did not suspect drugs or alcohol were a contributing factor in the crash.

“I guess anything is possible at the end of the day,” said Jefrey Banks, the son of Grand Rapids-homeowner whose fence bordered the CVS. “You don’t expect anything like this.”

Most people choose to change their hairstyles every once in a while as a way to switch up their style. In fact, one study has found that 44% of women decide to change their hairstyle because they’re bored, while another 61% do so because they want a change.

But despite being teased for looking like a girl, one 8-year-old boy grew out his hair for two years for a completely different reason: to donate this hair to children who had lost theirs.

According to Time, second grader Christian McPhilamy, of Melbourne, FL, cut the hair he’d been growing and produced four 10-inch-long ponytails. On May 20, he sent his locks to Children With Hair Loss, a Michigan-based nonprofit foundation that gives hair replacements and wigs to children at no cost.

“Christian has such a huge heart,” Christian’s mom, Deeanna Thomas, said.  “I don’t even know if there are words to describe how proud I am of him.”

In a Facebook post, Thomas explained that McPhilamy endured his fair share of teasing and even bullying for choosing to grow out his hair, “from his peers calling him a girl to even coaches and family friends telling him he should cut it or offering him money to.”

But what inspired McPhilamy to think of donating his hair in the first place?

It all started one evening two years ago, when Thomas and her son were browsing the Internet to find things that interested him. While Christian usually looked up information about animals, that night he stumbled across an ad from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital for hair donations.

After listening to Thomas’ explanation that cancer patients often accept hair donations to conceal their hair loss, Christian’s mind was made up — and no one could change his mind, Mashable reported.

“Usually when Christian sets his mind to something, he pretty much goes with it,” Thomas said. “He doesn’t let anything falter his goals. I was pretty confident that he was actually going to follow through with it.”

According to a survey conducted this month for Fortune, the future of the diet industry is looking a little lean.

The survey, carried out by SurveyMonkey, found that although 77% of Americans say they’re actively trying to eat healthier, only 19% say that they’re “on a diet.” That fits with data from research group NPD, showing that the number of women who say they’re dieting has dropped a full 13 percentage points in the past 20 years.

Weight Watchers has seen sales decline for the past two years and is projecting another weak year for 2015. Nutrisystem, which had skyrocketing revenue only a few years ago, is bringing in 21% less than it was in 2011. Jenny Craig and Medifast haven’t done much better.

Even in the grocery store, frozen diet meals aren’t selling well. Sales of Weight Watchers dinners have dropped by 17% in the past five years; that figure is 11% for the Healthy Choice line and around 25% for Lean Cuisine. There’s little indication things will be turning around, either, with market research firm Euromonitor predicting the category as a whole will dip another 8% in the coming five years.

Weight Loss in America
Does that mean either that Americans don’t need to lose weight — or that they have given up trying?

No, Fortune cautioned when reporting its results. Roughly a third of American adults are obese. But in general, people seem to be choosing fresher foods over “diet” options and looking at holistic health options that balance calorie-counting with exercise.

The American weight-loss industry — still a $64 billion market as of last year — is expanding in areas such as health clubs.

Mandates put in place by the Affordable Care Act have also helped to shift many weight-loss services away from the commercial world and into the medical one, as plans are required to cover some kinds of plans supervised by nurses and doctors.

A More Diet-Savvy World?
But, as one recent incident so painfully illustrated, there are still plenty of people looking for the next so-called miracle diet.

Last week, a journalist revealed that a headline-grabbing study claiming to demonstrate that chocolate can help people to lose weight was simply an elaborate hoax designed to underscore problems in how the media vets scientific information before reporting it.

So how can consumers make smart decisions about diets when they apparently can’t trust so many of the sources reporting on them? The bottom line is that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Making simple substitutions (a dip made with Greek yogurt, for example, has 67% fewer calories and 88% less fat than most sour cream-based dips) is always a good step. But the bottom line is fresh foods, moderate calorie counts and exercise are the most effective combination for the vast majority of people looking to lose weight.

Creating demand is one of the best business strategies out there. About 22 million Americans visit their local chiropractors for treatment each year, 35% of whom seek out treatment for back pain caused by accidents, muscle strains, sports injuries or other situations; but even so, it can be tough for Doctors of Chiropractic (DCs) to generate demand. After all, any attempt to do so would likely result in assault and battery charges.

Unless you’re as clever as Matthew Stammerjohan.

This past May, the Californian chiropractor participated in the Calaveras County Fair Destruction Derby after winning the chance to do so through a Friends of the Calaveras County Fair drawing.

“It was brutal,” said Stammerjohan. “They [the other drivers] took me out in the first heat.”

Fortunately, Stammerjohan’s pit crew got him back in the game, where he continued to spread destruction and mayhem. Eventually, he was one of the last two standing, putting him in the finals.

Naturally, Stammerjohan did not enter the “brutal” destruction derby to hurt people and generate new business; auto accident injuries are quite serious. Even the victims of the most minor fender bender should probably see a chiropractor. Injuries may even occur at speeds less than five miles per hour. Stammerjohan merely wanted the free publicity that came with participating.

Although it’s hard to believe that such minor accidents can be injurious, research on low speed rear impact tests show that 29% of people developed the symptoms of whiplash at speeds of just 2.5 miles per hour. What’s more, a rear end collision of just 10 miles per hour can produce up to nine Gs of force on a victim’s neck.

Whiplash is also far more serious than people make it out to be. Though it takes a couple days to begin to affect the victim, whiplash will eventually cause pain and stiffness in the neck, a decreased range of motion, pain when shaking or nodding the head, headaches, dizziness, nausea, and/or blurred vision.

While accidents do happen, they’re not as often as most might think. As one study from 2005 concludes, “These data suggest that derby drivers sustain less chronic neck pain after multiple car collision events than might otherwise be expected.”

Ultimately, Stammerjohan held his own in the finals, but says that “I let the big boys battle it out.”

In one of the more incredible stories surrounding this year’s graduating class, a man who spent 10 years behind bars under a wrongful conviction recently earned his law degree from Loyola University Chicago.

According to a May 16 CBS Chicago article, Jarrett Adams, 34, defied all odds by proving his innocence and making it this far — it’s exceedingly rare for former inmates to earn degrees, much less make it through seven years of college and graduate school.

“I couldn’t have imagined this day,” Adams, who entered prison as a teenager, said.

His professors at Loyola have said his post-grad future looks just as impressive.

“I can’t say that if that had happened to me I’d have the same outlook on life that Jarrett does, so it must be something in the core of his being that I would love to be able to bottle,” Loyola Prof. Michael Kaufman said.

At age 17, Adams, a Wisconsin native, was convicted of rape and sentenced to 28 years in prison. Throughout his trial and sentencing, he maintained his innocence and stressed that witnesses who could have cleared him were never called upon to testify.

After spending a decade behind bars, his cellmate motivated him to find a way out of his wrongful conviction.

“He was like, ‘Sit down. I’m in here for the rest of my life for something I did do. You are here for some absolute bull-crap with no evidence, and you’re not going to fight to get out.’ And so it really woke me up,” Adams explained.

He then began to study the law on his own in prison, writing letters to the Wisconsin Innocence Project. With the organization’s help, his conviction was overturned.

Wrongful convictions continue to be a problem plaguing much of the country. In an average year, 10,000 U.S. citizens are wrongfully convicted of serious crimes.

Recently, a federal investigation into wrongful convictions revealed that botched forensics play a major role in wrongfully convicting the accused. The FBI stated that experts gave inaccurate, erroneous hair analysis in more than 250 trials before 2000, and that is just a small chunk of the mishandled forensic evidence used to determine people’s innocence or guilt.

Even when exonerated from a wrongful conviction, former inmates have a difficult time adjusting back into society. Two out of three exonerated individuals are not financially independent; one in four has post-traumatic stress disorder. Formerly incarcerated people face chronic underemployment and have difficulty getting social assistance.

With his new degree, Adams plans to help those who are in the same position he was — wrongfully accused of a crime they didn’t commit. He told CBS Chicago he especially hopes to work with low-income defendants.