school

Study by Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine finds significant rodenticide contamination in red-tailed hawks – News – telegram.com

By Shelton Muro 3 weeks ago

GRAFTON – It has long been established that birds of prey have been ingesting poison from mice, rats and other small animals they catch, but the numbers may be on the increase, according to a study by Dr. Maureen Murray, a professor of wildlife medicine at Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine.

Murray has been studying the impacts of rodenticide poisoning on hawks, owls and other birds of prey for more than a decade. In 2011 she published a paper showing the presence of anticoagulant rodenticides in 86% of birds tested over five years at Tufts. The study helped shape EPA safety standards that resulted in certain products being removed from the counters of home improvement and garden supply stores. Regulations that went into effect in 2011 were intended to prevent direct sales of ARs to the general public, limiting sales to rodent control professionals to use as needed.

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UPMC, University Of Pittsburgh School Of Medicine Citing Widely-Available COVID-19 Treatment

By Shelton Muro 1 month ago

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine are citing evidence that there is a cheap and widely available option for some patients combatting COVID-19.

This study went so well, that the World Health Organization is recommending this drug be used worldwide.

They found people on a ventilator and oxygen should be given corticosteroids.

Researchers say it’s rare your able to find a drug where the evidence of the effectiveness in saving lives is so consistent.

It was the on trial in the country to test this drug.

Between March and June, the steroids trial was given to random adults in the ICU with Covid 19, this was done in 121 hospitals across 8 countries.

The trial found a 93% probability that the steroid would improve a patient’s outcome as opposed to not having the steroid.

The results looked to be consistent across age, race,

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Former mayor donates hospital buildings to be a school

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — A former mayor of Providence is donating part of a former hospital complex to the city to be used as a school building for kindergarten to 8th grade students, if voters approve additional bond funding in November.

Real estate developer and former mayor, Joe Paolino, is donating parts of the St. Joseph’s Hospital complex, which is no longer in use, to the city, WPRI-TV reported. The city will forgive property taxes that Paolino owes on the building and drop a related lawsuit, the broadcaster reported on Tuesday.

The donated hospital building needs an estimated $75 million investment in repairs and renovations, which would be part of an updated city and state plan to invest in Providence’s schools that the current mayor’s office announced Tuesday.

Voters approved $160 million in bonds to fund school repairs in 2018 and are being asked to approve another $140 million in

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Your income bracket may predict how likely you are to send your kids back to school this fall

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

Several factors, such as income, job flexibility and health concerns, influence a family's decision to send their children back to school this year. (Photo: Getty Images)
Several factors, such as income, job flexibility and health concerns, influence a family’s decision to send their children back to school this year. (Photo: Getty Images)

More than 30 percent of parents plan to keep their children at home if schools reopen in the fall, according to a new study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

For the study, involving 730 U.S. parents of school-age children (ages 5 to 17), researchers asked parents whether they planned to either opt for distance learning at home or send their kids to in-person school, if available, and looked at what factors influenced their decisions.

More than 30 percent of parents reported they will “probably or definitely” keep their child home if schools open for in-person instruction, while nearly 50 percent reported they would “probably or definitely” send their child to school this fall. Several factors influenced these decisions, from a family’s socioeconomic

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How to Succeed in Hybrid, Online Medical School Classes

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

Beginning your first year of medical school is daunting. Beginning your first year of med school in a pandemic, faced with varying degrees of remote learning, is even more daunting.

By and large, medical schools have made significant adjustments to their first-year curriculums to accommodate the specific challenges of social distancing in the classroom. Some schools have opted to go entirely online for first-year students. Others are employing a hybrid model with both online and in-person sessions.

Whether you are coming to med school right out of your undergraduate years with a semester of distance learning under your belt or returning to the classroom after time away, figuring out how to adapt to the demands of med school in an upside-down learning environment is crucial for success this fall. Here are some tips for first-year med students when adjusting to distance learning.

[Read: What a First-Year Medical School Student

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First Day Of School In NC Prompts Tech Challenges, COVID Concerns

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

NORTH CAROLINA — The first day of school for North Carolina students came and went Monday, but for many was a day fraught with online technical challenges and new COVID-19 fears.

Before lunch Monday, schools and families of students opting to begin classes remotely were confronted with the headache of a statewide crash of online platforms.

“We are aware of statewide problems with access to the state’s NC EdCloud platform,” Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, which opted for all classes to begin remote, said at the time of the outage. “This is limiting access to remote learning tools for CMS and other districts across the state.”

The NC EdCloud outage reportedly affected access to online platforms including PowerSchool, PowerTeacher, Canvas, SchoolNet, Clever and some parent/student portals.

“This is why you test software before you give it to users,” wrote one parent on CMS’ Facebook page. “Everything we have gotten has been so last

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Moms brace for school year juggling jobs, remote learning amid COVID-19 pandemic

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

Traci Wells was at a school board meeting when she found out the springtime balancing act between her job and helping her children with online schooling would stretch into the fall. 

“I was like, I cannot do six more months of this,” says Wells, a mother of four, who is director of education for the global health program at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. With her husband working as well, “I don’t know how we’re going to be on all the calls and get the work done when we have these responsibilities. It’s just really, really hard.”

When the coronavirus outbreak led schools to shut down in the spring, parents had to quickly rally, juggling their jobs with the added roles of teacher, tutor and occasional IT technician.

It was a stressful time, but one that many families presumed would be temporary, coming at the end of the school

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Educators feel trapped between bad options as the school year begins

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

As a nurse at two elementary schools, Michelle Lally of Rockford, Illinois, is used to looking after children’s health. And she’s not squeamish about being around sick students.

“On a good day before COVID, I’d get spit at, chewed on and bopped around by the kids all the time,” said Lally, 64.

But Lally is dreading the coming school year, as the school district is giving parents the option of full-time in-person learning for elementary school students and two days in class for older students. Among her fears: that class sizes will be too large to observe social distancing and that the rules will be too vague or difficult to enforce.

“Some days I get anxious and teary. Other days I’m all over the place,” she said. “I want to see the kids in person, but if there aren’t any guidelines in place, we shouldn’t go back. We aren’t prepared

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Parents brace for school year juggling jobs, remote learning amid COVID-19 pandemic

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

Traci Wells was at a school board meeting when she found out the springtime balancing act between her job and helping her children with online schooling would stretch into the fall. 

“I was like, I cannot do six more months of this,” says Wells, a mother of four, who is director of education for the global health program at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. With her husband working as well, “I don’t know how we’re going to be on all the calls and get the work done when we have these responsibilities. It’s just really, really hard.”

When the coronavirus outbreak led schools to shut down in the spring, parents had to quickly rally, juggling their jobs with the added roles of teacher, tutor and occasional IT technician.

It was a stressful time, but one that many families presumed would be temporary, coming at the end of the school

… Read More

Quarantine requirements may delay return to in-person school

By Shelton Muro 2 months ago

Shannon Silver had planned to take her family on a trip from her home in Connecticut to visit relatives in Ohio just before the start of the school year for her two children.

But she and her husband reversed course when people traveling from Ohio were added to a list of those who must quarantine for 14 days upon entering Connecticut. That requirement might have meant her 10-year-old son would miss the first day of sixth grade at St. Matthew School in Bristol.

“We weren’t going to do that, especially at the beginning of the school year,” Silver said. “Plus, he really didn’t want to miss the last two weeks of summer by having to quarantine.”

The family instead went to see other relatives in Colorado, which wasn’t on the list.

As states around the country require visitors from areas with high rates of coronavirus infections to quarantine upon arrival,

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