News

Racial and ethnic disparities in maternal mortality—deaths related to pregnancy or childbirth—in the United States may be larger than previously reported, suggests a study funded by the National Institutes of Health. By re-examining information on death certificates from 2016 and 2017, researchers found that the maternal mortality rate among non-Hispanic Black women was 3.5 times higher than among non-Hispanic white women. Previously, standard analyses had indicated a 2.5-times-higher death rate for Black women.

The University of Maryland (UMD) recently received $1.5 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to explore copper’s role in your body’s adaptive response to the cold, which is likely connected to your metabolism and fat burning abilities. Byung-Eun Kim, associate professor in the Department of Animal and Avian Sciences at UMD and lead investigator on this grant, studies the importance of copper and copper transport routes for the health of humans and animals alike.

While images of massive walls of fire in the Western United States are dominating the news during yet another summer, the leading cause of property destruction is vastly smaller: wind-blown, quarter-size embers called “firebrands” that charge miles ahead of wildfires, collect on roofs or nest in eaves, and under the right conditions, ignite.