In this Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 photo, Sylvester Stallone, left, who played Rocky Balboa in the 1976 film "Rocky," poses with Andy Karl, who will play Rocky Balboa in the upcoming Broadway musical "Rocky," in New York. (Photo by Dan Hallman/Invision/AP)
In this Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 photo, Sylvester Stallone, left, who played Rocky Balboa in the 1976 film "Rocky," poses with Andy Karl, who will play Rocky Balboa in the upcoming Broadway musical "Rocky," in New York. (Photo by Dan Hallman/Invision/AP)
In this Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 photo, Sylvester Stallone, left, who played Rocky Balboa in the 1976 film "Rocky," poses with Margo Seibert, center, who will be playing the role of Adrian, and Andy Karl, who will play Rocky Balboa in the upcoming Broadway musical "Rocky," in New York. (Photo by Dan Hallman/Invision/AP)
In this Wednesday, Oct. 16, 2013 photo, Sylvester Stallone, left, who played Rocky Balboa in the 1976 film "Rocky," poses with Andy Karl, who will play Rocky Balboa in the upcoming Broadway musical "Rocky," in New York. (Photo by Dan Hallman/Invision/AP)
NEW YORK (AP) — Picking the guy who will play Rocky Balboa onstage was no easy task. Just ask Sylvester Stallone, who helped cast Broadway veteran Andy Karl.
"Having gone through literally hundreds, maybe thousands, of prospects, Andy was one of our first choices and he just had it," Stallone said last month during a sit-down with the actor who will be playing his most famous character.
"He has what it takes — there's no arrogance, there's a natural humility about him, and that's what is important," Stallone said.
"No matter how threatening he may look, you're going to like him, it just comes through. And that's not so easy to find. Tough guys are a dime a dozen; a sensitive tough guy, pretty rare."
The musical "Rocky" will open on Broadway at the Winter Garden Theatre in March 2014. Based on the Oscar-winning 1976 film by Stallone, the musical features a score by "Ragtime" veterans Stephen Flaherty and Lynn Ahrens, and a story by Thomas Meehan, who wrote "The Producers" and "Hairspray."
Karl's Broadway credits include "The Mystery of Edwin Drood," ''Jersey Boys," ''9 to 5," ''Legally Blonde," ''The Wedding Singer" and "Saturday Night Fever." Margo Seibert, making her Broadway debut, will star as Adrian, Balboa's love interest.
The musical stays close to the film, which charted the rise and romance of amateur boxer and debt collector Rocky Balboa, who gets his shot against undefeated heavyweight champion Apollo Creed.
The film made famous the image of Balboa running up the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the quote "Yo, Adrian!" The trumpet-laden funky theme "Gonna Fly Now" and the anthem "Eye of the Tiger" will be in the Broadway version.
The director is Alex Timbers, who directed Broadway's "The Pee-wee Herman Show" and directed and wrote the book for "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson." The boxing choreography is being done by Steven Hoggett, who choreographed "American Idiot," ''Peter and the Starcatcher" and "Once."
NEW YORK (AP) — October, with its history of big crashes on Wall Street, didn't scare off investors this time. To the contrary, the stock market seemed unstoppable.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index closed at a record high seven times and ended the month up 4.5 percent. The market climbed even after October began with the 16-day government shutdown and the threat of a potentially calamitous U.S. default.
"The market didn't waver in the face of the shutdown," said Anton Bayer, CEO of Up Capital Management, an investment adviser. "That was huge."
After being rattled by a series of down-to-the-wire budget battles in recent years, investors have become inured to the ways of Washington lawmakers. Instead of selling stocks, they kept their focus on what they say really matters: the Federal Reserve.
The central bank is buying $85 billion of bonds every month and keeping its benchmark short-term interest rate near zero to promote economic growth. The Fed stimulus has helped generate a stock market rally that has been going on since March 2009.
With October's gains, the S&P 500 is now up 23.2 percent for the year and is on track for its best year since 2009. The Dow Jones industrial average is 18.6 percent higher, and the Nasdaq composite index is up 29.8 percent.
The S&P 500 has climbed 160 percent since bottoming out at 676.53 in March 2009 during the Great Recession.
Some analysts say the precipitous rise in stocks may now make the market vulnerable to a drop.
"Because stocks have gone up so much, people will get nervous about another big sell-off at some stage," said David Kelly, chief global strategist at JPMorgan funds.
Some investors will be relieved to see October behind them. The Stock Trader's Almanac refers to October as "the jinx month" because of its fraught history.
The Dow lost 40 points on Oct. 28, 1929, a day that became known as Black Monday and heralded the start of the Depression. Almost 60 years later, on Oct. 19, 1987, the Dow suffered its biggest percentage loss, plunging nearly 23 percent in the second Black Monday. The index also plummeted 13 percent on Oct. 27, 1997.
There was no such drama on Wall Street on Thursday. Stocks were mostly flat as investors took in disappointing corporate earnings.
The S&P 500 slipped 6.77 points, or 0.4 percent, to 1,756.54. The Dow dropped 73.01 points, or 0.5 percent, to 15,545. The Nasdaq composite fell 10.91 points, or 0.3 percent, to 3,919.71.
Avon slumped $4.90, or 21.9 percent, to $17.50 after the beauty products company reported a third-quarter loss, reflecting lower sales and China-related charges. The company also said the Securities and Exchange Commission is proposing a much larger penalty than it expected to settle bribery allegations.
Visa fell $7.15, or 3.5 percent, to $196.67. Its quarterly profits fell 28 percent as it set aside money for taxes. Visa also expects a slow recovery for the economy.
Overall, company earnings are beating the expectations of Wall Street analysts and lifting stock prices. Companies are benefiting from low borrowing costs and stable labor expenses, which are enabling them to boost earnings even as sales remain slack.
Earnings for companies in the S&P 500 are expected to grow 5.3 percent in the third quarter, according to data from S&P Capital IQ. That compares with 4.9 percent in the second quarter, and 2.4 percent in the same period a year ago.
The stock market is likely to keep climbing as long as the central bank keeps up its stimulus, said Up Capital's Bayer. But stocks could fall as much as 20 percent when the Fed starts to cut back on its bond-buying program, he said.
Contact: David Cameron david_cameron@hms.harvard.edu 617-432-0441 Harvard Medical School
Patterns found in cancer's chaos illuminate tumor evolution
For more than 100 years, researchers have been unable to explain why cancer cells contain abnormal numbers of chromosomes, a phenomenon known as aneuploidy. Many believed aneuploidy was simply a random byproduct of cancer.
Now, a team at Harvard Medical School has devised a way to understand patterns of aneuploidy in tumors and predict which genes in the affected chromosomes are likely to be cancer suppressors or promoters. They propose that aneuploidy is a driver of cancer rather than a result of it.
The study, to be published online in Cell on Oct. 31, offers a new theory of cancer development and could open the door for new treatment targets.
"If you look at a cancer cell, it looks like an unholy mess with gene deletions and amplifications, chromosome gains and losses, like someone threw a stick of dynamite into the cell. It seems random, but actually previous work has shown that there is a pattern to which chromosomes and chromosome arms are alteredand that means we can understand that pattern and how or if it drives cancer," said senior author Stephen Elledge, Gregor Mendel professor of Genetics and of Medicine at HMS and professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
"What we have done is to propose a new theory about how this works and then prove it using mathematical analysis," he said.
Mining for answers
For decades since the "oncogene revolution," cancer research has focused on mutationschanges in the DNA code that abnormally activate genes that promote cancer, called oncogenes, or deactivate genes that suppress cancer. The role of aneuploidyin which entire chromosomes or chromosome arms are added or deletedhas remained largely unstudied.
Elledge and his team, including research fellow and first author Teresa Davoli, suspected that aneuploidy has a significant role to play in cancer because missing or extra chromosomes likely affect genes involved in tumor-related processes such as cell division and DNA repair.
To test their hypothesis, the researchers developed a computer program called TUSON (Tumor Suppressor and Oncogene) Explorer together with Wei Xu and Peter Park at HMS and Brigham and Women's. The program analyzed genome sequence data from more than 8,200 pairs of cancerous and normal tissue samples in three preexisting databases.
They generated a list of suspected oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes based on their mutation patternsand found many more potential cancer drivers than anticipated. Then they ranked the suspects by how powerful an effect their deletion or duplication was likely to have on cancer development.
Next, the team looked at where the suspects normally appear in chromosomes.
They discovered that the number of tumor suppressor genes or oncogenes in a chromosome correlated with how often the whole chromosome or part of the chromosome was deleted or duplicated in cancers. Where there were concentrations of tumor suppressor genes alongside fewer oncogenes and fewer genes essential to survival, there was more chromosome deletion. Conversely, concentrations of oncogenes and fewer tumor suppressors coincided with more chromosome duplication.
When the team factored in gene potency, the correlations got even stronger. A cluster of highly potent tumor suppressors was more likely to mean chromosome deletion than a cluster of weak suppressors.
Number matters
Since 1971, the standard tumor suppressor model has held that cancer is caused by a "two-hit" cascade in which first one copy and then the second copy of a gene becomes mutated. Elledge argues that simply losing or gaining one copy of a gene through aneuploidy can influence tumor growth as well.
"The loss or gain of multiple cancer driver genes that individually have low potency can add up to have big effects," he said.
"It's a terrific study," said Angelika Amon, a professor of biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the project. "These novel algorithms of identifying tumor suppressors and oncogenes nicely provide an explanation of how aneuploidies evolve in cancer cells, and the realization that subtle changes in the activity of many different genes at the same time can contribute to tumorigenesis is an exciting and intriguing hypothesis."
These findings also may have answered a long-standing question about whether aneuploidy is a cause or effect of cancer, leaving researchers free to pursue the question of how.
"Aneuploidy is driving cancer, not simply a consequence of it," said Elledge. "Other things also matter, such as gene mutations, rearrangements and changes in expression. We don't know what the weighting is, but now we should be able to figure it out."
Going forward, Elledge and Davoli plan to gather experimental evidence to support their mathematical findings. That will include validating some of the new predicted tumor suppressors and oncogenes as well as "making some deletions and amplifications and seeing if they have the properties we think they do," said Elledge.
###
The research was supported by a Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program Innovator Award, National Institutes of Health grant U54LM008748 and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Written by Stephanie Dutchen
Harvard Medical School has more than 7,500 full-time faculty working in 11 academic departments located at the School's Boston campus or in one of 47 hospital-based clinical departments at 16 Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes. Those affiliates include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Boston Children's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Hebrew Senior Life, Joslin Diabetes Center, Judge Baker Children's Center, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and VA Boston Healthcare System.
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Study offers new theory of cancer development
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: David Cameron david_cameron@hms.harvard.edu 617-432-0441 Harvard Medical School
Patterns found in cancer's chaos illuminate tumor evolution
For more than 100 years, researchers have been unable to explain why cancer cells contain abnormal numbers of chromosomes, a phenomenon known as aneuploidy. Many believed aneuploidy was simply a random byproduct of cancer.
Now, a team at Harvard Medical School has devised a way to understand patterns of aneuploidy in tumors and predict which genes in the affected chromosomes are likely to be cancer suppressors or promoters. They propose that aneuploidy is a driver of cancer rather than a result of it.
The study, to be published online in Cell on Oct. 31, offers a new theory of cancer development and could open the door for new treatment targets.
"If you look at a cancer cell, it looks like an unholy mess with gene deletions and amplifications, chromosome gains and losses, like someone threw a stick of dynamite into the cell. It seems random, but actually previous work has shown that there is a pattern to which chromosomes and chromosome arms are alteredand that means we can understand that pattern and how or if it drives cancer," said senior author Stephen Elledge, Gregor Mendel professor of Genetics and of Medicine at HMS and professor of medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital.
"What we have done is to propose a new theory about how this works and then prove it using mathematical analysis," he said.
Mining for answers
For decades since the "oncogene revolution," cancer research has focused on mutationschanges in the DNA code that abnormally activate genes that promote cancer, called oncogenes, or deactivate genes that suppress cancer. The role of aneuploidyin which entire chromosomes or chromosome arms are added or deletedhas remained largely unstudied.
Elledge and his team, including research fellow and first author Teresa Davoli, suspected that aneuploidy has a significant role to play in cancer because missing or extra chromosomes likely affect genes involved in tumor-related processes such as cell division and DNA repair.
To test their hypothesis, the researchers developed a computer program called TUSON (Tumor Suppressor and Oncogene) Explorer together with Wei Xu and Peter Park at HMS and Brigham and Women's. The program analyzed genome sequence data from more than 8,200 pairs of cancerous and normal tissue samples in three preexisting databases.
They generated a list of suspected oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes based on their mutation patternsand found many more potential cancer drivers than anticipated. Then they ranked the suspects by how powerful an effect their deletion or duplication was likely to have on cancer development.
Next, the team looked at where the suspects normally appear in chromosomes.
They discovered that the number of tumor suppressor genes or oncogenes in a chromosome correlated with how often the whole chromosome or part of the chromosome was deleted or duplicated in cancers. Where there were concentrations of tumor suppressor genes alongside fewer oncogenes and fewer genes essential to survival, there was more chromosome deletion. Conversely, concentrations of oncogenes and fewer tumor suppressors coincided with more chromosome duplication.
When the team factored in gene potency, the correlations got even stronger. A cluster of highly potent tumor suppressors was more likely to mean chromosome deletion than a cluster of weak suppressors.
Number matters
Since 1971, the standard tumor suppressor model has held that cancer is caused by a "two-hit" cascade in which first one copy and then the second copy of a gene becomes mutated. Elledge argues that simply losing or gaining one copy of a gene through aneuploidy can influence tumor growth as well.
"The loss or gain of multiple cancer driver genes that individually have low potency can add up to have big effects," he said.
"It's a terrific study," said Angelika Amon, a professor of biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the project. "These novel algorithms of identifying tumor suppressors and oncogenes nicely provide an explanation of how aneuploidies evolve in cancer cells, and the realization that subtle changes in the activity of many different genes at the same time can contribute to tumorigenesis is an exciting and intriguing hypothesis."
These findings also may have answered a long-standing question about whether aneuploidy is a cause or effect of cancer, leaving researchers free to pursue the question of how.
"Aneuploidy is driving cancer, not simply a consequence of it," said Elledge. "Other things also matter, such as gene mutations, rearrangements and changes in expression. We don't know what the weighting is, but now we should be able to figure it out."
Going forward, Elledge and Davoli plan to gather experimental evidence to support their mathematical findings. That will include validating some of the new predicted tumor suppressors and oncogenes as well as "making some deletions and amplifications and seeing if they have the properties we think they do," said Elledge.
###
The research was supported by a Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program Innovator Award, National Institutes of Health grant U54LM008748 and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Written by Stephanie Dutchen
Harvard Medical School has more than 7,500 full-time faculty working in 11 academic departments located at the School's Boston campus or in one of 47 hospital-based clinical departments at 16 Harvard-affiliated teaching hospitals and research institutes. Those affiliates include Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Cambridge Health Alliance, Boston Children's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Hebrew Senior Life, Joslin Diabetes Center, Judge Baker Children's Center, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital, Mount Auburn Hospital, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital and VA Boston Healthcare System.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
"Okay Google." Those Touchless Controls aren't just for the Moto X anymore -- they're now part and parcel of the Nexus 5. With today's unveiling of Google's (terribly leaked) Nexus 5, we're getting a first look at Android 4.4 KitKat on the handset, and that OS update comes with some significant ...
The new version of Android is finally here, and its biggest feature is a new stage for an old favorite. Google Now is getting more limelight than ever, and that's fantastic. But even better, even folks with older handsets will (theoretically) be able to get in on the fun.
Scientists capture most detailed picture yet of key AIDS protein
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Mika Ono mikaono@scripps.edu 858-784-2052 Scripps Research Institute
The finding represents a scientific feat as well as progress toward an HIV vaccine
LA JOLLA, CAOctober 31, 2013Collaborating scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Weill Cornell Medical College have determined the first atomic-level structure of the tripartite HIV envelope proteinlong considered one of the most difficult targets in structural biology and of great value for medical science.
The new findings provide the most detailed picture yet of the AIDS-causing viruss complex envelope, including sites that future vaccines will try to mimic to elicit a protective immune response.
Most of the prior structural studies of this envelope complex focused on individual subunits; but weve needed the structure of the full complex to properly define the sites of vulnerability that could be targeted, for example with a vaccine, said Ian A. Wilson, the Hansen Professor of Structural Biology at TSRI, and a senior author of the new research with biologists Andrew Ward and Bridget Carragher of TSRI and John Moore of Weill Cornell.
The findings are published in two papers in Science Express, the early online edition of the journal Science, on October 31, 2013.
A Difficult Target
HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, currently infects about 34 million people globally, 10 percent of whom are children, according to World Health Organization estimates. Although antiviral drugs are now used to manage many HIV infections, especially in developed countries, scientists have long sought a vaccine that can prevent new infections and perhaps ultimately eradicate the virus from the human population.
However, none of the HIV vaccines tested so far has come close to providing adequate protection. This failure is due largely to the challenges posed by HIVs envelope protein, known to virologists as Env.
Envs structure is so complex and delicate that scientists have had great difficulty obtaining the protein in a form that is suitable for the atomic-resolution imaging necessary to understand it.
It tends to fall apart, for example, even when its on the surface of the virus, so to study it we have to engineer it to be more stable, said Ward, who is an assistant professor in TSRIs Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology.
Illuminating Infection
In the current work the Weill Cornell-TSRI team was able to engineer a version of the Env trimer (three-component structure) that has the stability and other properties needed for atomic-resolution imaging, yet retains virtually all the structures found on native Env.
Using cutting-edge imaging methods, electron microscopy (spearheaded by graduate student Dmitry Lyumkis) and X-ray crystallography (led by Jean-Philippe Julien, a senior research associate in the Wilson lab), the team was then able to look at the new Env trimer. The X-ray crystallography study was the first ever of an Env trimer, and both methods resolved the trimer structure to a finer level of detail than has been reported before.
The data illuminated the complex process by which the Env trimer assembles and later undergoes radical shape changes during infection and clarified how it compares to envelope proteins on other dangerous viruses, such as flu and Ebola.
It has been a privilege for us to work with the Scripps team on this project, said Moore on behalf of the Weill Cornell group. Now we all need to harness this new knowledge to design and test next-generation trimers and see if we can induce the broadly active neutralizing antibodies an effective vaccine is going to need.
###
Other contributors to the studies, Cryo-EM structure of a fully glycosylated soluble cleaved HIV-1 envelope trimer, and Crystal structure of a soluble cleaved HIV-1 envelope trimer, included TSRIs Natalia de Val, Devin Sok, Robyn L. Stanfield and Marc C. Deller; and Weill Medical Colleges Rogier W. Sanders (also at Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam), Albert Cupo and Per-Johan Klasse. In addition to Wilson, Ward and Carragher, senior participants at TSRI included Clinton S. Potter and Dennis Burton.
The research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (HIVRAD P01 AI82362, CHAVI-ID UM1 AI100663, R01 AI36082, R01 AI084817, R37 AI36082, R01 AI33292), the US NIH NIGMS Biomedical Research Technology Program (GM103310) and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative Neutralizing Antibody Consortium and Center.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Scientists capture most detailed picture yet of key AIDS protein
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Mika Ono mikaono@scripps.edu 858-784-2052 Scripps Research Institute
The finding represents a scientific feat as well as progress toward an HIV vaccine
LA JOLLA, CAOctober 31, 2013Collaborating scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Weill Cornell Medical College have determined the first atomic-level structure of the tripartite HIV envelope proteinlong considered one of the most difficult targets in structural biology and of great value for medical science.
The new findings provide the most detailed picture yet of the AIDS-causing viruss complex envelope, including sites that future vaccines will try to mimic to elicit a protective immune response.
Most of the prior structural studies of this envelope complex focused on individual subunits; but weve needed the structure of the full complex to properly define the sites of vulnerability that could be targeted, for example with a vaccine, said Ian A. Wilson, the Hansen Professor of Structural Biology at TSRI, and a senior author of the new research with biologists Andrew Ward and Bridget Carragher of TSRI and John Moore of Weill Cornell.
The findings are published in two papers in Science Express, the early online edition of the journal Science, on October 31, 2013.
A Difficult Target
HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, currently infects about 34 million people globally, 10 percent of whom are children, according to World Health Organization estimates. Although antiviral drugs are now used to manage many HIV infections, especially in developed countries, scientists have long sought a vaccine that can prevent new infections and perhaps ultimately eradicate the virus from the human population.
However, none of the HIV vaccines tested so far has come close to providing adequate protection. This failure is due largely to the challenges posed by HIVs envelope protein, known to virologists as Env.
Envs structure is so complex and delicate that scientists have had great difficulty obtaining the protein in a form that is suitable for the atomic-resolution imaging necessary to understand it.
It tends to fall apart, for example, even when its on the surface of the virus, so to study it we have to engineer it to be more stable, said Ward, who is an assistant professor in TSRIs Department of Integrative Structural and Computational Biology.
Illuminating Infection
In the current work the Weill Cornell-TSRI team was able to engineer a version of the Env trimer (three-component structure) that has the stability and other properties needed for atomic-resolution imaging, yet retains virtually all the structures found on native Env.
Using cutting-edge imaging methods, electron microscopy (spearheaded by graduate student Dmitry Lyumkis) and X-ray crystallography (led by Jean-Philippe Julien, a senior research associate in the Wilson lab), the team was then able to look at the new Env trimer. The X-ray crystallography study was the first ever of an Env trimer, and both methods resolved the trimer structure to a finer level of detail than has been reported before.
The data illuminated the complex process by which the Env trimer assembles and later undergoes radical shape changes during infection and clarified how it compares to envelope proteins on other dangerous viruses, such as flu and Ebola.
It has been a privilege for us to work with the Scripps team on this project, said Moore on behalf of the Weill Cornell group. Now we all need to harness this new knowledge to design and test next-generation trimers and see if we can induce the broadly active neutralizing antibodies an effective vaccine is going to need.
###
Other contributors to the studies, Cryo-EM structure of a fully glycosylated soluble cleaved HIV-1 envelope trimer, and Crystal structure of a soluble cleaved HIV-1 envelope trimer, included TSRIs Natalia de Val, Devin Sok, Robyn L. Stanfield and Marc C. Deller; and Weill Medical Colleges Rogier W. Sanders (also at Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam), Albert Cupo and Per-Johan Klasse. In addition to Wilson, Ward and Carragher, senior participants at TSRI included Clinton S. Potter and Dennis Burton.
The research was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (HIVRAD P01 AI82362, CHAVI-ID UM1 AI100663, R01 AI36082, R01 AI084817, R37 AI36082, R01 AI33292), the US NIH NIGMS Biomedical Research Technology Program (GM103310) and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative Neutralizing Antibody Consortium and Center.
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
In this Jan. 5, 2003, photo released by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a black rhino male and calf in Mkuze, South Africa. The organizer of a Texas hunting club’s planned auction of a permit that will allow a hunter to bag an endangered black rhino in Africa is hoping it raises up to $1 million for rhino preservation. (AP Photo/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Karl Stromayer)
In this Jan. 5, 2003, photo released by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows a black rhino male and calf in Mkuze, South Africa. The organizer of a Texas hunting club’s planned auction of a permit that will allow a hunter to bag an endangered black rhino in Africa is hoping it raises up to $1 million for rhino preservation. (AP Photo/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Karl Stromayer)
HOUSTON (AP) — Plans to auction a rare permit that will allow a hunter to take down an endangered black rhino are drawing criticism from some conservationists, but the organizer says the fundraiser could bring in more than $1 million that would go toward protecting the species.
John J. Jackson III belongs to the Dallas Safari Club, which earlier this month announced it would auction the permit — one of only five offered annually by Namibia in southwestern Africa. The permit is also the first to be made available for purchase outside of that country.
"This is advanced, state-of-the-art wildlife conservation and management techniques," Jackson, a Metairie, La.-based international wildlife attorney, said Wednesday. "It's not something the layman understands, but they should.
"This is the most sophisticated management strategy devised," he said. "The conservation hunt is a hero in the hunting community."
Some animal preservation groups are bashing the idea.
"More than ridiculous," Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, said Wednesday.
"At a time when the global community is rallying to protect the elephant and rhino from the onslaught of people with high-powered weapons, this action sends exactly the wrong signal. It's absurd. You're going to help an endangered animal by killing an endangered member of that population?"
An estimated 4,000 black rhinos remain in the wild, down from 70,000 in the 1960s. Nearly 1,800 are in Namibia, according to the safari club.
Poachers long have targeted all species of rhino, primarily for its horn, which is valuable on the international black market. Made of the protein keratin, the chief component in fingernails and hooves, the horn has been used in carvings and for medicinal purposes, mostly in Asia. The near extinction of the species also has been attributed to habitat loss.
The auction is scheduled for the Dallas Safari Club's annual convention in January.
According to Jackson, who said he's been working on the auction project with federal wildlife officials, the hunt will involve one of five black rhinos selected by a committee and approved by the Namibian government. The five are to be older males, incapable of reproducing and likely "troublemakers ... bad guys that are killing other rhinos," he said.
"You end up eliminating that rhino and you actually increase the reproduction of the population."
Jackson said 100 percent of the auction proceeds would go to a trust fund, be held there until the permit is approved and then forwarded to the government of Namibia for the limited purpose of rhino conservation.
"It's going to generate a sum of money large enough to be enormously meaningful in Namibia's fight to ensure the future of its black rhino populations," Ben Carter, the club's executive director, said in a statement.
Jeffrey Flocken, North American regional director of the Massachusetts-based International Fund for Animal Welfare, disagreed, describing the club's argument as "perverse, to say the least."
"And drumming up a bidding frenzy to get to the opportunity to shoot one of the last of a species is just irresponsible," Flocken said. "This is just an attempt to manipulate a horrific situation where rhino poaching is out of control, and fuel excitement around being able to kill an animal whose future existence is already hanging in the balance."
Rick Barongi, director of the Houston Zoo and vice president of the International Rhino Foundation, said the hunt was not illegal but remained a complex idea that "sends a mixed message."
On Tuesday, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced it was providing "guidance" to the safari club on whether it would agree to a permit, required under federal law, to allow the winning bidder to bring the trophy rhino to the United States.
"An import permit will be issued if, and only if, we determine that the sport-hunted trophy is taken as part of a well-managed conservation program that enhances the long-term survival of the species," the agency said.
Earlier this year, the service granted such a permit for a sport-hunted black rhino taken in Namibia in 2009.
Pacelle said the Humane Society would work to oppose the permit.
An administrator at the Namibian Embassy in Washington referred questions about the hunt and auction to the government's tourism office in Windhoek, the nation's capital. There was no response Wednesday to an email from The Associated Press.
"The two hot issues here are the fact it's an endangered species, and the second thing is it's a trophy," Barongi, the zoo director, said. "It's one individual that can save hundreds of individuals, and if that's the case, and it's the best option you have ... then you go with your best option.
"Because the alternative is you can lose them all," he said.
This Oct. 29, 2013, photo taken in Evanston, Ill., shows an actual child's coffin filled with candy at the McCormick Library of Special Collections. The coffin is one of the artifacts from the “Death Collection” - an archive of death-related oddities once owned by horror novelist and screenwriter Michael McEachern McDowell that were purchased by Northwestern University. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
This Oct. 29, 2013, photo taken in Evanston, Ill., shows an actual child's coffin filled with candy at the McCormick Library of Special Collections. The coffin is one of the artifacts from the “Death Collection” - an archive of death-related oddities once owned by horror novelist and screenwriter Michael McEachern McDowell that were purchased by Northwestern University. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
This Oct. 29, 2013, photo taken in Evanston, Ill., shows Scott Krafft, curator of the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, holding a daguerreotype of a dead child from the mid-1800s. The daguerreotype is just one of the artifacts from the “Death Collection” - an archive of death-related oddities once owned by horror novelist and screenwriter Michael McEachern McDowell that were purchased by Northwestern University. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
In this Oct. 29, 2013, photo taken in Evanston, Ill., Scott Krafft, left, curator of the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections, and manuscript librarian Benn Joseph display a painting of a dead Spanish boy from the 1,600s. The portrait is one of the artifacts from the “Death Collection”- an archive of death-related oddities once owned by horror novelist and screenwriter Michael McEachern McDowell that have been purchased by Northwestern University. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
This Oct. 29, 2013 photo, shows a copy of a photograph taken at the hanging of the co-conspirators in the Abraham Lincoln assassination in Washington, DC. The image is part of the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections display of artifacts from the “Death Collection." The collections is an archive of death-related oddities once owned by horror novelist and screenwriter Michael McEachern McDowell that was purchased by Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
This Oct. 29, 2013, photo taken in Evanston, Ill., shows sheet music written for funerals of the Charles Deering McCormick Library of Special Collections. The scores are but a few of the artifacts from the “Death Collection” - an archive of death-related oddities once owned by horror novelist and screenwriter Michael McEachern McDowell that were purchased by Northwestern University. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green)
EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) — Acclaimed horror writer Michael McDowell couldn't get enough of death.
He collected photographs of people after their demise, whether from natural causes or after crossing paths with someone with a noose, knife or a gun. He gathered ads for burial gowns and pins containing locks of dead people's hair. He even used a coffin housing a skeleton as his coffee table.
Now Northwestern University, which months ago purchased the "Death Collection" McDowell amassed in three decades before his own death in 1999, is preparing to open the vault.
Researchers studying the history of death, its mourning rituals and businesses that profit from it soon will be able to browse artifacts amassed by an enthusiast author Stephen King once heralded as "a writer for the ages."
McDowell's long career included penning more than two dozen novels, screenplays for King's novel "Thinner" and director Tim Burton's movies "Beetlejuice" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas." He also wrote episodes for such macabre television shows as "Tales from the Darkside" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents."
"We are very removed from death today, and a lot of this stuff we see in this collection gives us a snapshot in how people have dealt with death generations ago in ways very different from today," said Benn Joseph, a manuscript librarian at the school. "We look at it nowadays and think this is inappropriate or gory ... but when it was done, it was very much acceptable."
Joseph spent months getting the 76-box collection — one containing a child's coffin — ready to be studied. The archive, which officials said ultimately will go on public display, includes at least one artifact dating to the 16th century: a Spanish painting of a dead boy, his eyes closed, wearing a cloak with a ruffled collar.
The school bought the collection from McDowell's partner for an undisclosed price.
McDowell's younger brother, James, said he didn't realize but wasn't surprised by the extent of the collection.
"He always had kind of a gothic horror side to him," James McDowell said in a telephone interview.
There are photographs and postcards from around the world. One, taken in 1899 in Cuba, shows a pile of skulls and bones. In another, a soldier in the Philippines poses with a man's severed head.
There also are reminders of the infamous. Photographs show the people convicted of conspiracy for Abraham Lincoln's assassination being hanged, with dozens of soldiers looking on and the U.S. Capitol looming in the background.
Some pictures are gruesome, including one of a man whose legs are on one side of the train tracks and the rest of him in the middle. But much of the collection is devoted to the deaths of regular Americans and how they were memorialized in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
There are, for example, dozens of photographs that families had made into postcards of their dead children. Dressed in their finest clothes, many appear to be sleeping, absent any hint of the pain some undoubtedly experienced in their last days. Some have their eyes open, serious looks on their faces.
There's one of a small boy, standing up, with his hands resting on a small stack of books. Joseph said it could be a bit of photographic sleight of hand and that the boy may actually be lying down but made to look like he is standing.
"With the advent of photography, regular folks could have access to that sort of thing (and) families either took the kid's body to the studio or they arranged for a visit from the photographer," said Scott Krafft, the library curator who purchased the collection for Northwestern. "And they may have been the only photograph of the child that existed."
The collection also offers a glimpse into what families did after their loved ones died, at a time when they were preparing their homes to display the remains and getting ready to bring them to the cemetery.
After choosing a burial gown — worn in ads by living models — many families then looked for a headstone. Traveling headstone salesmen in the early 20th century often carried around design samples in a box about the size of one that holds chocolates.
Those paying their respects in the 19th and early 20th centuries frequently selected a tribute song for the dead to play inside the family homes, Joseph said. There were some 100 popular pieces of topical sheet music, with such titles as "She Died On Her Wedding Day."
Weirder still, at least by today's standards, is McDowell's collection of what were called "spirit" photographs that include both the living and a ghostly image purportedly of a dead person hovering nearby.
In one photograph, Georgiana Houghton, a prominent 19th century medium, shakes hands with an apparition of her dead sister. She explains the photograph "is the first manifestation of inner spiritual life."
"I'm sure Michael, when he came across this, was totally excited," Krafft said.
While the collection isn't yet on display, members of the public can see one piece when they enter the library reading room where it is housed. That children's coffin that once belonged to McDowell now holds Halloween candy.
POLACCA, Ariz. (AP) — The group of boys head out toward the mesa, setting their feet upon dirt trails lined with scrub brush and corn fields. It's the same earth that their Hopi ancestors would tread as they ran in prayer for rain, prosperity and all of mankind.
For these boys, the drive is as much about the competitive spirit as the enduring spirit of their culture.
Hopi High School, where they are students, has earned 23 state cross-country titles in a row, and according to its coach, is one of three schools in the country to earn a perfect score at a state meet.
No high school in the nation is as dominant when it comes to winning consecutive championships, and the team wants to make sure the streak continues.
"We have a lot of pressure at every race," said junior Kelan Poleahla. "Everyone wants to beat us. Our job is to not let that happen."
Running is deeply rooted in the northern Arizona tribe's tradition as a way to carry messages from village to village and bless the reservation that gets little moisture with rain. Tribal members regularly challenge each other to footraces on the trails considered the veins of the villages, and running is prominent in ceremonies.
The boys on the team draw from that tradition and a desire to remain champions, as the school has done since shortly after it opened in 1987 to keep Hopis rooted in their culture and attending classes on their own land.
The team is led by coach Rick Baker, a high school and college runner known as "The Legend." His program encourages students to rack up 500 to 1,000 miles in the summer. During the cross-country season, the team meets for at least one early morning practice and daily afternoon practices during the school week, with a long run on Sundays.
Baker insists there's nothing special about his coaching. He simply wants athletes who believe in themselves and the school, and who are disciplined and dedicated.
The girls team also brings pride to the small, remote reservation with 21 championships, making them fifth in the nation for most state titles, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations. They're shooting for a seventh consecutive championship this year.
"It's not just going to be an easy go in and win kind of thing," said girls coach LaVerne Lomakema. "We're going to have some competition, a lot of competition."
Crowds of Hopi fans make the more than four-hour drive to watch both teams during the state tournament, shouting a Hopi phrase that pushes the teams to dig deeper and run with passion — nahongvita.
The boys team became so confident in its ability to win at one point that championship T-shirts were printed ahead of the state meet and handed out to the runners on the winners' stage. The team acknowledged it was bad form and stopped.
In the Hopi's story of running glory, there is inspiration that comes from a Hopi man who competed at the 1908 Olympics and earned a silver medal in 1912. The federal government shipped Louis Tewanima off to boarding school, and he rose to become one of Indian Country's most famous athletes, along with fellow Carlisle Indian Industrial School classmate Jim Thorpe. Tewanima's American record in the 10,000 meter race stood for more than 55 years before being broken by Billy Mills, an Oglala Lakota.
Even though Tewanima was a celebrated athlete, he knew others on the Hopi reservation could beat him. When he returned home, Tewanima quit a 12-mile footrace he initiated against two men in their fifties at Second Mesa because they were so far ahead at the halfway point, Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert writes in an article about Tewanima and the continuity of Hopi running.
Despite Hopi High School's successes in cross-country, few of the runners have taken their skills to the collegiate level. Juwan Nuvayokva, who holds the top five times for the school in cross-country, is one of them and now serves as an assistant to Baker.
After being pushed onto the team by his mother, who was concerned he would otherwise get in trouble, Nuvayokva became a high school state champion and an All-American at Northern Arizona University. The difficulty he sees in getting other runners to strive for college is a focus on the reservation on immediate, not future, plans.
Instead of talking about college applications, he says the conversation around Hopi dinner tables focuses more on ceremonies, going to the kiva and tending to the fields. When he was approached by the cross-country coach at NAU, Nuvayokva had no idea what Ron Mann meant when he said Nuvayokva was Division I material.
"I think it was a gamble he was taking because I'm Native American, and we're known for not finishing what we start," Nuvayokva said.
Coaches from other schools see the cultural tie with Hopis and running. The elevation of the mesas on the Hopi reservation that rise thousands of feet above the surrounding desert doesn't hurt for training grounds either. The Hopi culture calls for tribal members to rise before dawn to run and in ceremonies to deliver prayers to fields and shrines on the reservation.
The school's major competitors in Division 4, made up of the school's that are least populated, have been Northland Preparatory Academy in Flagstaff and Pusch Ridge Christian Academy in Tucson. For a brief time when Hopi moved up a division, Northland Prep was the state champion in the lower division but that changed when Hopi rejoined that division.
Northland Prep's boys coach at the time, Mike Elder, thought there was a good chance the school where he now serves as athletic director could beat Hopi in 2011. He was disappointed.
"It wasn't that anybody ran badly," he said. "It was just that Hopi ran better."
While Hopi tops the state's smallest division, it ranked 16th at an early October meet in Arizona that pitted the 27 best cross country teams in the state and some out-of-state teams against each other regardless of size. Two schools with predominantly Native American populations — Page and Tuba City — were among the top five.
This regional cross-country meets start Friday, and the state cross-country meet is scheduled for Nov. 9 in Cave Creek. Baker will take his seven best runners to state if the team qualifies. Only then will he stress what they've had on their minds all season long.
"The pressure is on the present team. You don't want to be the team that breaks the streak," he says. "There's a lot of tradition riding on this."
___
Follow Felicia Fonseca on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/FonsecaAP
___
Online: Matthew Sakiestewa Gilbert's blog: beyondthemesas.com
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 47 million Americans who receive food stamps will see their benefits go down starting Friday, just as Congress has begun negotiations on further cuts to the program.
Beginning in November, a temporary benefit from the 2009 economic stimulus that boosts food stamp dollars will no longer be available. According to the Agriculture Department, that means a family of four receiving food stamps will start receiving $36 less a month.
The benefits, which go to 1 in 7 Americans, fluctuate based on factors that include food prices, inflation and income. The rolls have swelled as the economy has struggled in recent years, with the stimulus providing higher benefits and many people signing up for the first time.
As a result, the program has more than doubled in cost since 2008, now costing almost $80 billion a year. That large increase in spending has turned the program, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, into a target for House Republicans looking to reduce spending.
Negotiations on a wide-ranging farm bill, including cuts to the SNAP program, began Wednesday. Five-year farm bills passed by both the House and the Senate would cut food stamps, reductions that would come on top of the cut that will go into effect Friday. But the two chambers are far apart on the amounts.
Legislation passed by the GOP-controlled House would cut food stamps by an additional $4 billion annually and tighten eligibility requirements. The House bill would also end government waivers that have allowed able-bodied adults without dependents to receive food stamps indefinitely and allow states to put broad new work requirements in place.
The Senate farm bill would cut a tenth of the House amount, with Democrats and President Barack Obama opposing major cuts.
Farm-state lawmakers have been pushing the farm bill for more than two years, and Wednesday's conference negotiations represented the opening round in final talks. If the bill is not passed by the end of the year and current farm law is not extended, certain dairy supports would expire that could raise the price of milk. Farmers would start to feel more effects next spring.
"It took us years to get here but we are here," House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas, R-Okla., said. "Let's not take years to get it done."
The biggest obstacle to a final bill is how far apart the two parties are on food stamps. Lucas said at the conference meeting that he was hoping to find common ground on the issue, but House GOP leaders such as Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va., have insisted on higher cuts, saying the program should be targeted to the neediest people.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., sent out a statement as the meeting opened that said food stamp recipients "deserve swift action from Congress to pass a bill that provides the much-needed nutritional support for our children, our seniors, our veterans and our communities."
As Congress debates the cuts to the program, charities say they are preparing for the farm bill reductions as well as the scheduled cuts taking place Friday.
"Charities cannot fill the gap for the cuts being proposed to SNAP," said Maura Daly of Feeding America, a network of the nation's food banks. "We are very concerned about the impact on the charitable system."
Daly says food banks may have to as much as double their current levels of distribution if the House cuts were enacted. The Congressional Budget Office says as many as 3.8 million people could lose their benefits in 2014 if the House bill became law.
___
Follow Mary Clare Jalonick on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mcjalonick
Audio for this story from Tell Me More will be available at approximately 3:00 p.m. ET.
Members of the Oneida Nation met with representatives from the NFL on Wednesday to discuss the growing call to change the Washington Redskins name. Host Michel Martin finds out how the meeting went from the Nation's representative, Ray Halbritter.
Contact: Katie Delach katharine.delach@uphs.upenn.edu 215-776-6063 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Lowering the cost of health care requires lowering the cost of medical education
PHILADELPHIA The costs of medical education must be reduced as part of efforts to reign in health care costs more generally, according to a Perspective published online this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. The currently high costs of medical education which at some schools rise above $60,000 per year are sustainable only if physician salaries remain high, which the authors, led by a physician from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, say is less likely because of efforts to reduce health care costs.
Noting that students leave medical school with debt that often exceeds $150,000, the authors argue: "If we want to keep health care costs down and still have access to well-qualified physicians, we need to keep the cost of creating those physicians down by changing the way that physicians are trained. From college through licensure and credentialing, our annual physician-production costs are high, and they are made higher by the long time we devote to training."
"People wonder whether we are in a bubble market in medical education," says lead author David A. Asch, MD, MBA, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Health Care Innovation at Penn Medicine. In bubble markets, such as the recent US housing market and the dotcom bubble of 2000, prices rise based on speculation rather than intrinsic value, as people buy houses or stocks with the hope of reselling them to those with even more optimistic views of their valuation. When clearer thinking returns, those who haven't sold are left having overpaid, holding an asset they cannot unload. "In the case of medical education, students buy their education from medical schools and resell that education in the form of services to patients. Medical education can remain expensive only so long as there are patients, insurers, and employers who are willing to pay high prices for health care. But if prices for physician services decline, then the cost of medical education will have to decline too, or people won't be willing to pay for medical school in the first place," Asch says.
The authors warn that high debt-to-income ratios drive students away from less financially rewarding fields. "Debt-to-income ratios reveal how much a student has to go into the hole financially for education compared to what a graduating student might earn," says Asch. "For example, it costs approximately the same to become an orthopedist, psychiatrist, or primary care physician, but orthopedists earn much more."
That might suggest that there is already a medical education bubble for psychiatry and primary care, but as bad as the debt-to-income ratios might be for those fields, they are even worse for some other fields outside of medicine. The authors note that veterinary medicine is closer to a bubble market situation, which could burst when potential students recognize that the high costs of becoming a veterinarian aren't matched by high income later.
As the cost of education in general rises, students might naturally be expected to focus more on those fields that provide a better balance between cost and return. "Veterinary education is vulnerable, medicine less so. Business education still seems to be a good buy." But, Asch asks, "Do we really want a world populated only by MBAs?"
"Doctors do well financially," says Asch, "but the cost of becoming a doctor is rising faster than the benefits of being a doctor, and that is catching up to primary care more quickly than orthopedics, and that ratio is close to overtaking the veterinarians." While only about 20 percent of health care costs are attributable to physician payments, physicians' earnings have been sluggish since the early 2000s. The authors note that a burst bubble can be averted if schools see these changes coming before their students do and lower their prices.
###
Co-authors on the perspective are Sean Nicholson, PhD, Cornell University and the National Bureau of Economic Research; and Marko Vujicic, PhD of the American Dental Association.
Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $4.3 billion enterprise.
The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top five medical schools in the United States for the past 16 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $398 million awarded in the 2012 fiscal year.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -- recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; Chester County Hospital; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital -- the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Chestnut Hill Hospital and Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine.
Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2012, Penn Medicine provided $827 million to benefit our community.
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Is medical education in a bubble market?
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30-Oct-2013
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Contact: Katie Delach katharine.delach@uphs.upenn.edu 215-776-6063 University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
Lowering the cost of health care requires lowering the cost of medical education
PHILADELPHIA The costs of medical education must be reduced as part of efforts to reign in health care costs more generally, according to a Perspective published online this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. The currently high costs of medical education which at some schools rise above $60,000 per year are sustainable only if physician salaries remain high, which the authors, led by a physician from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, say is less likely because of efforts to reduce health care costs.
Noting that students leave medical school with debt that often exceeds $150,000, the authors argue: "If we want to keep health care costs down and still have access to well-qualified physicians, we need to keep the cost of creating those physicians down by changing the way that physicians are trained. From college through licensure and credentialing, our annual physician-production costs are high, and they are made higher by the long time we devote to training."
"People wonder whether we are in a bubble market in medical education," says lead author David A. Asch, MD, MBA, Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for Health Care Innovation at Penn Medicine. In bubble markets, such as the recent US housing market and the dotcom bubble of 2000, prices rise based on speculation rather than intrinsic value, as people buy houses or stocks with the hope of reselling them to those with even more optimistic views of their valuation. When clearer thinking returns, those who haven't sold are left having overpaid, holding an asset they cannot unload. "In the case of medical education, students buy their education from medical schools and resell that education in the form of services to patients. Medical education can remain expensive only so long as there are patients, insurers, and employers who are willing to pay high prices for health care. But if prices for physician services decline, then the cost of medical education will have to decline too, or people won't be willing to pay for medical school in the first place," Asch says.
The authors warn that high debt-to-income ratios drive students away from less financially rewarding fields. "Debt-to-income ratios reveal how much a student has to go into the hole financially for education compared to what a graduating student might earn," says Asch. "For example, it costs approximately the same to become an orthopedist, psychiatrist, or primary care physician, but orthopedists earn much more."
That might suggest that there is already a medical education bubble for psychiatry and primary care, but as bad as the debt-to-income ratios might be for those fields, they are even worse for some other fields outside of medicine. The authors note that veterinary medicine is closer to a bubble market situation, which could burst when potential students recognize that the high costs of becoming a veterinarian aren't matched by high income later.
As the cost of education in general rises, students might naturally be expected to focus more on those fields that provide a better balance between cost and return. "Veterinary education is vulnerable, medicine less so. Business education still seems to be a good buy." But, Asch asks, "Do we really want a world populated only by MBAs?"
"Doctors do well financially," says Asch, "but the cost of becoming a doctor is rising faster than the benefits of being a doctor, and that is catching up to primary care more quickly than orthopedics, and that ratio is close to overtaking the veterinarians." While only about 20 percent of health care costs are attributable to physician payments, physicians' earnings have been sluggish since the early 2000s. The authors note that a burst bubble can be averted if schools see these changes coming before their students do and lower their prices.
###
Co-authors on the perspective are Sean Nicholson, PhD, Cornell University and the National Bureau of Economic Research; and Marko Vujicic, PhD of the American Dental Association.
Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $4.3 billion enterprise.
The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top five medical schools in the United States for the past 16 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $398 million awarded in the 2012 fiscal year.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System's patient care facilities include: The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania -- recognized as one of the nation's top "Honor Roll" hospitals by U.S. News & World Report; Penn Presbyterian Medical Center; Chester County Hospital; Penn Wissahickon Hospice; and Pennsylvania Hospital -- the nation's first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional affiliated inpatient care facilities and services throughout the Philadelphia region include Chestnut Hill Hospital and Good Shepherd Penn Partners, a partnership between Good Shepherd Rehabilitation Network and Penn Medicine.
Penn Medicine is committed to improving lives and health through a variety of community-based programs and activities. In fiscal year 2012, Penn Medicine provided $827 million to benefit our community.
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"Okay Google." Those Touchless Controls aren't just for the Moto X anymore -- they're now part and parcel of the Nexus 5. With today's unveiling of Google's (terribly leaked) Nexus 5, we're getting a first look at Android 4.4 KitKat on the handset, and that OS update comes with some significant ...
