• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Uninsured rates vary across American cities

A recent study conducted by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research revealed that health coverage rates varied widely in urban areas, with Akron, Ohio and Harrisburg, Penn. having the lowest, at 7 percent, and El Paso, Tex. having the highest at 37 percent.

Researchers also found that areas with higher immigrant populations and low rates of employer-based coverage correlated with a higher uninsured rates.

“High uninsured rates in urban areas correspond directly to low rates of employment-based health insurance,” said Dr. E. Richard Brown, lead author of the report and director of the center.

“No matter where they live, people with moderate and low incomes are much less likely than more-affluent people to have job-based coverage,” he continued. “The disparity is greater, however, among the less advantaged living in low-coverage areas– particularly Latinos and non-citizens.”

The study reported the average uninsured rate was 18 percent in the 85 metropolitan areas the study was conducted, but significantly higher in 12 areas.

Los Angeles (31percent), New York (27 percent) and Houston (30) , which have high immigrant populations, were among the highest-ranked cities.

UCR scientist swarms Temecula with wasps

A scientist from the University of California, Riverside released 100 tiny wasps to help beat back a devastating disease killing grape vines in Temecula, one of California’s premier wine producing areas.

Dr. David Morgan of the Department of Entomology at UCR released the wasps from their glass vials Aug. 25 in a citrus orchard.

The wasp, known as Gonatocerus triguttatus, is a natural enemy of the sharpshooter and spreads Pierce’s disease. It lays its eggs inside those of the larger sharpshooter then eats its way out of the sharpshooter eggs, thus killing the sharpshooter offspring.

The wasps will not eliminate the glassy-winged sharpshooter, but should diminish the population, Morgan said.

The half-inch glassy-winged sharpshooter is considered a serious threat to the state’s $2.8 billion wine, raisin and table grape industry.

The California Department of Food and Agriculture, the city of Temecula and Riverside County will fund this three-year research project.

Water on Jupiter moon could be sign of life

Magnetic readings of Europa, a moon of Jupiter, strongly suggest that it has an ocean of liquid water covered by ice, a finding that strengthens the possibility for the presence of life, experts say.

Margaret Kivelson, a UCLA space physics scientist, said the evidence from a magnetic field detection device on the Galileo spacecraft gives the strongest evidence yet that Europa is awash with liquid water below a thick outer layer of ice.

“This is not absolute proof that there is a salty ocean there,’’ Kivelson said. “The evidence is indirect. But nobody has been able to come up with another sensible explanation.”

Kivelson is first author of a study appearing Friday in the journal Science.

Proof of liquid water on Europa “is a good first step” toward finding life on the Jovian moon, she said.

“It is a long way from finding water to finding life,” Kivelson said,” but it certainly makes it a more intriguing possibility.”

If Europa was dry or frozen solid, she said, “it would certainly reduce the possibility” of life being there.

Many experts consider Europa and Mars as the most likely places to find life in the solar system beyond the Earth.

Compiled by Daily Bruin Staff and Wire Reports.