Latest news with #UniversityofPittsburgh
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Young men are binge drinking less than young women for the 1st time. What's going on?
Gen Z has been hailed as the 'sober-curious' generation, with rates of risky behaviors such as drinking alcohol, as well as having sex and using drugs, falling to historically low rates. But one study recently put an even finer point on the trend: Young men in particular are the ones giving up binge drinking, defined as having five or more alcoholic beverages in one sitting for men, or four or more for women. Fewer Gen Z men than women reported binge drinking in the last month between 2021 and 2023, according to the April 2025 study in JAMA. Though the gap between men's and women's drinking rates has been narrowing over the past several decades, in recent years women's alcohol use has outpaced men's for the first time ever. The findings have raised alarm bells over women's high binge-drinking rates. But a closer look shows that the closing gender gap is driven as much, if not more so, by falling bingeing rates among men, especially young adult males. So what's inspiring young men to drink less or not at all? We looked into it. All young adults were drinking less between 2021 and 2023, compared with the 2017-19 period, according to the study. Young women were binge drinking 13% less, but young men saw an even bigger drop — nearly 21%. So it's not that more women are necessarily binge drinking now — it's that fewer men are, and that shift has made women's rates seem higher in comparison. Why young men are drinking less is still up for debate, notes study author and University of Pittsburgh internist Dr. Bryant Shuey. Though he sees the declining rates of binge drinking among young men as a 'public health success,' Shuey wonders if it's more complicated than a pure win. 'Are young people happy, socially connected and drinking less, or is it that middle-aged and young men are more lonely, less social and less willing to call up a friend for drinks,' he says. 'There's potential that there is a tradeoff here: Less alcohol and more loneliness, and we need to think about addressing both.' There's no shortage of theories behind Gen Z's relative sobriety: Young people are big on prioritizing their health, and there's a booming health and wellness industry to meet the demand; the loneliness epidemic that Shuey noted; rising rates of young people choosing cannabis over alcohol; and Gen Z-ers choosing to scroll on a smartphone rather than partying with friends. A recent Dutch study suggested it may be simpler than all that: Young people are just too broke to buy drinks (and costs are rising). Dry January and "sober-curious" posts on social media may also play a role, experts and men who have gotten sober suggest. Brandan Saho, a sports journalist and host of the podcast The Mental Game, says both trends have inspired a lot of young people to not drink. 'And once they see that their personal life is better and their physical health is better and that no one cares that they don't drink,' then picturing a sober life becomes that much easier, says Saho. 'It's not a defining thing like it would've been 10 or 15 years ago, when you weren't cool if you didn't drink.' Fellow podcaster Shane Ramer says there was a 'lack of the cool element' to sobriety when he quit drinking. A decade later, he's hosting the That Sober Guy podcast and thinks that 'people are waking up to the fact that … it's so much cooler and respectable and how many more opportunities there are,' when you don't drink, he says. Ramer, 43, and Saho, 31, are recovering alcoholics. Both grew up in households where drinking — often heavy drinking — was the norm, but it wasn't talked about. While they're not part of Gen Z, Ramer and Saho suspect that some of the younger generation had similar experiences. 'It took me hitting my rock bottom and almost not being alive for me to tell my dad,' says Saho, referring to his drinking. 'You should be able to talk to the men in your life, but until the past five or 10 years, no one did.' That's changing with social media, podcasts and vodcasts, especially given that many influential (and, in some cases, controversial) male podcasters with large followings of young men are sober and vocal about it: Joe Rogan, Theo Von and Andrew Huberman, for example, have all quit drinking. On Reddit, several people said that Huberman's episode on the effects of alcohol have gotten them to quit drinking. Hearing some of them talk about giving up alcohol to focus on the work they enjoy doing resonated with Saho. As he says in one TikTok, it helped inspire him to stay sober. While social media certainly has its downsides and dangers, Ramer describes a 'cultural shift' around drinking that's having a positive effect on young men. 'You have a lot of media and podcasts and celebrity people who are sober and open about it,' he says, adding that this openness provides a sense of community and a path forward for people, including young men, who are considering drinking less — or not at all.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Arkansas emergency medicine study at UAMS includes a Pennsylvania university
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences is partnering with the University of Pittsburgh to study changes in the early treatment of emergency trauma patients. UAMS officials said the study is to determine if early intervention in patients with traumatic injury with blood loss by using calcium and vasopressin can improve outcomes. They added that the study will include approximately 1,050 people aged 18 to 90 years old. UAMS receives $1.9 million from Department of Justice to help Little Rock schools with emergency response Metropolitan Emergency Medical Services (MEMS) will have participating emergency response crews applying the therapy. The therapy can also be applied after a patient arrives at UAMS. Officials said the trials, labeled CAVALIER for CAlcium and VAsopressin following Injury Early Resuscitation, are a change from the standard procedure of blood transfusions & blood clotting medication and surgery to stop bleeding. UAMS officials said even with these treatments, up to 30% of patients suffering significant blood loss can die. 'We are committed at UAMS to helping improve survival rates of these severely injured patients,' trauma surgeon and the UAMS principal investigator on the study, Dr. Joseph Margolick, said. 'We think early treatment with calcium and vasopressin in trauma patients may improve outcomes.' Officials said CAVALIER is an Exception from Informed Consent trial, meaning that the trial requires performing a potentially life-saving treatment on people who are too injured to give permission UAMS launches pilot program for statewide initiative to support mothers, infants after childbirth The study is supported by a Department of Defense contract and by the UAMS Translational Research Institute. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Opinion - In-office work mandates are bad for the environment
Office buildings across the country are filling up again as the air outside grows thicker with climate-warming gases. Federal agencies, state governments and many corporations now require employees to commute five days a week, reversing the remote-work flexibility adopted in 2020. Mounting research shows that those mandates carry a heavy environmental cost. A new satellite analysis by Mark Ma at the University of Pittsburgh, Betty Xing at Baylor University and Ling Zhang at Rowan University tracks carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide over the 10 most and 10 least flexible U.S. metropolitan areas. Using both NASA and European satellite instruments, the authors measured concentrations within a 20-mile radius of each downtown from 2017 to 2023. The flexible metros — places where remote and hybrid schedules remain common — kept carbon emission levels roughly flat between 2019 and 2022, whereas the least flexible metros endured a marked uptick. Nitrogen dioxide, a traffic pollutant, plunged everywhere when lockdowns began but rebounded far faster in rigid, office-centric cities. Those findings highlight the commuting tailpipe as a decisive source of urban greenhouse gases. Independent laboratory research aligns with the satellite record. A 2023 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences calculated that moving from full-time office work to full-time work from home slashes an employee's work-related carbon footprint by as much as 58 percent. Employees who stay home two to four days a week still cut emissions 11 to 29 percent, whereas a token 'one day remote' policy trims only 2 percent because extra errands and higher home energy use cancel most of the advantage. Modeling by Cornell University and Microsoft echoes those numbers: fully remote staff register a 54 percent smaller footprint than in-office peers, and hybrid schedules deliver double-digit savings when adopted for at least two days per week. The researchers emphasize that while residential energy efficiency, household size and office design shape the final tally, transportation remains the dominant lever. In turn, a 2024 Applied Energy article comparing 'work from home' and 'work in office' scenarios found that remote arrangements cut daily per-person greenhouse-gas output by 29 percent. Traditional life at home — weekends and evenings — produced 13 percent more emissions than active telework, underscoring how commuting, not laptops, drives the difference. Critics of remote work often cite potential rebound effects. Indeed, a 2023 review in Energy and Buildings reported that heavy teleworkers can increase household energy demand by 16 to 117 percent, sometimes erasing transportation savings if homes rely on inefficient heating and cooling. Yet the same review notes that simple upgrades — heat-pump mini-splits, programmable thermostats, LED lighting — restore the net benefit. Policymakers who pair flexible schedules with residential efficiency incentives can capture the upside without the rebound. Evidence from the transportation sector adds another layer. University of Florida economists estimate that a 10 percent rise in remote workers slices national transportation-sector carbon dioxide by roughly 200 million tons per year — about the annual emissions of 43 million cars — while shrinking transit fare revenue 27 percent. The result calls for a reimagined funding model for buses and subways, not a retreat from telework. A systematic review by Hook, Sovacool, Sorrell and Court examined 39 empirical papers and concluded that 26 recorded net energy savings from telework, often up to 20 percent, largely through reduced vehicle travel. The most conservative analyses revealed smaller, but still positive, gains once added leisure trips and home energy were counted. Taken together, these studies dismantle the assertion that full-time return-to-office orders are climate neutral. The federal government's own sustainability plan pledges to cut agency emissions 65 percent by 2030. Yet more than 400,000 federal employees faced requirements to appear in person, the vast majority full-time, due to the new presidential administration's policies. States such as Texas, Ohio and Tennessee have matched that strictness, while giants like Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs adopted five-day mandates. Each decree forces millions of additional car trips at a moment when the transportation sector already contributes 28 percent of U.S. greenhouse gases. Remote work is no panacea. It strains public transit budgets, shifts some emissions from city centers to suburbs, and can blur work-life boundaries. Still, the climate math remains clear: widespread telework and well-designed hybrid schedules dramatically curb the largest single source of American emissions: daily driving. Electric vehicles will eventually replace gasoline engines, but fleets turn over slowly; the average U.S. car now stays on the road more than 12 years. Working patterns, by contrast, can change overnight. Congress and the White House should treat flexible schedules as a verified decarbonization tool. Rather than blanket return-to-office edicts, federal agencies could set performance-based targets: for example, trim operational emissions 30 percent below 2019 by 2027 and allow each department to reach that mark through a mix of space consolidation, renewable procurement and telework. States and municipalities could follow suit, tying office occupancy guidelines to regional air-quality goals. Corporations that trumpet net-zero ambitions should publish commuting-related emissions alongside power and supply-chain data, then let employees choose the work pattern that meets both productivity and climate metrics. A few practical steps reinforce the environmental upside. Implementing timed energy audits and upgrade rebates for home offices guards against rebound effects. Converting unused cubicles into shared hoteling stations lets firms shrink leased square footage, cutting HVAC and lighting loads. Redirecting a sliver of those savings toward transit agencies stabilizes service for riders who must travel. Together, these moves build a virtuous cycle: fewer cars on highways, cleaner urban air, and leaner real estate overhead. Short of such reforms, mandatory in-office policies undercut the nation's climate commitments. Telework is already proven, popular and cost-effective. Ignoring its benefits hands an avoidable victory to rising carbon levels. The bottom line is simple. Requiring five days at a desk is no longer just a question of management style; it is an environmental decision whose consequences swirl above city skylines and linger in the atmosphere for centuries. Science delivers the verdict: flexible work shrinks carbon footprints. Policymakers and business executives now face their own test — whether to heed that verdict or watch tailpipe exhaust erase hard-won climate progress. Gleb Tsipursky, Ph.D., serves as the CEO of the hybrid work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts and authored the best-seller 'Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
7 days ago
- Business
- The Hill
In-office work mandates are bad for the environment
Office buildings across the country are filling up again as the air outside grows thicker with climate-warming gases. Federal agencies, state governments and many corporations now require employees to commute five days a week, reversing the remote-work flexibility adopted in 2020. Mounting research shows that those mandates carry a heavy environmental cost. A new satellite analysis by Mark Ma at the University of Pittsburgh, Betty Xing at Baylor University and Ling Zhang at Rowan University tracks carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide over the 10 most and 10 least flexible U.S. metropolitan areas. Using both NASA and European satellite instruments, the authors measured concentrations within a 20-mile radius of each downtown from 2017 to 2023. The flexible metros — places where remote and hybrid schedules remain common — kept carbon emission levels roughly flat between 2019 and 2022, whereas the least flexible metros endured a marked uptick. Nitrogen dioxide, a traffic pollutant, plunged everywhere when lockdowns began but rebounded far faster in rigid, office-centric cities. Those findings highlight the commuting tailpipe as a decisive source of urban greenhouse gases. Independent laboratory research aligns with the satellite record. A 2023 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences calculated that moving from full-time office work to full-time work from home slashes an employee's work-related carbon footprint by as much as 58 percent. Employees who stay home two to four days a week still cut emissions 11 to 29 percent, whereas a token 'one day remote' policy trims only 2 percent because extra errands and higher home energy use cancel most of the advantage. Modeling by Cornell University and Microsoft echoes those numbers: fully remote staff register a 54 percent smaller footprint than in-office peers, and hybrid schedules deliver double-digit savings when adopted for at least two days per week. The researchers emphasize that while residential energy efficiency, household size and office design shape the final tally, transportation remains the dominant lever. In turn, a 2024 Applied Energy article comparing 'work from home' and 'work in office' scenarios found that remote arrangements cut daily per-person greenhouse-gas output by 29 percent. Traditional life at home — weekends and evenings — produced 13 percent more emissions than active telework, underscoring how commuting, not laptops, drives the difference. Critics of remote work often cite potential rebound effects. Indeed, a 2023 review in Energy and Buildings reported that heavy teleworkers can increase household energy demand by 16 to 117 percent, sometimes erasing transportation savings if homes rely on inefficient heating and cooling. Yet the same review notes that simple upgrades — heat-pump mini-splits, programmable thermostats, LED lighting — restore the net benefit. Policymakers who pair flexible schedules with residential efficiency incentives can capture the upside without the rebound. Evidence from the transportation sector adds another layer. University of Florida economists estimate that a 10 percent rise in remote workers slices national transportation-sector carbon dioxide by roughly 200 million tons per year — about the annual emissions of 43 million cars — while shrinking transit fare revenue 27 percent. The result calls for a reimagined funding model for buses and subways, not a retreat from telework. A systematic review by Hook, Sovacool, Sorrell and Court examined 39 empirical papers and concluded that 26 recorded net energy savings from telework, often up to 20 percent, largely through reduced vehicle travel. The most conservative analyses revealed smaller, but still positive, gains once added leisure trips and home energy were counted. Taken together, these studies dismantle the assertion that full-time return-to-office orders are climate neutral. The federal government's own sustainability plan pledges to cut agency emissions 65 percent by 2030. Yet more than 400,000 federal employees faced requirements to appear in person, the vast majority full-time, due to the new presidential administration's policies. States such as Texas, Ohio and Tennessee have matched that strictness, while giants like Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs adopted five-day mandates. Each decree forces millions of additional car trips at a moment when the transportation sector already contributes 28 percent of U.S. greenhouse gases. Remote work is no panacea. It strains public transit budgets, shifts some emissions from city centers to suburbs, and can blur work-life boundaries. Still, the climate math remains clear: widespread telework and well-designed hybrid schedules dramatically curb the largest single source of American emissions: daily driving. Electric vehicles will eventually replace gasoline engines, but fleets turn over slowly; the average U.S. car now stays on the road more than 12 years. Working patterns, by contrast, can change overnight. Congress and the White House should treat flexible schedules as a verified decarbonization tool. Rather than blanket return-to-office edicts, federal agencies could set performance-based targets: for example, trim operational emissions 30 percent below 2019 by 2027 and allow each department to reach that mark through a mix of space consolidation, renewable procurement and telework. States and municipalities could follow suit, tying office occupancy guidelines to regional air-quality goals. Corporations that trumpet net-zero ambitions should publish commuting-related emissions alongside power and supply-chain data, then let employees choose the work pattern that meets both productivity and climate metrics. A few practical steps reinforce the environmental upside. Implementing timed energy audits and upgrade rebates for home offices guards against rebound effects. Converting unused cubicles into shared hoteling stations lets firms shrink leased square footage, cutting HVAC and lighting loads. Redirecting a sliver of those savings toward transit agencies stabilizes service for riders who must travel. Together, these moves build a virtuous cycle: fewer cars on highways, cleaner urban air, and leaner real estate overhead. Short of such reforms, mandatory in-office policies undercut the nation's climate commitments. Telework is already proven, popular and cost-effective. Ignoring its benefits hands an avoidable victory to rising carbon levels. The bottom line is simple. Requiring five days at a desk is no longer just a question of management style; it is an environmental decision whose consequences swirl above city skylines and linger in the atmosphere for centuries. Science delivers the verdict: flexible work shrinks carbon footprints. Policymakers and business executives now face their own test — whether to heed that verdict or watch tailpipe exhaust erase hard-won climate progress. Gleb Tsipursky, Ph.D., serves as the CEO of the hybrid work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts and authored the best-seller 'Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams.'
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Carmody wins Dem nod, Dennis-Bovani takes GOP spot in Magisterial District 11-2-01
May 21—WILKES-BARRE — Three candidates cross-filed in Magisterial District Judge 11-2-01 and two of them will advance to the Nov. 4 General Election. According to unofficial results, Matthew J. Carmody won the Democratic nomination and Laura Dennis-Bovani captured the Republican nod. The other candidate, former Wyoming Borough Mayor Robert J. Boyer, finished a distant third on both sides of the ballot. The unofficial vote totals are: Democrat —Carmody, 1,019 —Dennis-Bovani, 841 —Boyer, 166 Republican —Dennis-Bovani, 849 —Carmody, 762 —Boyer, 174 The Magisterial District 11-2-01 covers the municipalities of Exeter Borough, Exeter Township, West Pittston, West Wyoming Borough and Wyoming Borough. It just about covers the entire Wyoming Area School District with the exception of Harding and Falls. "I'm grateful and humbled for the support we received and to the voters who came out and voted for me," Carmody said. "I'm looking forward to the November election and we will continue to work hard until Nov. 4." "I am honored to have a nomination and I am extremely thankful for the support I've received," Dennis-Bovani said. "I am looking forward to reaching out to every voter in the district and I also look forward to the November General Election." Carmody is seeking to assume the seat his father, Attorney Joe Carmody, has held over the last 22 years. Carmody, 43, is a graduate of Wyoming Area (2000), University of Pittsburgh (2004), Roger Williams University School of Law (2007) and was admitted to the Pennsylvania bar in 2007. He spent his early days in law as a law clerk in Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas before returning to Wyoming Valley. After working for a Wilkes-Barre law firm for several years, he and two colleagues went out on their own creating the law firm of Joyce, Carmody & Moran, P.C. in 2015. In addition, Carmody is the solicitor for the Pittston Township Sewer Authority and the Assistant Solicitor to the Luzerne Co. Transportation Authority. "I am running because I love this community, and I want to continue to keep it safe for my family and all families who live here," Carmody said when he announced his candidacy. "After graduating from law school, I returned home where I met my wife, Amanda, and we decided there is nowhere else we would want to raise our family. I am proud to say that my kids — seven-year-old daughter Caroline and our eight-year-old son Joseph — are the fourth generation of Carmodys to call the Wyoming Area home." Carmody believes he would make a fair and impartial judge while treating everyone that comes through his courtroom with dignity and respect. Carmody said, "I've done a great deal of civil rights defense for municipalities over the years, including 14 years serving as a court appointed criminal defense attorney in Federal Court and that allowed me to work with the U.S. Attorney's office, the FBI, DEA and various Federal agencies, including the IRS. I've also been specializing in Labor Laws over the last 10 years." Dennis-Bovani, 51, a lifelong resident of the district, is a 1991 Wyoming Area graduate, she has been practicing privately for more than 25-years and has represented clients in criminal and civil litigation, wills and estates, believing her experience covers the legal issues a District Judge handles on a daily basis. She is an Assistant Solicitor in the Luzerne County Office of Law, the Solicitor for Wyoming Borough, and a volunteer solicitor for the Wyoming Free Library and the Wyoming Area Foundation Board. Dennis-Bovani serves on the Luzerne County Arbitration Board, the Executive Board of the Wilkes-Barre Law and Library Association and previously served as a divorce mediator. Dennis-Bovani said she is running for magistrate to bring her years of courtroom experience to the bench, where she says she will be a fair and impartial judge. She pledges to work to ensure that "in each case everyone can be heard, treated fairly and with respect." "I feel like it's a way for me to bring my legal experience to the bench to be involved and invested in the community as a judge," Dennis-Bovani said. "It's a way to bring all my experience as a lawyer to be able to have the people of our community to have a place where they know they are going to in front of a judge that is knowledgeable in the law and that prides herself in giving everyone a fair opportunity in the courtroom." Once elected, Dennis-Bovani said she would vacate her positions with Luzerne County, the Solicitor with Wyoming Borough as well as all criminal cases. Dennis-Bovani is married to Dante J. Bovani, a third-generation owner of his family's towing and service business, located on Exeter Avenue in West Pittston. The Dennis-Bovani's are the parents of Dante and Mia Bovani. Other Magisterial Judge races District 11-1-05 (4-year term) Democrat —Joshua Moses, 841 —Write-in votes, 348 Republican —Joshua Moses 625 —Write-in votes, 236 In Magisterial District 11-1-04, Alexandra Kokura-Kravitz was unopposed on both sides of the ballot, as was Michael G. Dotzel in Magisterial District 11-3-07. Reach Bill O'Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle.
