The Week in Good News: Rubik’s Cube Champions, Paid Medical School Tuition, Efficient Ants
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Version 0 of 1. Sometimes it seems as if we’re living under a constant barrage of heavy news. But it isn’t all bad out there. This feature is meant to send you into the weekend with a smile, or at least a lighter heart. Want to get The Week in Good News by email? Sign up here. Here are five great things we wrote about this week: Students — and parents — of the New York University School of Medicine rejoiced this week when the university announced it would cover the tuition of all current and future students. That’s $55,000 per student in annual tuition. (Room and board not included.) “This decision recognizes a moral imperative that must be addressed, as institutions place an increasing debt burden on young people who aspire to become physicians,” said Robert I. Grossman, dean of the medical school and chief executive officer of N.Y.U. Langone Health. Students have increasingly forgone careers in family medicine, pediatrics and research in lieu of top-paying specialties. A handful of institutions have tried to make medical education tuition-free in response — including Columbia, which announced a $250 million gift in December that would go toward students with the greatest financial need. For the N.Y.U. graduates with an average debt of $184,000 (for the class of 2017), the initiative will surely provide a sigh of relief. Read more » Ants are efficient. And it may be because 70 percent of them are doing very little — at least, when it comes to tunnel digging. According to new research from Georgia Tech published in the journal Science, about 30 percent of the fire ants researchers observed did 70 percent of the work in digging tunnels. The ants often worked in crowded, narrow tunnels, and it was more efficient to have a group of the ants take a step back and get out of the way. Though you might find the 70/30 work distribution present in your office, it’s typically only useful in situations in which a traffic jam would delay progress, like tunnel digging or rescuing survivors from a disaster site. Read more » Some — namely, human parkgoers — were thrilled about the reopening of Yosemite National Park after the region’s weeks of wildfires, while others — mostly, the four-legged variety — were less enthused that their room to roam was suddenly limited. “The bears were having a field day,” said Scott Gediman, a spokesman for the park. “With so few people there they were roaming everywhere, kind of just walking around. It was cool, an unforeseen benefit.” They climbed apple trees and feasted, untouched by the fires, which did not hit Yosemite but did fill it with smoke. The park lost between $2.5 and $3 million in admission fees during the closing, Mr. Gediman said, but staff members were encouraged when they saw tourists from Israel, Italy, Germany and many other locations not letting the stifling climate stop them from enjoying the park’s busiest season. Read more » Most people would be happy to solve a Rubik’s Cube, period. But for a growing group of competitors called speedcubers, the goal is to do it in seconds. An exhibition featuring seven of the world’s fastest speedcubers in Salt Lake City did just that. The exhibition, “Max Park vs. the World,” was named after Max Park, a 16-year-old who was found to have autism when he was a baby, and who grew up using Rubik’s Cubes to help improve his dexterity (often a problem area for children with autism). “He fell in love with it,” Schwan Park, his father, said of Max and cubing. “And he practiced all the time.” Read more » A new study found that heart patients admitted to two emergency rooms in Florida were more likely to survive with female doctors. It’s not the first time researchers have found a difference between patients seeing male and female doctors: In 2016, Harvard researchers found that, among more than 1.5 million hospitalized Medicare patients, those cared for by female doctors were less likely to die or be readmitted to the hospital than those who had male doctors. Other studies found that female doctors listened more, explained more and interrupted patients less. Edna Haber, who lives in Westchester County, N.Y., said she went through two male doctors who dismissed her concerns about heart problems before she met Dr. Nieca Goldberg, a cardiologist who wrote the book “Women Are Not Small Men.” Dr. Goldberg gave her a heart monitor to wear, and they discovered that she needed a pacemaker. “She paid attention and treated me as if I was credible,” Ms. Haber said. “I wish all the women I know could understand how important it is to have a doctor who pays attention to them.” Read more » What would you like to see here? Email us at goodnews@nytimes.com. You can enjoy more of this feature at nytimes.com/goodnews. |