Community Briefs
By Daily Bruin Staff
Aug. 27, 2000 9:00 p.m.
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.
