A funny thing happened on the way to the graduation podium last year. For the first time in US history, more women than men earned doctoral degrees, according to a report from the Council of Graduate Schools.

The statistic reflects yet another milestone in a 30-year transformation of educational trends among the sexes in our country. In recent years, women had risen to represent nearly 60% of all people that earned degrees from 4-year colleges and Master’s degree programs, but it wasn’t until last year that they claimed the lead among doctoral degrees as well.

Doctoral degrees typically require about 7 years to obtain, so it’s to be expected that this reversal would be the last among these trends to appear. “It is a trend that has been snaking its way through the educational pipeline,” Council director Nathan Bell told the Washington Post. “It was bound to happen.”

Men had retained a narrow lead in the number of doctoral degrees awarded because of their overwhelming predominance in mathematics, engineering and the physical sciences. To this day, men still account for 80% of doctorate degrees awarded in engineering, for example.

Women have caught up though, based on consistent, longstanding gains in health sciences, education and the behavioral sciences. Women now account for 70% of all awarded doctorates in health sciences. They account for 67% of new doctorates in education, and 60% percent of those awarded in behavioral and social sciences.

The rise of women through the ranks of our educational system began in the early 1980s. The demographic shift is being driven by the same economic forces that have driven increasing numbers of women into the workforce. In short, people of both genders realize there is an “increased need for (women) to make money for their families,” Catherine Hill, director of research at the American Association of University Women explained to the Post.

Last summer, some opponents of President Obama’s health reform bill set off a firestorm with claims that the proposed overhaul would include government-run death panels that would “pull the plug on Granny” if she ever came to require costly, end-of-life care.

Collateral damage from the scurrilous attacks included the jettisoning of proposed legislation that would have covered physician consultations for Medicare beneficiaries about end-of-life issues like hospice benefits, living wills and so forth.

Remarkably, some of the misperceptions created during that fiasco remain entrenched in the minds of American people. For example, 36% of seniors who responded to a July survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation said they believe the new health reform law does indeed create death panels. An additional 17% said they weren’t sure whether the law called for them or not.

The irony of course, is that the new law will improve options for terminally ill people, especially when it comes to hospice care. According to the Washington Post, current Medicare rules allow beneficiaries that have been deemed by a physician to have 6 months or less to live can opt to receive hospice care – “but only if they forgo any further life-prolonging treatment.”

In an attempt to partially shield people from having to face this inhumane dilemma, the new law creates a “concurrent care” demonstration program in which Medicare will cover both kinds of treatment at the same time. The experiment will take place at 15 sites across the nation, and last for 3 years. The program will also be open to children enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP).

In hospice care, a team of providers manages pain and other symptoms in dying patients, but makes no effort to treat the underlying disease. Team members teach family members how to care for their loved ones and provide bereavement counseling after death.

Although experts agree that hospice programs can be exceptionally beneficial to dying patients and their families, less than 40% of people are receiving hospice care at the time of death, according to the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization.

Experts in hospice care believe that patients and their family are optimally served if they access hospice services for approximately 2 months, yet the average length of time spent in hospice care is more like 20 days. Fully one-third of people receive such services for a week or less.

“We think it’s far too short a period for patients and their families to adjust to the realities of impending death,” Jon Keyserling, the NHPCO’s VP for public policy told the Post.

Of note, several private insurers including UnitedHealthcare  and Aetna have covered both hospice care and life-prolonging treatment for enrollees in certain plans for several years.

This June, the US Department of Defense proclaimed that those woefully parched mountains in Afghanistan contained a $900 billion trove of mineral deposits including copper, gold, iron and lithium. Of the four minerals, lithium was the one that sent Pentagon officials into a swoon. Some even claimed that as a result of the discovery, the impoverished nation could become “the Saudi Arabia of lithium.”

The mood-stabilizing properties of lithium have been known for a century. Physicians have used lithium for nearly that long to treat and prevent episodes of mania in people with bipolar disorder, for example. The popular soft drink 7-Up included lithium citrate as a “mood-booster” for 20 years after it was first commercialized in 1929.

Of course the mood stabilizing properties of lithium isn’t what has those Pentagon types excited. They’re pumped because lithium has become the can’t-do-without ingredient in the batteries that power smartphones, computers and other electronic devices. Lithium is also expected to become the prime source of battery power for hybrid-electric vehicles.

No one knows how much lithium exists in the Earth’s crust, and with demand for lithium batteries exploding, people worry the demand for lithium might outstrip supply. There is no shortage of the mineral today, but this worry has caused lithium prices to double since 2003.

Not all lithium deposits are equally easy to mine, by the way. Chile and Argentina currently supply half the world’s lithium, because deposits there can be mined inexpensively by drilling below the surface of dried-up lake beds and exposing lithium-laced saltwater beneath. From there, it’s a simple matter to evaporate the water and what’s left is lithium.

There are vast lithium deposits in Nevada as well, but they are mixed into clay. Extracting lithium from clay involves complex chemical reactions and heating the mix to 1,000 degrees. Lithium miners in Australia have to drill through granite, a still more expensive process.

No one knows yet how to extract the lithium from those forlorn mountains in Afghanistan. But so long as demand for the stuff remains high, the most important withdrawal plan for Afghanistan may have more to do with getting lithium out of the ground than getting troops out of the country.

Last month, a mix-up at the genetic testing company 23andMe caused 87 people to receive incorrect results. In one case, a woman was told her son carried genes for a life-threatening disorder when in fact, he didn’t. Another woman who thought she was white, was told her genes resembled those of an African American. In a third case, an actual woman was told she was a man.

23andMe said it regreted the mishap, spotted the error, notified people quickly, and took steps to assure the problem wouldn’t happen again.

The gaffe has focused attention on the question of whether the government should begin to regulate the burgeoning genetic testing industry more aggressively.

Supporters of this view argue that some companies in the space have made claims that are not supported by fact, and that the results of genetic testing are too complicated for people to interpret by themselves. People who are told they don’t have genes that put them at very high risk for developing breast cancer might stop getting mammograms, for example.

The flip-side to the argument is that a heavy dose of regulation might stifle innovation and render the tests too expensive and unnecessarily difficult to access. In addition, it’s far from clear that the FDA has the resources to verify the complex scientific claims being made by genetic testing companies.

Amid the debate, the FDA has begun to intervene. This spring, it blocked an effort by Pathway Genomics to market genetic tests in drug stores. Soon thereafter, it notified 5 companies that were marketing testing kits over the Internet that their tests were medical devices which needed to pass through normal regulatory processes.

Despite these early interventions, genetic testing remains in the Wild West phase of commercial development. Caveat emptor.

Earlier this summer, dozens of people reported that their boxes of Foot Loops and Apple Jacks contained strange odors and tastes. Some complained of nausea and diarrhea after consuming the cereal. The complaints prompted Kellogg to recall 28 million boxes of the iconic breakfast treats.

Kellogg subsequently blamed the problem on elevated levels of 2-methylnaphtalene, while adding that its experts found “no harmful material” in the cereals.

2-Methylnaphthalene may not be harmful, but it’s hard to know for sure. The FDA has no information about its impact on human health. Neither does the EPA, even though it has been asking the chemical industry to provide health information about 2-methylnaphtalene since 1994.

The EPA made the request 16 years ago because the chemical was being produced in massive quantities and finding its way into dozens, if not hundreds of consumer products.

The cereal recall has refocused attention on huge gaps in Federal regulators’ knowledge about chemicals in consumer products including food, children’s toys and clothing. According to the Washington Post, regulators don’t know squat about “the health risks posed by most of the 80,000 chemicals on the market today.”

The knowledge gap can be traced to the 1976 passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act which exempted 62,000 chemicals, including 2-methylnaphthalene, from regulatory oversight and stipulated that chemicals developed since then need not be tested for safety. Instead, manufacturers were encouraged to volunteer information concerning the health effects of their compounds and required to hand-over any data showing that a chemical harms health.

That created an enormous disincentive for manufacturers to test their chemicals.

Congress is working on legislation that would require companies to undertake health and safety assessments of existing chemicals and prove that new ones are safe before using them. The chemical industry thinks such laws could hamper innovation and competitiveness.

Pizaazz thinks it’ll take a US version of China’s melamine scandal before this legislation makes it to the President’s desk.

Recently, 5 scientists clambered into a steel capsule and shut the door behind them, unceremoniously beginning a scientific experiment designed to simulate a 520-day flight to Mars. Their mission is to help space crews of the future understand the stresses of interplanetary travel.

The all-male crew includes 3 Russians, a Chinese man, a Frenchman and an Italian-Colombian. They will execute a rigorous series of experiments and exercises, while being video-monitored the whole time by researchers from the European Space Agency, Russia’s Institute of Medical and Biological Problems and China’s space training center.

Conditions inside the capsule will mimic space travel in every respect, with the important exception of weightlessness.

The participants will communicate with “Earth” using an Internet connection that will be intentionally delayed and disrupted from time-to-time, to simulate likely communication outages during space travel. Their diet will consist of canned food similar to that consumed by astronauts on the International Space Station. They will shower once, and have 2 days off, per week except during simulated emergencies.

Of course, they can’t go far on their days off.

“For me, it will be mainly my family, the sun and fresh air,” French participant Romain Charles answered in response to a reporters question regarding what he will miss most during the project.

“Certainly, the crew is on its own here, with limited communications with the outside world,” the European Space Agency’s Martin Zell told the Washington Post. “They have to cope with a lot of conditions and organize themselves.”

Human beings are decades away from an actual Mars mission because of cost and technological barriers, including the creation of a lightweight shield to protect crews from space radiation.

Last week, 2 Iowa-based egg producers recalled more than half a billion eggs after federal investigators traced a recent salmonella outbreak to their production facilities. The outbreak began in May. So far, it has not been linked to any deaths.

The two companies are Wright County Egg, which recalled 380 million eggs that had been distributed across the nation, and Hillandale Farms, which recalled 170 million eggs that had been distributed to 14 states in the West and Midwest. According to the Washington Post, the companies use some of the same suppliers of feed and young chickens, a fact that may help investigators trace the source of the outbreak.

Hinda Mitchell, a spokesperson for Wright County Egg told the Post that her company “recognizes the significant consumer concern about the potential incidence of Salmonella Enteritidis…we continue to work cooperatively with FDA after our voluntary recall. This is consistent with our commitment to egg safety.”

It turns out that the Iowa-based DeCoster family owns or has close ties with both egg producers.

For what it’s worth, the Post reported yesterday that the family has a long history of run-ins with federal officials. In 1996 for example, another DeCoster-owned egg farm was dunned $3.6 million for health and safety violations after inspectors found employees handling dead chickens and manure with their bare hands.

Then, in 2001, Iowa’s Supreme Court cited the family as a “repeat violator” of its environmental laws, singling-out violations involving DeCoster’s hog-farms. Later that year, the family settled a complaint that company supervisors subjected 11 female workers to a “sexually hostile work environment,” including assault and rape.

What is more, in 2002 and again in 2008, OSHA cited the family for several violations that resulted in the exposure of workers to dangerous conditions.

Of course none of this is directly relevant to the salmonella outbreak…

The Affordable Care Act has catapulted the US Preventive Services Task Force from an obscure agency which produced unenforceable guidelines about screening and preventive services into one whose recommendations directly impact reimbursement.

The health reform law requires insurers to pay in full for services receiving an A or B recommendation from the Task Force. The flip-side is that insurers may not have to pay at all for services that are not recommended by the Task Force. As a result, the Task Force’ new best friends include lobbyists and disease advocates who want their priorities – things like screening for Alzheimer’s disease, HIV and diabetes or HIV – to get covered.

The American Diabetes Association, for example, is advocating that insurers be required to cover a broader population than current Task Force recommendations suggest. Current recommendations are that only patients with high blood pressure should be screened.

The HIV Medicine Association has made a similar argument to the Task Force. It claims that a key reason why 20% of people infected with HIV are unaware of that fact is because most insurers don’t cover the costs of testing.

“If you want to be evidence-based, lobbying doesn’t fit,” Ned Calonge, the chairman of the Task Force told the Washington Post. “My charge to members would be to stay true to the methods and the evidence.”

The Task Force, by the way, is the same one that caused a stir before the 2008 presidential election when it recommended that women should start receiving screening mammograms at the age of 50, rather than 40. That move was eventually trumped by an amendment to the Affordable Care Act which required insurers to cover mammograms for women in their 40s.

In the 4 months since the Deepwater Horizon blew up and oil began spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, scientists have been trying to understand the magnitude of the gusher’s ecological impact.

The gusher has been plugged thankfully, although there is no consensus on how much damage has been done. Some believe the gulf has largely avoided an ecological disaster. Others say that the spill has pushed already damaged ecosystems to the brink.

Take those ghastly pictures of oiled birds, for example. Officials say they’ve found only 1,200 of them, a fraction of the 35,000 that were discovered after the Exxon Valdez disaster. Of course, officials only count the birds they find. Some scientists believe the number is much higher.

“It’s an instinctive response: They’re hiding from predators while they recover,” Kerry St. Pé, told the Washington Post. St. Pe, who oversees a marsh protection program, added “They plan to recover, and they don’t. They just die.”

What about coastal marshes, whose oil-stained shores made regular appearances on the evening news? “The marsh grasses, the canes, the mangrove are dying,” Robert Barham, secretary of the state’s Department of Wildlife and Fisheries told the Post. “There’s visible evidence that the ecosystem is changed.”

But the National Audubon Society’s Paul Kemp disagreed. According to him, the impact of the spill was small by comparison to the marsh’s existing problems.

“We have a patient that’s dying of cancer, and now they have a sunburn, too,” Kemp said. “What will kill coastal Louisiana is not this oil spill.” (It’s) what was killing it before this oil spill,” he explained, citing erosion and river-control projects.

There is also disagreement about the presence of “plumes” of dissolved or submerged oil offshore. Some scientists claim to have found underwater oil many miles from the gusher.  But an official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said his agency found significant submerged oil only within 6 miles of the well.

“Right now,” John Valentine, a gulf researcher told the Post, “we should be more impressed by what we don’t know than what we do know.”

In years past, environmental catastrophes have helped environmental advocates win some of their biggest victories. In 1969, the Santa Barbara oil spill and images of a river on fire in Cleveland helped drive the passage of several anti-pollution laws. In 1989, the Exxon Valdez disaster helped spark a key clean-air law.

But this year, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, by far the biggest in US history, hasn’t had the same effect.

The Senate remains gridlocked on an energy bill. Public opinion has barely changed, and the demand for gasoline continues to surge.

It’s not that environmentalists aren’t trying. It’s just that they’re facing headwinds from a lousy economy, general mistrust of government and lingering suspicions from “Climategate,” which were sparked by since disproven allegations that environmental scientists were cooking their data to promote their views about global warming.

The dreadful economic tailspin has caused public officials and the public to back-off proposals that would lessen our dependence on fossil fuels, for example. Just 2 summers ago, gasoline cost $4-a-gallon, and millions cannot afford a return to such prices.

A related factor is the site of the oil spill. Louisiana residents, devastated by the calamity, have targeted BP rather than the oil industry itself, in part because the industry powers the state’s economy.

These issues are reflected in recent opinion polls which show that after the spill, only about 53% of people are concerned about climate change. That is unchanged from January, and down from 63% before the economy went south.

“It’s the short-term concerns overriding longer-term benefits” of greenhouse-gas laws, Ralph Izzo told the Washington Post. Izzo is CEO of the Public Service Enterprise Group, a New Jersey-based utility that supports carbon emission price control legislation.