Affected person privateness
Folks with power circumstances are taking medical analysis into their very own arms, Betsy Ladyzhets reported in “Affected person as scientist” (SN: 3/23/24, p. 22).
Connor, a affected person highlighted within the story, requested to be recognized by solely his first identify. However the story prints the complete identify of his partner. “How precisely does that preserve [Connor’s] medical privateness?” reader Tom Begich requested.
Connor’s partner, Nicole Bruno, agreed to print her final identify as a result of it differs from Connor’s, Ladyzhets says. As a part of Science Information’ fact-checking course of, Ladyzhets additionally confirmed different particulars with the couple earlier than publication.
Really apex?
Shark bites are fairly uncommon, Brianna Randall reported in “Sharks bit fewer than 100 individuals in 2023” (SN: 3/23/24, p. 4).
Randall wrote that sharks are the ocean’s apex predators, animals on the prime of a meals internet, whose inhabitants isn’t regulated by different predators. Reader Bruce Bailey puzzled if that’s true, on condition that orcas typically prey on nice whites.
Many sharks rank in the course of a meals internet, however most sharks that chunk people, together with nice whites, are apex predators, says inhabitants geneticist Gavin Naylor of the Florida Museum of Pure Historical past in Gainesville. And whereas orcas can kill or briefly displace an important white, the whales don’t management the sharks’ inhabitants, says shark biologist Neil Hammerschlag of Atlantic Shark Expeditions in Boutiliers Level, Canada.
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