Author: Jeff Yastine, Senior Correspondent

Tonight's Bill of Health segment is about the growth of "telemedicine networks" around the country. These networks basically allow people and clinics in rural or inner-city areas to connect with medical specialists in urban centers. Those specialists can run the gamut from dermatology to cardiology -- and even psychiatry.

Telemedicine is not new. Since the late 1960s, technologists have been working with various devices to link physicians and patients remotely. However, the medical community didn’t really begin to take telemedicine seriously until the 1990s. Once again, we can thank the advent of the Internet, as well as cheaper computer technology, for making that happen.

I found it fascinating, in the process of reporting today's story on world food prices, to learn how the impact of changes in one part of the farm economy here in the U.S. can have such broad implications for the rest of the world. Perhaps you've read or heard about some of the riots that have occurred in parts of Africa, Haiti, and Bangladesh over sharply rising prices for rice. The less-obvious aspect of this story is how U.S. rice exports factor into the equation.

The U.S. exports nearly all the rice it grows...and ranks among the top five rice exporters in the world. The interesting fact, pointed out to us by Wachovia Securities grains analyst Bill Nelson, is that U.S. rice growers have in recent years devoted less acreage to rice planting -- and more to corn. Why? Because of the high prices ethanol producers will pay for corn. US acreage has dropped by some 600,000 acres in the past few years, and that's helped play a role in whether rice supplies are adequate to meet rice demand in the rest of the world.

What's interesting about this week's Bill of Health is that "corporate medical clinics" are something that a great many large companies of another era - the 1950's and 1960's - used to have. Company infirmaries were a commonplace service offered to everyone, from executives to the guys driving the forklift at the warehouse. Full-service infirmaries fell victim to corporate cost-cutting efforts in the 1970s. By the 1980s, the idea of a company staffing its own medical clinic for the benefit of employees was considered a quaint throwback, and most companies were busy outsourcing any of their medical obligations to HMOs as another cost to get off the balance sheet.

Today's Bill of Health looks at the nation's latest shortage -- of pharmacists. Our nation's bulge bracket of aging baby-boomers and changes in the role pharmacists play in the healthcare system are driving this shortage.

I find it something of an irony that physicians spend less and less time with individual patients because of the demands and pressures of operating a practice and getting paid by HMOs, while, at the same time, pharmacists are spending more and more time helping to advise those same clients on the drugs they take. If you visit new chain-store pharmacies, you're likely to see small booths or "private areas" near the pharmacy counter. That's a location increasingly set aside as a place where pharmacists and patients can consult in private about their prescription, possible ways to lower drug costs, and the interactions of multiple drugs on their bodies.

Can capitalism and speculators' greed help solve the problem of greenhouse-gas emissions? That's the debate that's occurring right now as virtual marketplaces like the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) offer companies and trading firms a place to trade and profit from the output of carbon dioxide gas.

There are no US laws on the books that require corporations to control carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Membership on the exchange is completely voluntary. But carbon-producing members, such as Ford Motor, Honeywell, Dow Chemical and others, are required to cut their greenhouse gas emissions of the year 2000 by at least six percent by the year 2010. Cut them by more, and you can trade those extra percentage points, or "carbon credits," to other less-efficient members for money. By 'monetizing' greenhouse-gas emissions, the theory goes, companies will have incentive to cut their carbon emissions even further.

No one's shedding any tears for the position the credit rating agencies, like Moody's, now find themselves in. After rating a lot of now highly-suspect mortgage securities as "AAA," Moody's along with S&P and Fitch are taking the lumps from market critics. Moody's CEO Ray McDaniel issued something of a mea culpa during the interview I did with him today. McDaniel noted that Moody's did some things wrong, but also said that it's not realistic to expect any rating system to be able to foresee the kind of contagion that's spread through the credit markets.

The method of rating complex derivative mortgage-backed securities, such as collateralized debt obligations, with a simplistic "AAA" rating has also come under fire.

As a journalist, I'm always interested in knowing where the "tipping point" is on a particular trend. In other words, when did people in a particular industry, such as those I interviewed for my segment in NBR’s “A Guide to Giving” series, start noticing that "the ballgame had changed" because of the use of the Internet? It appears that the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon played a key role in getting people used to the idea of charitable giving through the web. The Internet was already in wide use, of course, but the idea of using it to make donations was still a largely unfamiliar to the vast majority of Americans in 2001. In the rush for funds and relief supplies following the attacks, Americans - and the larger charities - came to accept the internet as a standard fundraising technique.

The headline story on Wal-Mart today is that the company beat analysts' profit forecasts for the fourth quarter of 2007. Wall Street liked the news. But there was another Wal-Mart story floating around today that Wall Street may not like so much, eventually. The University of Michigan surveyed consumers on their satisfaction with a variety of retailers around the US, and it was interesting to note that Wal-Mart ranked lowest among the major chains.

Clearly, most anyone who shops at Wal-Mart goes there for the prices. If high-quality customer service is that important, you'd be shopping at Nordstrom or Macy's. Still, Wal-Mart is a brand name, and if successful brand names are about how people "feel," then Wal-Mart's customer service could probably use some help.

Today's story on the Florida primary focused in on the effects that the ongoing foreclosure crisis is having on voters' moods and the political rhetoric of GOP and democratic candidates. But two other factors in Florida's "real estate economy" also figure prominently in voters' minds -- property taxes and property insurance. Both have risen sharply in recent years: property taxes as a result of the housing boom, and property insurance because of the adjustments made by insurance companies in the wakes of hurricanes Katrina, Ivan, Charlie, and Wilma in 2005 and 2006.

We've all seen or heard about actors and singers who have "agents." But, have you heard that universities have agents? Well, many schools do hire agents to help them handle their huge logo and licensing businesses. That was one of the more interesting facts I turned up while reporting the third installment of our series "The Business of College Football."

The Collegiate Licensing Company, or CLC, isn’t a generally well known company, but if you're a university president or a college athletic director, you certainly know the name. CLC acts as an agent for universities and their "brands" -- the logos and mascot images that define that school. Think of Notre Dame's gold-and-green or the University of Florida's orange-and-blue and "gator" mascot and logo. CLC makes sure all the elements of the brand are used properly, helps combat piracy efforts (whether the pirates are Chinese factories or a bunch of frat boys trying to make a buck selling T-shirts after the big game), and counsels schools on how to can best manage their "brand."