In a winter marked by flu outbreaks, the persistence of Covid-19, and surges of measles cases across the United States, an Annenberg survey finds that a sizable majority of Americans think the three vaccines that combat these potentially deadly illnesses are safe to take, although perceptions of the safety of all three vaccines showed a statistically significant drop over the past three years. Flu levels are rising across the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with visits to emergency departments increasing for children over five. In 2025, measles cases hit their highest level in the United States since 1991, ...

Anxiety disorders — including generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder and phobias — affect as many as one in four people over the course of their lives. They often begin early in life and persist for years, inflicting significant personal, social and economic consequences. Now, a major breakthrough published in Nature Genetics is offering the clearest picture yet of the genetic roots of these conditions. In what is now the largest genome‑wide association study (GWAS) of clinically diagnosed anxiety disorders ever conducted, an international ...

A little-known fact: In the year 1900, electric cars outnumbered gas-powered ones on the American road.  The lead-acid auto battery of the time, courtesy of Thomas Edison, was expensive and had a range of only about 30 miles. Seeking to improve on this, Edison believed the nickel-iron battery was the future, with the promise of a 100-mile range, a long life and a recharge time of seven hours, fast for that era.  Alas, that promise never reached fruition. Early electric car batteries still suffered from serious limitations, and advances in ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Feb. 10, 2026) — Dementia Care Aware (DCA) is collaborating with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) to support its March 2026 Action Community, a community learning experience that helps health systems across the country implement the 4Ms Framework of an Age-Friendly Health System. DCA is a national organization dedicated to improving dementia detection and care by providing health care teams the education, tools and support necessary to offer high-quality dementia care. This new collaboration advances DCA’s and IHI’s shared goals ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE In a lab-grown cell study focused on potential new treatment targets for halting the spread of most pancreatic cancers, Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists report they have found that a gene called KLF5 (Krueppel-like factor 5) fuels the growth of such spreading tumors not by acquiring abnormal changes in the cancer cells’ DNA code itself but by altering chemical changes and organization of DNA, or epigenetics, that turns genes on and off.  “Epigenetic alterations are underappreciated ...

Israel E. Wachs, the G. Whitney Snyder Distinguished Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at Lehigh University, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE), one of the highest professional honors in the field of engineering. Wachs was recognized “for establishing fundamental structure–activity/selectivity rules governing molecular engineering of mixed oxide catalysts” that guide the rational design of solid catalysts (materials that accelerate and control chemical reactions) for air pollution ...

Stimulating two brain areas, nudging them to collectively fire in the same way, increased a person’s ability to behave altruistically, according to a study published February 10th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Jie Hu from East China Normal University in China and colleagues from University of Zurich in Switzerland. As parents raise their kids, they often work to teach them to be kind and to share, to think about other people and their needs—to be altruistic. This unselfish attitude is critical if a society is ...

A study comparing one- and three-month antibiotic treatments to prevent active tuberculosis (TB) finds that a high percentage of patients successfully completed both regimens and suffered few adverse side effects. A team led by Richard Chaisson, of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, U.S.A., reports these findings February 10th in the open access journal PLOS Medicine. After someone is exposed to TB, the World Health Organization has traditionally recommended six to nine months of antibiotic treatment to prevent an active infection from developing, but many individuals fail to complete the long course of medication. Studies have shown that ...

When food is scarce, stress hormones direct the immune system to operate in “low power” mode to preserve immune function while conserving energy, according to researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine. This reconfiguration is crucial to combating infections amid food insecurity. When food is scarce, stress hormones direct the immune system to operate in “low power” mode to preserve immune function while conserving energy, according to researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine. This reconfiguration is crucial to combating ...

AMHERST, Mass. — Building on their groundbreaking 2018 research into how some of the body’s cells, such as neurons and cardiac tissue, communicate via ions that flow through cellular channels, chemists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst demonstrated a “leakiness” to a particularly mysterious type of channel, known as a “big potassium,” or BK channel. This leakiness is key to further study the body’s electrical infrastructure, which, when it goes haywire, can result in maladies like epilepsy and hypertension. Instead of electron-carrying wires, electricity flows through our bodies in ion-carrying cellular ...

Nearly 30 years ago, researchers began studying the gene Astn1, which encodes the cell adhesion protein astrotactin 1 in mice, and its role in brain development. During this time, they learned a great deal about the function of astroactin 1 in neuronal migration and the developmental problems that emerge when the protein fails. This story has now come full circle – the findings in mice are helping to provide answers to undiagnosed human conditions. Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children Hospital and collaborating institutions have ...

When banks crowd a lending market, you can forget the traditional relationship of supply and demand, in which increased supply normally leads to lower prices. So finds new research from Cesare Fracassi, associate professor of finance at Texas McCombs. Paradoxically, a larger number of banks in a market sends the price of a loan up — as measured by the interest rate charged by the lender. For every six additional banks in a county, he finds, interest rates are 7 basis points higher. A basis point is one-hundredth of 1%. “The usual story we tell says the more suppliers of a product are out there, the better it is,” Fracassi says. “It’s ...

Shima Mohebbi, Assistant Professor, Systems Engineering and Operations Research (SEOR), George Mason University; Milos Manic, Professor, Computer Science, Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU); and Babak Aslani, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, SEOR, George Mason, are studying agentic artificial intelligence (AI)-driven cybersecurity for critical manufacturing.  The Commonwealth of Virginia is home to nearly 5,000 small- and medium-sized critical manufacturing entities, which collectively ...

When Asian American Olympians Chloe Kim and Eileen Gu competed in their first Winter Games, they were treated differently by the U.S. media, a new University of Michigan study suggests.   Snowboarder Chloe Kim was celebrated as a "typical American teenager" by the media for competing for the United States in her first Olympics in 2018, while four years later, freestyle skier Eileen Gu was cast as an "ungrateful traitor" after opting to represent China instead of the U.S.   Study corresponding author Doo Jae Park, a lecturer in sport management at the U-M School of Kinesiology and faculty affiliate ...

Research led by Simon Grelet, Ph.D., at the University of South Alabama that uncovered a previously unknown way nerves fuel cancer spread has been recognized as one of Science magazine’s Top 10 Scientific Breakthroughs of 2025. The honor, announced in the Dec. 18, 2025 issue of Science, highlights major advances across all scientific disciplines. Published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the peer-reviewed journal is regarded as the world’s leading research authority, making the selection a significant distinction for both Grelet ...

Background and Aims Chronic hepatitis B (CHB) poses a major global health burden, with China particularly affected. Effective antiviral therapy is crucial to prevent disease progression, but responses may vary by Hepatitis B virus (HBV) genotype. This prospective study aimed to compare genotype-specific responses to 144-week entecavir (ETV) therapy in HBeAg-positive CHB patients, with particular emphasis on histological improvement assessed through paired liver biopsies. Methods We enrolled 49 treatment-naïve CHB patients (HBV DNA ≥ 20,000 IU/mL, alanine transaminase ...

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (02/10/2026) — A new breakthrough study led by researchers at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities could explain why patients with the same genetic sickle cell mutation experience different levels of pain, organ damage and response to treatment. The study published in Science Advances, shows that the severity of sickle cell disease is not best predicted by the average “thickness” of a patient’s blood, but by the specific behavior of a small population of highly “stiff” red blood cells. These stiff cells reorganize themselves within the flow, pushing ...

On April 20, 2023, a juvenile great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) measuring approximately 210 cm and weighing between 80-90 kg was incidentally caught by local fishermen off the coast of eastern peninsula. This rare encounter, prompted the researchers to dive deep into past records spanning from 1862 to 2023 compiling an extensive review that is now published in the open-access journal Acta Ichthyologica et Piscatoria. The accidental capture - contextualized within a review of records spanning 160 years - revealed that while the Mediterranean great white shark remains ...

About The Study: This cross-sectional study found that in 2024, excess youth overweight and obesity remained highly prevalent among youths in the U.S. The prevalence of excess adiposity was higher for certain racial and ethnic subgroups. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, William J. Heerman, MD, MPH, email bill.heerman@vumc.org. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.58710) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In this cohort study of women with benign uterine pathology or endometrial hyperplasia, combined glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) and progestin was associated with reduced endometrial cancer risk. Further investigation is warranted to assess its applicability and underlying mechanisms. Corresponding Authors: To contact the corresponding authors, email Edward J. Tanner, MD, MBA, (etanner4@jh.edu) and James Cheng-Chung Wei, MD, PhD, (jccwei@gmail.com). To access the embargoed study: Visit our For ...

Age-related memory decline and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s are often thought of as irreversible. But the brain is not static; neurons continually adjust the strength of their connections, a property called “synaptic plasticity”, and this flexibility is the basis of memory and learning. But aging and Alzheimer’s disrupt many cell processes that support synaptic plasticity. A key question is whether and how the affected cells can be helped to sustain their plasticity. Memories are thought to rely on sparse ...

WASHINGTON—The Endocrine Society is pleased to announce its Rare Endocrine Disease (RED) Fellows Series, a program designed to equip early career physicians with the knowledge and practical skills needed to improve outcomes for people living with rare endocrine diseases. The program was developed in partnership with the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) and addresses critical gaps in awareness, diagnosis and care of rare endocrine diseases. The program consists of two core ...

Post-stroke rehabilitation, particularly in restoring function to the wrist and hand (W/H), faces significant challenges due to compensatory movement patterns that develop in the shoulder and elbow joints. These compensations help individuals with daily tasks but often result in the learned disuse of distal muscles, hindering motor recovery. Effective rehabilitation requires not only restoring motor control but also improving sensorimotor integration (SMI) between the brain and the targeted muscles. However, current robotic rehabilitation systems often fail to adequately address both the motor pathways for movement control and the sensory pathways ...

“Our data demonstrates that SB-216 effectively inhibits PDAC cell growth through inhibiting oncogenic microtubules and mitochondrial function.” BUFFALO, NY — February 10, 2026 — A new research paper was published in Volume 13 of Oncoscience on January 28, 2026, titled “Dual targeting of oncogenic microtubules and mitochondria in PDAC.” In this study led by first author Michael W. Spinrad with corresponding author, Evan S. Glazer from The University of Tennessee Health Science ...

In early 2025, the party-loving city of New Orleans, Louisiana, hosted two major events within the span of a month: Super Bowl LIX and Mardi Gras. And, as with many major events, it appears there was an increase in recreational drug use during this time. Researchers publishing in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology Letters show how monitoring wastewater revealed an increase in the use of relatively new dangerous synthetic opioids during these two events. “Our study reveals the growing trend of synthetic opioid use in communities and our non-invasive approach ...