This winter’s brutal flu season isn’t over, and COVID-19 cases have risen recently too. But a new poll taken in recent weeks shows that vaccination against both viruses lags among people 50 and over, and the national survey reveals key reasons why. In all, the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging shows, 42% of people over 50 haven’t gotten either flu or COVID-19 vaccines in the past six months, though 29% have gotten both and 27% have gotten just the updated flu shot. The poll also asked about COVID-19 vaccination since it became available in 2021: 49% of people over 50 said ...

For a long time, most scientists believed that early human hunter-gatherer societies were mostly equal, with little hierarchy or leadership, and that strong inequalities only emerged later with farming and complex societies.  However, new research out of Arizona State University is challenging this. Archaeological finds, ethnographic studies and now psychological research suggest that inequality in influence — who people listen to, copy, and follow — may have been part of human societies deep into our evolutionary past. “At some point in our past, humans became reliant on culture,” ...

People from the Outer Hebrides and north-west Ireland have the highest risk of developing a genetic disease that causes a dangerous build-up of iron in the body, a study suggests. The study marks the first time the genetic risk for haemochromatosis – also known as the ‘Celtic curse’ – has been mapped across the UK and Ireland, despite a high incidence of the condition among Scottish and Irish populations. Targeting genetic screening for the condition to priority areas could help identify at-risk individuals earlier and avoid future health ...

Exploring Earth’s deep interior is a far bigger challenge than exploring the solar system. While we have travelled 25 billion km into space, the deepest we have ever gone below our feet is just over 12 km. Consequently, little is known about the conditions at the base of the mantle and the top of the core – the most significant interface in the Earth’s interior and the region where new research has now uncovered exciting magnetic activity. In a study published in Nature Geoscience, research led by the University of Liverpool ...

Sexual dysfunction is a reality for many women, but the subject remains taboo. A large percentage of women remain untreated, a problem that is exacerbated by the shortage of treatment options for female sexual dysfunction. A research team from GAIA in Hamburg, in cooperation with the Institute for Sexual, Psycho- and Trauma Therapy in Munich, the University of Lübeck, and the Medical School Hamburg, has now investigated the digital therapy “mylovia” The results of the randomized controlled trial (RCT) were published today in the peer-reviewed journal npj Digital Medicine and show a statistically significant and clinically relevant effect of mylovia. mylovia ...

PHILADELPHIA — (TUESDAY, FEB. 3, 2026) — Scientists at The Wistar Institute have developed an HIV vaccine candidate that achieves something never before observed in the field: inducing neutralizing antibodies against HIV after a single immunization in nonhuman primates. The innovative approach, published in Nature Immunology, could significantly shorten and simplify HIV vaccination protocols, making them more accessible worldwide. The research, led by Amelia Escolano, Ph.D., assistant professor in Wistar’s Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center and the senior author of the study, ...

Medical artificial intelligence is a hugely appealing concept. In theory, models can analyze vast amounts of information, recognize subtle patterns in data, and are never too tired or busy to provide a response. However, although thousands of these models have been and continue to be developed in academia and industry, very few of them have successfully transitioned into real-world clinical settings. Marinka Zitnik, associate professor of biomedical informatics in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical ...

CLAYTON, Victoria, AUSTRALIA, 3 February 2026 -- Researchers led by Dr. Claire Foldi at Monash University have discovered that psilocybin, the psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms, produces subtle but distinct effects on social behavior and inflammation that depend critically on metabolic and exercise context in female mice. The peer-reviewed study, published in Psychedelics, represents the first systematic investigation of how this compound influences sociability in female mice exposed to activity-based anorexia (ABA), a widely ...

NEWTON, Massachusetts, USA, 3 February 2026 -- In a comprehensive Genomic Press Interview published today in Genomic Psychiatry, Dr. Ronald C. Kessler, the McNeil Family Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, reflects on a career that fundamentally altered how researchers and policymakers across the globe understand the prevalence, distribution, and treatment of mental disorders. With secondary appointments as Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Program Director at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, and at the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Precision Psychiatry, Dr. Kessler has built an unparalleled ...

A major step towards simpler drug development has been taken at the University of Gothenburg. In a new study, researchers have developed stable boron-fluorine compounds that make it possible to increase the effect or reduce side effects without breaking down the medicine. Chemical compounds based on the element boron are central tools in modern chemistry and are used, among other things, to build drugs, advanced materials, and molecules for medical diagnostics. Some types of boron compounds are still difficult to produce, especially when the boron atom must be placed very precisely in a complex molecule. This limits the possibilities for ...

Cats – unlike humans – are true carnivores: they must eat meat to survive because their bodies can’t draw some essential nutrients from plants. By looking at tissues, researchers can get a good understanding of what foods animals ate. Now, researchers at the Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science at the University of Vienna measured nitrogen and its stable isotopes 15N and 14N in the fur and whiskers of domestic cats as well as in cat food available in supermarkets. They then compared nitrogen isotope values to those found in the hair of humans ...

A patient with complete blindness caused by irreversible optic nerve damage partially recovered natural vision after participating in a clinical trial of electrical stimulation of the visual cortex conducted by researchers from the Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche (UMH) and the CIBER in Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN). The unexpected improvement was spontaneous, sustained over time, and independent of the implanted device. The case was observed during a study designed to evaluate the safety and feasibility of a cortical visual prosthesis. Although the goal of the trial was to generate artificial visual ...

Before plants evolved, vegetative life consisted of primitive green algae living in the sea. Like plants, these algae survived by performing photosynthesis, turning sunlight into energy. However, little light reaches the ocean where algae live; therefore, they evolved specialized organs to grab what little is available. Among these tiny ocean algae are prasinophytes, which are among the earliest photosynthetic life forms on Earth. Like all photosynthetic organisms, they rely on a pigment–protein complex called LHC to capture sunlight. How efficiently LHC performs photosynthesis in different environments depends on the pigments ...

Nearly two million children in the UK are affected by early language delays. New research will examine whether noise in nurseries is a hidden factor.  An estimated 1.9 million children across the UK are affected by early language delays, with rates doubling among children from disadvantaged backgrounds. A major new research project led by The Institute for the Science of Early Years (ISEY) at the University of East London supported by the Nuffield Foundation, will explore how background noise in nurseries affects early language development. The study ...

Doctors have found that metformin, an everyday medicine for diabetes, is associated with less progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the commonest cause of blindness in western countries. People with diabetes over the age of 55 years taking metformin were 37% less likely to develop the intermediate stage of AMD over a five year period compared to those not taking metformin. AMD is a disease which affects the central retina or macular at the back of the eye. It eventually causes the light-sensitive tissue to die off (geographic atrophy, a form of ‘dry’ ...

New York, February 2, 2026 — The invention of tiny devices capable of precisely controlling the direction and behavior of light is essential to the development of advance technologies. Researchers at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) have taken a significant step forward with the developed of a metasurface that can turn invisible infrared light into visible light and aim it in different directions—without any moving parts. The details of their work are explained in a new paper published in the journal eLight. The novel metasurface is constructed of an ultra-thin chip patterned with ...

From Laser Breakthroughs to New Frontiers in Nuclear Decay Control With the continuous progress in experimental laser technology, significant improvements in laser energy and peak intensity have been achieved in recent years. The direct interaction between intense lasers and atomic nuclei has emerged as an exciting new possibility, one capable of altering nuclear decay lifetimes. Investigating the influence of strong laser fields on nuclear decay can elucidate how these fields affect nuclear structure ...

Approaches by some European countries and Australia to protect energy consumers could help countries worldwide phase out harmful electricity disconnections without destabilising power markets, new research has found. The RMIT University-led study examines protections in Spain, France and Ireland and outlines how similar measures could be adapted in other competitive energy markets to reduce the harms caused by disconnections for non‑payment. Across Europe, 20 million households were disconnected from electricity and gas at some point during 2022, according to the EU Agency for the Cooperation ...

In a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers at the Texas A&M University Health Science Center (Texas A&M Health) identify a novel RNA molecule that plays a crucial role in preserving the integrity of a key cellular structure, nucleolus (a dense region of the cell containing a subset of crucial genetic material). Their findings also suggest this molecule may influence patient survival in certain blood cancers. A surprising discovery inside a familiar gene RNA, or ribonucleic acid, is a short-lived molecule copied from DNA that enables cells to use genetic information. Specific DNA ...

URBANA, Ill.  – In Bangladesh, programs targeting ultra-poor, rural households can help families escape extreme poverty. However, the programs may have the unintended consequence of reinforcing gender gaps, a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign finds. “We were interested in looking at whether such interventions influence parents’ expectations for their children’s education and occupation, which can promote social mobility. Because there are huge disparities between boys and girls in Bangladesh, we also wanted to see if it affected the gender gap,” said lead author Alejandro Montoya Castaño. He was a doctoral ...

Plants grown for biofuel have the potential to power our travel industry, but an important fraction of their chemical power has remained stubbornly difficult to recover. New research from the DOE-funded Center for Advanced Biofuel and Bioproduct Innovation on the University of Illinois campus has demonstrated a way to preserve native lignin structure, a key component of plant matter for conversion to other valuable products, putting an improved pathway for biofuel and bioproduct production within reach. The ...

Almost one-third of physicians who are enrolled in Medicaid don’t actually care for a single patient covered by Medicaid insurance, according to new research led by Oregon Health & Science University. The study, published today in the journal Health Affairs, sheds new light on a program that covers nearly 80 million Americans. Researchers also found that another third of health care providers enrolled in Medicaid see a high volume of patients — more than 150 annually — and may be overburdened. Combined, the findings paint a picture of a situation in which enrollment data alone may obscure the reality ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 2 February 2026    Follow @Annalsofim on X, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and Linkedin              Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on ...

Hybrid climate modelling has emerged as an effective way to reduce the computational costs associated with cloud-resolving models while retaining their accuracy. The approach retains physics-based models to simulate large-scale atmospheric dynamics, while harnessing deep learning to emulate cloud and convection processes that are too small to be resolved directly. In practice, however, many hybrid AI-physics models are unreliable. When simulations extend over months or years, small errors can accumulate and cause the model to become unstable. In a new ...

Last year, at least one million people in the U.S. were hospitalized for respiratory virus illnesses like the flu or COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many of these individuals were at higher risk of getting infections due to living or working around young children who contract more respiratory infections. A new clinical trial led by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s (UMSOM) Center for Vaccine Development and Global Health (CVD) will test a new experimental intranasal ...