Texas has the most rural residents of any state, with nearly 3 million people spread across a vast landscape. If rural Texas were its own state, it would rank as the 36th most populous. Yet, rural Texans face significant barriers to health care that their urban counterparts do not. More than a quarter of the state’s 172 rural counties lack a hospital, and those with at least one hospital often struggle with a shortage of qualified health care personnel, such as nurses and first responders. To address these growing challenges, The University of Texas at Arlington introduced its new Mobile Simulation Lab on Friday. It’s the first in Texas dedicated ...

Post-traumatic osteoarthritis (PTOA) is a condition that affects joints after an injury. Current treatments focus on relieving symptoms but do not prevent or stop the progression of the condition. Although emerging therapies have shown promise in preclinical studies, a major obstacle is delivering these therapies effectively into the joint, a highly dynamic environment subjected to constant mechanical stress. Researchers at Mass General Brigham have created a new hydrogel to improve drug delivery for treating PTOA. The hydrogel, ...

ROCKVILLE, Md. – March 31, 2025 – The Association for Molecular Pathology, the premier global molecular diagnostic professional society, and pathologist Michael Laposata​, M.D.​​​​, Ph.D., today​​ announced a favorable ruling in their lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over the regulation of laboratory-developed test procedures. The ruling by Judge Sean D. Jordan of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas granted AMP’s motion for summary judgment ...

Christopher M. Kramer, MD, FACC, today assumed the role of president of the American College of Cardiology, an almost 60,000-member global cardiovascular organization working to transform cardiovascular care and improve heart health for all. “I see significant challenges and opportunities for the field of cardiology in the coming years, including workforce issues, health equity, diversity and inclusion, and AI-driven solutions, that need to be addressed to achieve ACC’s mission of transforming cardiovascular care for all,” ...

Effective today, David E. Winchester, MD, MS, FACC, will serve as chair of the American College of Cardiology Board of Governors (BOG) and secretary of the Board of Trustees. His term will run one year from 2025-2026. Winchester will lead governors from chapters representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and representatives from the U.S. health services. The BOG serves as the grassroots governing body of the ACC, a leading cardiovascular organization representing over 56,000 cardiovascular care team members around the world. “Being Chair of the Board ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 31 March 2025    Follow @Annalsofim on X, Facebook, Instagram, threads, 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 ...

TUCSON, Arizona — A University of Arizona Health Sciences-led study found that patients are more likely to get colonoscopies following abnormal stool test results if patient navigators assist them through the process. The paper, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, showed that 55% of patients who were assigned to a patient navigator received follow-up colonoscopies within a year compared with 42.5% of patients who received usual care without a navigator. “It is important for patients with abnormal stool test results to get a colonoscopy as soon as possible to prevent an increased risk of colorectal cancer and later-stage cancer detection,” ...

Contact: Bess Connolly, 203-432-1324 or elizabeth.connolly@yale.edu   New Haven, Conn. — A Yale-led study warns that global climate change may have a devastating effect on butterflies, turning their species-rich, mountain habitats from refuges into traps.   Think of it as the “butterfly effect” — the idea that something as small as the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can eventually lead to a major event such as a hurricane — in reverse.   The new study, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, ...

Aya Goldshtein, Omer Mazar, and Yossi Yovel have spent many evenings standing outside bat caves. Even so, seeing thousands of bats erupting out of a cave and flapping into the night, sometimes in densities so high that they appear liquid, astounds the scientists every time. But until recently, the bat biologists were even more baffled by what they didn’t see. “The bats don’t run into each other,” says Goldshtein from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, “even in colonies of ...

The same genes could hold the key to regenerating cells in the ear and eye, according to a new mouse study from the USC Stem Cell laboratory of Ksenia Gnedeva, PhD, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). “The proliferation of progenitor cells in response to injury is a crucial step in the regeneration of sensory receptors, but this process is blocked in the mammalian inner ear and retina. By understanding the genes that enforce this block, we can advance efforts to restore hearing and vision in patients,” said Gnedeva, an assistant professor in the USC Tina and Rick Caruso Department of Otolaryngology ...

A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has turned traditional thinking on its head by highlighting the role of human interactions during the shift from hunting and gathering to farming - one of the biggest changes in human history - rather than earlier ideas that focused on environmental factors. The transition from a hunter-gatherer foraging lifestyle, which humanity had followed for hundreds of thousands of years, to a settled farming one about 12,000 years ago has been widely discussed in popular books like Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. Researchers from the University of Bath, the Max Planck Institute ...

International scientists have uncovered the oldest known phosphatic stromatoporoid sponge, dating back approximately 480 million years to the Early Ordovician, in South China. Stromatoporoid sponges were key reef builders during the Palaeozoic era, playing a crucial role in constructing biological frameworks—similar to the role of modern corals. They were especially important during the middle Paleozoic era (from the late Middle Ordovician to Devonian), a time marked by a major transition from microbial-dominated to skeletal-dominated reef ecosystems. Previously, stromatoporoid ...

New York, NY [March 31, 2025] — Brian Brown, PhD, Director of the Icahn Genomics Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, has been elected to the College of Fellows of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE). He was honored for his seminal work in gene therapy and functional genomics, which has helped transform the fields and contributed to key advancements in medicine and biotechnology. Election to the AIMBE College of Fellows is one of the highest professional distinctions in the field. It recognizes the ...

Mental health care can be difficult to access in the U.S. Insurance coverage is spotty and there aren’t enough mental health professionals to cover the nation’s need, leading to long waits and costly care. Enter artificial intelligence (AI). AI mental health apps, ranging from mood trackers to chatbots that mimic human therapists, are proliferating on the market. While they may offer a cheap and accessible way to fill the gaps in our system, there are ethical concerns about overreliance on ...

Rice University researchers have developed an innovative solution to a pressing environmental challenge: removing and destroying per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), commonly called “forever chemicals.” A study led byJames Tour, the T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Chemistry and professor of materials science and nanoengineering, and graduate student Phelecia Scotland unveils a method that not only eliminates PFAS from water systems but also transforms waste into high-value graphene, offering a cost-effective and sustainable approach to environmental remediation. This research was published March 31 in Nature Water. PFAS ...

Lack of sleep and stress hinder athletic performance, but some athletes may be better at performing competitively despite sleep issues and stress. In a new JNeurosci paper, researchers led by Yan Sun, from Peking University, looked for predictive behavioral and neural markers in athletes who maintain their performance level following sleep deprivation and under stress.  The researchers assessed college and professional athletes’ stress levels and cognitive changes after 24 h of sleep deprivation, then followed their ...

The comorbidity of binge eating and alcohol binge drinking is prevalent and increases the risk of other neuropsychiatric and bodily conditions. However, the mechanisms linking these forms of binge consumption are unclear. To explore the link between binge eating and binge drinking alcohol, Karen Szumlinski, from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and colleagues developed a way to model the disease comorbidity in mice. As reported in their JNeurosci paper, this mouse model led to the discovery that females with a history of binge eating start binge drinking ...

People breathing contaminated air over the course of years are at greater risk of developing numerous diseases. This is thought to be due to highly reactive components in particulate matter, which affect biological processes in the body. However, researchers from the University of Basel, Switzerland, have now shown that precisely these components disappear within hours and that previous measurements therefore completely underestimate the quantities in which they are present. From chronic respiratory problems to cardiovascular diseases, ...

The wellbeing of Americans and the country’s longstanding position as a world leader in science and technology are in jeopardy due to the actions of the Trump administration, approximately 1,900 leading figures in medicine, science, and engineering warn today in an open statement to the American public. The list of signatories includes Nobel Prize winners, deans of medical schools, and national leaders in science and technology. “For over 80 years, wise investments by the US government have built up the nation’s research enterprise, making it the envy of ...

About The Study: Although Canada is not the largest supplier of medications to the U.S., tariffs could raise costs and strain supply chains. This study estimates that $3 billion in U.S. pharmaceuticals depend on Canadian manufacturing, with 25% tariffs adding $750 million in cost. Although the Inflation Reduction Act provisions limit cost pass-through to some payers (i.e., Medicare), manufacturers may still adjust production or alter distribution, increasing supply chain fragility. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Mina Tadrous, PharmD, PhD, email mina.tadrous@utoronto.ca. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website ...

About The Study: This national cross-sectional study found substantial rural-urban disparities in cardiometabolic risk factors and cardiovascular diseases, which were largest among younger adults and almost entirely explained by social risk factors. These findings suggest that efforts to improve socioeconomic conditions in rural communities may be critical to address the rural-urban gap in cardiovascular health. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Rishi K. Wadhera, MD, MPP, MPhil, email rwadhera@bidmc.harvard.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2025.0538) Editor’s ...

While the typical image of someone suffering a heart attack might be a man clutching his chest, heart disease is a major problem for women, too. In fact, it’s the leading cause of death among women in the United States, with nearly 45% of the nation’s women over age 20 living with some form of cardiovascular disease. A new study from heart researchers at Intermountain Health in Salt Lake City shows that while rates of death and other cardiac-related events – like heart attack ­– are still high for women, the ...

DARIEN, IL — New research reveals that lower proportions of specific sleep stages are associated with reduced brain volume in regions vulnerable to the development of Alzheimer’s disease over time. Results show that individuals with lower proportions of time spent in slow wave sleep and rapid eye movement sleep had smaller volumes in critical brain regions, particularly the inferior parietal region, which is known to undergo early structural changes in Alzheimer’s disease. The results were adjusted for potential confounders including demographic characteristics, smoking history, alcohol use, hypertension, and coronary heart disease. “Our findings provide ...

A collaborative study conducted by researchers at Maharishi International University (MIU), the University of Siegen, and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences reveals that individuals practicing Transcendental Meditation® (TM®) technologies long-term show favorable biological markers of aging and stress. The research compared gene expression, cognitive function (via EEG), and hair glucocorticoids (cortisol and cortisone) in 12-year and 40-year TM groups and non-meditator controls. “This study provides evidence that long-term practice of TM technologies has a broad range of health benefits at the molecular ...

EMBARGOED UNTIL MONDAY, MARCH 31 – 11:00 AM Eastern The nuclei in our cells are miniature warehouses safeguarding the genetic blueprint for the body’s biologic machinery. As warehouses go, nuclei are more like libraries than bank vaults. Too many cellular components need access to the genome to lock it down like Fort Knox. Instead, large groupings of more than 1,000 individual protein molecules called nuclear pore complexes (NPCs) pepper the dividing membrane, serving as gateways for materials and messages entering and exiting the nucleus. While the basic need for this shuttle service is constant, ...