The week after the autumn clock change is associated with a reduction in demand for NHS services for sleep disorders, cardiovascular disease, anxiety, depression, and psychiatric conditions in England, finds a study in the Christmas issue of The BMJ. However, there is little evidence that the spring clock change has any short term effect on the number of health conditions, say the researchers. Daylight saving time was introduced during the first world war and involves moving the clocks one hour forward in spring and one ...

AI generated images of doctors have the potential to exaggerate and reinforce existing stereotypes relating to sex, gender, race, and ethnicity, suggests a small analysis in the Christmas issue of The BMJ. Sati Heer-Stavert, GP and associate clinical professor at the University of Warwick, says AI generated images of doctors “should be carefully prompted and aligned against workforce statistics to reduce disparity between the real and the rendered.” Inaccurate portrayals of doctors in the media and everyday imagery ...

Playing soothing live music in intensive care units not only helps parents bond with their baby but also provides a moment’s respite from an uncertain and stressful situation, says a senior doctor in the Christmas issue of The BMJ. In 2025, Music in Hospitals & Care has delivered more than 90 hours of live music to neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in the UK, reaching more than 1000 seriously ill babies. The charity has been providing soothing tunes for babies and parents through its Lullaby Hour sessions since 2017, ...

The only reasonable stance on conscious AI is “agnosticism”: that we won’t, and may never, be able to tell, says a philosophy-of-consciousness expert.    This gulf in our knowledge could be exploited by a tech industry intent on selling the “next level of AI cleverness”, argues Dr Tom McClelland.   “If you have an emotional connection with something premised on it being conscious and it’s not, that has the potential to be existentially toxic.” A University of Cambridge philosopher argues that our evidence for what constitutes consciousness is far too limited to tell if or when artificial intelligence has made the leap ...

AI video translation is not yet a perfect substitute for human translation, according to new research from the University of East Anglia. A new study shows that AI tools can be useful when speed and clarity are priorities. But human translators remain crucial for tone, cultural nuance and for sounding natural. Jiseon Han, a lecturer in digital marketing at UEA’s Norwich Business School, said: “As brands race to reach global consumers on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, a new question has emerged - can generative AI truly replace humans in video translation? “We decided to put it to ...

Stanford researchers have uncovered evidence that deep underwater earthquakes can spur the growth of massive phytoplankton blooms at the ocean surface. Phytoplankton are microscopic, plant-like organisms that float in upper ocean layers and serve as the foundation of the oceanic food chain. They also store carbon dioxide pulled from the air and supply a large amount of the planet’s oxygen. The new findings, published Dec. 9 in Nature Geoscience, point to a previously unknown relationship ...

Key takeaways Dark-eyed juncos, a bird that typically live in mountain forests, have established thriving populations in Southern California cities, where they eat food people leave behind. A UCLA biologist studying the biological adaptations that help them survive an urban environment has found that the bill shape of this species became more like that of their non-urban counterparts in the absence of people during the pandemic closures at UCLA. After campus re-opened, the bills gradually returned to their previous shape, suggesting that the presence of people and their trash is driving the evolution ...

Each year, 11 million people worldwide develop tuberculosis, and about 1.4 million die from it. Meningitis occurs in 1–2% of patients and is the most severe complication of tuberculosis, arising when the bacteria reach the brain. Despite antibiotic treatment, about half of patients with TB meningitis die or suffer permanent damage such as deafness or paralysis. Hospital pharmacist, clinical pharmacologist, and professor Rob Aarnoutse explains: 'In previous studies, we saw that very little rifampicin—the most important antibiotic against tuberculosis—reaches the brain. That means the bacteria are not effectively cleared there. But those studies also ...

Around 100 trillion insects fly in the skies above the USA on a summer's day, according to estimates by researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) and the USA. Using weather radar, they have for the first time estimated the number of flying insects above the contiguous US. •    Researchers used data from 140 weather radars to estimate the number of insects across the US. •    The number of insects has remained stable there over the last ten years, but there have been significant regional increases and decreases. •    The ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2025 Highlights: A new study links eating more high-fat cheese and cream to a lower risk of developing dementia. High-fat cheeses have more than 20% fat and include cheddar, Brie and Gouda. People who ate 50 grams or more of high-fat cheese daily had a 13% lower risk of dementia than those eating less than 15 grams daily. People who consumed 20 grams or more of high-fat cream daily had a 16% lower risk of dementia than those who consumed none. No association was found for low-fat dairy products, fermented milk, milk or butter. More research ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2025 Highlights: A new study has found that within the year following a stroke, female participants had more difficulty than male participants with doing daily tasks. Daily tasks include eating, dressing, driving and cooking. The differences remained even after considering age, education and insurance. The study authors suggest that early and repeated checks on daily abilities after stroke, especially for female individuals, could help improve recovery. MINNEAPOLIS — When examining recovery during the first ...

New data confirm that the titanic collisions of galaxies ignite the most powerful active galactic nuclei.  Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are phases in which supermassive black holes at the centre of galaxies actively feed on matter and gas, beaming out light as they do so. Our own Milky Way has a supermassive black hole at its centre, but it is currently inactive.  Mergers and interactions  But we still don’t really understand how supermassive black holes form and evolve. Previous studies have shown that galaxy mergers could be part of the equation. Now, new high-quality data gathered by the Euclid satellite provide ...

The most frequently reported reasons for medicinal cannabis use are for pain relief and improvements in sleep. Although cannabis is believed to have an interconnected role with both pain and sleep, its effects on chronic pain and sleep architecture have been studied largely in isolation. New research from UT Dallas’ Center for BrainHealth aims to fill this gap. “Interactions Between Cannabis Use and Chronic Pain on Sleep Architecture: Findings from In-Home EEG Recordings” was recently published in Neurotherapeutics A total of 339 nights of in-home sleep electroencephalogram (EEG) recordings ...

Joining ResearchGate allows Aging-US authors to connect their work with a wider network of peers, fostering collaboration, advancing understanding of the biology of aging, and helping translate discoveries into better health outcomes. BUFFALO, NY— December 17, 2025 — We are pleased to announce that we have officially joined ResearchGate, the professional network for scientists and researchers. This collaboration enhances the visibility, accessibility, and impact of research published ...

Lung cancer is the second-most common cancer and the leading cause of cancer death in the United States. Over 80% of lung cancers are non-small cell lung cancers, in which tumor cells are larger and grow more slowly than those in small cell lung cancer. Many gene mutations are associated with non-small cell lung cancer, including the gene KRAS, which is important for cell growth and division and is mutated in 30% of cases. Patients with tumors that have these mutations have shorter survival times and often become resistant to therapies. In ...

The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME) has recognized the Mount Sinai Health System with a Level 9 designation, the second-highest level, in both the Acute Care and Ambulatory Care categories for the 2025 CHIME Digital Health Most Wired survey. The internationally recognized benchmarking program honors health care organizations that have an exceptional commitment to excellence in digital health, recognizing Mount Sinai’s ongoing digital transformation and early adaptation of cutting-edge innovation to improve patient outcomes and support clinicians. The CHIME Digital Health Most Wired survey annually ...

Animals help disperse seeds and spores for many plant and fungal species. This typically happens when animals eat the fruiting bodies of plants and fungi and pass seeds and spores through their digestive systems. Mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic associations with plant roots, enhancing water and nutrient uptake and playing a central role in forest productivity, regeneration and resilience to environmental stress. Through these connections, mycorrhizal fungi shape forest structure and function by influencing plant establishment, growth and responses to drought and disturbance. Some fungal species produce above-ground fruiting bodies (mushrooms) that release ...

A new study finds menopause symptoms to be very frequently reported by female endurance athletes, with many perceiving a negative effect on their training and performance. The findings are published December 17, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Heather Hamilton of Old Dominion University, U.S., and colleagues. Physical activity has been reported to mitigate the negative effects of menopause, particularly when it comes to musculoskeletal changes and quality of life. However, at the same ...

Democratic congressmembers are significantly more likely to post on social media following a mass shooting event in the US compared to Republican congressmembers, according to a study published December 17, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS Global Public Health by Dmytro Bukhanevych from New York University, United States, and colleagues. Social media is now a key tool for politicians to communicate directly with the public, especially in the wake of important events. Previous studies have shown that voters perceive social media ...

DAEJEON, SOUTH KOREA – A joint research team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Unmanned Exploration Laboratory (UEL) has developed a transformative wheel capable of navigating the Moon’s most extreme terrains, including steep lunar pits and lava tubes.   The study presents a novel "origami-inspired" deployable airless wheel that can significantly expand its diameter to traverse obstacles that would trap traditional rovers. The research was published in the December ...

The genome differs from person to person in thousands of positions. In some cases, this means that proteins have a different building block in certain regions, rendering some antibody-based therapies ineffective, report researchers from the University of Basel, Switzerland. Antibody-based therapies are used to treat numerous diseases, from cancer to rheumatic disorders and multiple sclerosis. Antibodies recognize and bind to very specific structures. This allows them to direct active substances to exactly the right target structure in the body, for example. Researchers from the University of Basel’s Departments of Biomedicine and Biozentrum now report in ...

Cancer immunotherapy is a strategy that turns the patient’s own immune cells into a “search-and-destroy” force that attacks the tumor’s cells. The “search” immune cells are the dendritic cells, which collect and present identifying parts of the cancer cells (antigens) to the “destroy” part (T cells), the immune system's killer cells. The problem is that many tumors “learn” how to evade detection by the patient's dendritic cells. Clinicians address this by collecting dendritic cells from the patient’s blood, loading them in the laboratory with tumor material – antigens that train ...

December 17, 2025 – New research among World Trade Center (WTC) responders with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) has uncovered measurable physical changes in their brain structure, consistent with changes in the balance of myelinated to unmyelinated neurons (fast- and slow-conducting nerve cells) across both hemispheres of the brain. These changes were most strongly associated with re-experiencing symptoms in individuals with PTSD. The cortical differences found in this sophisticated imaging study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive ...

Organizations aiming to help homeless people with either housing or health care can be more effective when they form partnerships with other service groups, a Rutgers study has found. “Our paper describes how homeless services and health care providers are working together to tackle the challenge of providing healthcare to the unhoused,” said Joel Cantor, director of the Rutgers Center for State Health Policy, a Distinguished Professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and coauthor of the paper published in The Milbank ...

A new study from North Carolina State University found that neutrophils – white blood cells that are a key part of the immune system – play a role in the early stages of atopic dermatitis flares in dogs. The work is a first step toward understanding the role that these immune cells may play in the early stages of allergic skin response, and could have implications for human sufferers of atopic dermatitis. Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a type of eczema associated with allergic reactions and characterized by inflamed itchy patches of ...