As artificial intelligence is rapidly developing and becoming a growing presence in healthcare communication, a new study addresses a concern that large language models (LLMs) can reinforce harmful stereotypes by using stigmatizing language. The study from researchers at Mass General Brigham found that more than 35% of responses in answers related to alcohol- and substance use-related conditions contained stigmatizing language. But the researchers also highlight that targeted prompts can be used to substantially reduce stigmatizing language in the LLMs’ answers. Results are published in The Journal of Addiction Medicine. “Using patient-centered language can build ...

A study just published on Eurosurveillance has found evidence of substantial lifetime exposure to hepatitis B and C viruses in Ukraine in a 2021 nationwide, representative sample of the population, with findings also suggesting significant ongoing circulation of these viruses. Ahead of World Hepatitis Day 2025, viral hepatitis remains a major global health concern, and is one of the priority infectious diseases under the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 3. [1][2] The World Health Organization (WHO) Global Hepatitis ...

The National Biofoundry Project Team at the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology (KRIBB), led by Dr. Haseong Kim, has spearheaded an international joint research effort (including institutions from Korea, the U.S., the U.K., Singapore, and others—10 in total) to create a new standard framework that simplifies and enhances the accuracy and efficiency of synthetic biology research. This framework is anticipated to serve as an international standard for biofoundries—automated laboratories in synthetic biology. Driven by advancements in deep-tech fields such as synthetic biology ...

Use of billing codes in big data sets to find diagnoses can result in up to two-thirds of cases being mistakenly identified, new UCLA-led research finds. Databases frequently used for medical research such as those for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services or the National Inpatient Survey typically rely on ambulatory billing codes to identify diseases or medical procedures, but their accuracy is rarely verified in publications that rely on this data, the researchers write in a report published in the peer-reviewed journal ...

Hospitalizations and emergency department (ED) visits can be distressing and costly for nursing home residents – especially those who are severely impaired or terminally ill. Despite their vulnerability, these individuals are frequently transferred to hospitals, even though up to 40% of such transfers over the past 25 years are considered potentially avoidable by health care professionals. These unnecessary transfers not only cause distress and discomfort for residents and families but also lead to hospital-acquired complications and added costs for the health care system. In the United States, hospital transfers from nursing homes significantly ...

Schizophrenia is a serious mental health condition that affects thoughts, moods, perceptions, and behaviors. Affected individuals experience positive symptoms like delusions and hallucinations, and negative symptoms like social withdrawal, cognitive deficits, disorganized thoughts and speech, and a decreased experience of pleasure. While schizophrenia is caused by a complex interplay of genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors, precise mechanisms remain elusive. Animal models provide valuable insights into the neurobiological mechanisms that underpin schizophrenia. However, conventional behavioral assessments ...

Chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting are among the most distressing side effects of anti-cancer treatment, particularly for those receiving highly emetogenic regimens such as anthracycline plus cyclophosphamide combinations. This major side effect compromises a patient’s quality of life and willingness to continue therapy. Therefore, there is a crucial need to devise an effective antiemetic management approach for optimizing cancer care and patient well-being.   Against this backdrop, a new study, led by Professor Mitsue ...

Immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs), a powerful form of immunotherapy, have revolutionized cancer treatment by unleashing the body’s own immune system to fight tumors. These compounds target the programmed cell death-ligand 1 (PD-L1), a surface protein typically found on tumor cells, which enables the tumors to avoid recognition by immune T cells. By disrupting PD-L1’s function with specially tailored antibodies, ICI-based strategies have brought hope to countless patients with cancer. However, ...

Self-disclosure, or the process of conveying one’s details to others verbally, is crucial for communication. Self-disclosure includes expressing personal information, thoughts, and feelings. It encompasses self-expression and clarification, social validation and control, as well as relationship development, and is closely related to reciprocity, intimacy, trust, interactional enjoyment, and satisfaction. In recent years, technological advancements have paved the way for new forms of communication, including video-conferencing and embodied virtual ...

In a first-of-its-kind experiment tracing evolution across 25 generations, scientists have discovered that marine copepods—the tiny crustaceans at the heart of the ocean food web—rely on a largely unknown biological toolkit to survive the stresses of climate change. Published July 15, 2025, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study reveals that it’s not only genetic changes (permanent alterations to DNA) that help these animals adapt to warming and acidifying ocean conditions. In addition, little-known epigenetic changes (temporary “on/off” chemical modifications to parts ...

The accumulation of misfolded proteins in the brain is central to the progression of neurodegenerative diseases like Huntington’s, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. But to the human eye, proteins that are destined to form harmful aggregates don’t look any different than normal proteins. The formation of such aggregates also tends to happen randomly and relatively rapidly – on the scale of minutes. The ability to identify and characterize protein aggregates is essential for understanding and fighting neurodegenerative diseases. Now, using deep learning, ...

  For military veterans, many of the deepest wounds of war are invisible: Traumatic brain injuries resulting from head trauma or blast explosions are a leading cause of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression and suicide among veterans. Few treatments have been effective at diminishing the long-term effects of TBI, leaving many veterans feeling hopeless.  Now, Stanford Medicine researchers have discovered that the plant-based psychoactive drug ibogaine, when combined with magnesium to protect the heart, safely and effectively reduces PTSD, anxiety and depression and improves functioning in veterans with TBI. In ...

Ketamine is a highly effective, fast-acting antidepressant that works even for patients who have not responded to other medications. However, the brain mechanisms important for these rapid treatment effects are yet to be determined. Researchers at King’s College London, who are investigating why ketamine could be a good treatment for some people with depression, have discovered that the drug’s antidepressant effects involve the brain’s opioid system. The study, led by King’s College London and published in Nature Medicine, included 26 individuals with clinically diagnosed depression who were given a ...

Menopause remains one of the most under-discussed stages of life, even though more than 1 million women in the United States experience this natural biological transition each year. Often shrouded in stigma and misinformation, menopause is rarely addressed openly — even though it can profoundly affect a person’s physical, emotional and mental health. To help bridge this gap, clinicians and researchers who have collaborated on women’s health for over 25 years created MyMenoplan.org. The comprehensive, evidence-based website offers personalized menopause information and decision-making tools designed to empower women to make informed healthcare choices. The website ...

Summary Addressing the global plastic waste crisis, particularly hard-to-recycle blended PET fibers, demands environmentally friendlier recycling methods. Researchers engineered a novel PET hydrolase PET2-21M and established large-scale production in yeast. This enzyme dramatically boosted PET bottle-grade PET breakdown. In parallel, its direct precursor PET2-14M-6Hot successfully degraded challenging blended fibers (PET/cotton, PET/PU) at moderate temperatures. This breakthrough offers a promising, energy-efficient path for a circular plastics economy, accelerating industrial-scale recycling of diverse polymer wastes. A research team led by ...

To succeed at university, Italian students need to pass interview-style oral exams. Now scientists have found that the time of the exam could be a critical factor influencing their success… or failure. Even when other factors were excluded, the chances of passing were highest around lunchtime, and lowest at the beginning or end of the day.   “We show that academic assessment outcomes vary systematically across the day, with a clear peak in passing rates around midday,” said Prof Carmelo Mario Vicario, director of the Social-Cognitive ...

New research details how our brains are drawn to and spot faces everywhere  If you have ever spotted faces or human-like expressions in everyday objects, you may have experienced the phenomenon of face pareidolia. Now, a new study by the University of Surrey has looked into how this phenomenon grabs our attention, which could be used by advertisers in promoting future products.  The study, published in i-Perception, investigated the differences between our attention being directed by averted gazes – when a subject looks away from another subject’s eyes or face  – and when it’s directed by pareidolia – imagined ...

A new national study from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, with colleagues at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, University of Chicago, National Opinion Research Center, and Emory University finds that stigma toward patients with substance use disorders (SUD) remains widespread among U.S. healthcare providers—and varies significantly across types of substances. The findings are published in the journal Addiction. The study is the first national analysis to compare provider stigma across opioid (OUD), stimulant, and alcohol use disorders (AUD) with other chronic ...

The study led by Dr. Xiangsong Chen (Wuhan University) and Dr. Haiya Cai (Hubei Academy of Agricultural Sciences) analyzed the transcriptomes of two rice cultivars, Nagina22 and 93-11, under high-temperature stress. It was found that the expression of JAZ genes specifically increased significantly in N22 at the early stage of heat stress, accompanied by a significant decrease in the expression of downstream response genes of the Jasmonic acid (JA) signaling pathway. Additionally, exogenous application of JA significantly reduced the heat tolerance of N22, indicating that the suppression ...

A new study from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus shows that free, open-source artificial intelligence (AI) tools can help doctors report medical scans just as well as more expensive commercial systems without putting patient privacy at risk. The study was published today in the journal npj Digital Medicine. The research highlights a promising and cost-effective alternative to widely known tools like ChatGPT which are often expensive and may require sending sensitive data to outside servers. “This is a big win for healthcare providers and ...

University of Adelaide researchers have discovered that applying a beneficial fungus to soil leads to some varieties of wheat accumulating more bioavailable zinc and iron in the grain. The researchers inoculated eight widely grown Australian bread wheat varieties with a commercially available arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus product and found the plants had more grain and accumulated greater amounts of nutrients – in particular, the essential human micronutrient zinc. “Our research shows inoculating agricultural soils with mycorrhizal fungi could be a promising strategy for producing wheat grain with higher ...

Yolk proteins (vitellogenins, VITs) are crucial lipid-carrying molecules that supply nutrients from the mother to embryos in oviparous animals. In humans, their functional analog apolipoprotein B-100 (apoB-100) is a core component of low-density and very low-density lipoproteins (LDL and VLDL, respectively), playing a pivotal role in systemic lipid transport. Understanding how these lipoproteins are secreted may help unravel the mechanisms underlying conditions like atherosclerosis and fatty liver disease. In a recent article published in Life Metabolism, researchers report that VIT secretion in Caenorhabditis elegans is ...

The endangered golden-shouldered parrot, a technicolour species native to Far North Queensland’s Cape York Peninsula, is abandoning areas of grassland it usually nests in because woody plants are encroaching upon its preferred vegetation. Dr Gabriel Crowley, from the University of Adelaide, assessed the fate of 555 golden-shouldered parrot eggs from 108 nests monitored on Artemis Station by its owner, Susan Shephard, and Charles Darwin University researcher, Professor Stephen Garnett. They discovered that the spread of woody plants increased the probability of predation, and reduced nest success and survival of nesting adults. “The ...

A research team led by Dr. Xiaoqin Liu at the Peking University Institute of Advanced Agricultural Sciences has discovered and characterized a native peanut Ubiquitin4 promoter (AhUBQ4) with strong and consistent transcriptional activity. Recognizing the limitations of foreign promoters like CaMV 35S in peanut transformation—such as gene silencing and expression variability—the team sought a native solution to boost genetic engineering efficiency in this vital crop.   Using transcriptome data ...

In a key advance for regenerative medicine and gut health, scientists from Duke-NUS Medical School and Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have uncovered a precise and unexpected communication system in the gut. Support cells known as telocytes use fine extensions—like neurons in the brain—to deliver signals directly to intestinal stem cells. Their study, published in the journal Developmental Cell, challenges long-standing assumptions about how the gut maintains and repairs itself, possibly leading to better treatments for conditions like IBD ...