An international team led by the University of Michigan has introduced new methods that reveal which regions of the brain were active throughout the day with single-cell resolution. Using mouse models, the researchers developed an experimental protocol and a computational analysis to follow which neurons and networks within the brain were active at different times. Published in the journal PLOS Biology, the study provides new insights into brain signaling during sleep and wakefulness, which hints at the bigger questions and goals that motivated the work. "We undertook this difficult study to understand fatigue," ...

Australian researchers have for the first time pinpointed specific genetic changes that increase the risk of severe, sight-threatening forms of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). A new study, published today in Nature Communications, reveals the specific genetic factors linked to the presence of reticular pseudodrusen - deposits which drive vision loss and are found on the retina of up to 60 per cent of people with advanced AMD. The research, led by the Centre for Eye Research Australia, WEHI and the University of Melbourne, offers a promising new target for treatments aimed at the most severe ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 8 December 2025    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 behalf of the organization ...

About The Study: Among patients with sepsis, precision immunotherapy targeting macrophage activation–like syndrome and sepsis-induced immunoparalysis improved organ dysfunction by day 9 compared with placebo. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Evangelos J. Giamarellos-Bourboulis, MD, PhD, email egiamarel@med.uoa.gr. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2025.24175) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other ...

The topics of human-level artificial general intelligence (AGI) and artificial superintelligence (ASI) have captivated researchers for decades. Interest has surged with the rapid progress and deployment of large language models (LLMs), which now handle tasks such as coding, scientific explanation, creative writing, and multimodal reasoning. “Solve AI and it will solve everything” remains a popular, if contested, credo—driving large-scale investment, shaping public narratives, and motivating optimism about transformative advances. Applying this vision to the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries, ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  EMBARGOED UNTIL DECEMBER 8, 2025  Study Finds Most People Trust Doctors More than AI But See Its Potential for Cancer Diagnosis  Nationally representative surveys measure public attitudes toward AI in healthcare  Washington, D.C., December 8, 2025– New research on public attitudes toward AI indicates that most people are reluctant to let ChatGPT and other AI tools diagnose their health condition, but see promise in technologies that use AI to help diagnose cancer. These and other results of two nationally representative surveys will be presented at the ...

Embargoed for release: Monday, December 8, 2025, 4:00 PM ET Key points: Children whose schools reopened during the COVID-19 pandemic had significantly decreased mental health diagnoses relative to children whose schools remained closed, according to a new study of schools across California. This included fewer diagnoses of depression, anxiety, and ADHD. Girls’ mental health benefited the most. Mental health care spending decreased by up to 11% by the ninth month after a school’s reopening. The study is among the largest and most data-rich examinations of how school closures impacted ...

SARS‑CoV‑2, the virus that causes COVID-19, continues to mutate, with some newer strains becoming less responsive to current antiviral treatments like Paxlovid. Now, University of California San Diego scientists and an international team of researchers have identified several promising molecules that could lead to new medications capable of combating these resistant variants. Instead of looking for antiviral candidates from scratch, the research team screened 141 previously synthesized compounds that had originally been designed between 1997 and 2012 to inhibit a key enzyme called cruzain. ...

Reston, VA (December 8, 2025) As nuclear medicine theranostics expands rapidly across clinical practice worldwide, a new supplement to the Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology (JNMT) explores how nuclear medicine technologists are embracing their growing role within the field. Titled, Building the Future of Theranostics: Advancing Practice, Education, and Innovation Worldwide, the supplement brings together voices from across the globe, offering perspectives that span clinical lessons, educational frameworks, operational strategies, advocacy, equity, and biology. From the early use of ...

Hoboken, N.J., December 8, 2025 — On Saturday December 6, 2025 Alaska was rocked by a 7.0 magnitude quake. Though not always so forceful, earthquakes happen every day. On average, about 55 of them strike daily, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS), totaling some 20,000 annually worldwide. About once a year, one reaches 8.0 points or greater and 15 others hit within the magnitude 7 range on the Richter scale, which measures earthquakes by the energy they release. For example, in just 2025 an 8.8 earthquake offshore from the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, ...

MIAMI, FLORIDA (EMBARGOED UNTIL DEC. 8, 2025, AT 2:45 P.M. EST) – Most patients with a rare and aggressive form of large B-cell lymphoma can safely receive a less toxic treatment than the intensive chemotherapy often used, according to new research from Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Lead researcher Juan Alderuccio, M.D., a hematologist and lymphoma specialist at Sylvester, will present this research Dec. 8 at the American Society of Hematology ...

The sense of smell is vital for animals, as it helps them find food, protect themselves from predators and interact socially. An international research team led by Dr Quentin Martinez and Dr Eli Amson from State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart has now discovered that certain areas of the brain skull allow conclusions to be drawn about the sense of smell in mammals. Particularly significant is the volume of the endocast of the olfactory bulb, a bony structure in the skull that is often well preserved even in very old fossils. This volume is closely related to the number of intact odour receptor genes – an important ...

One of the most important steps in the evolution of modern mammals was the development of highly sensitive hearing. The middle ear of mammals, with an eardrum and several small bones, allows us to hear a broad range of frequencies and volumes, which was a big help to early, mostly nocturnal mammal ancestors as they tried to survive alongside dinosaurs.  New research by paleontologists from the University of Chicago shows that this modern mode of hearing evolved much earlier than previously thought. Working with detailed CT scans of the skull and jawbones of Thrinaxodon liorhinus, a 250-million-year-old mammal predecessor, they used engineering methods to simulate ...

The negative health impacts from contamination by so called "forever chemicals" in drinking water costs the contiguous U.S. at least $8 billion a year in social costs, a University of Arizona-led study has found. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, builds on previous research into how PFAS – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – can negatively impact health when the chemicals contaminate drinking water. The research team studied all births in New Hampshire from 2010-2019, focusing on mothers living ...

A new advance from Carnegie Mellon University researchers could reshape how clinicians identify the brain regions responsible for drug-resistant epilepsy. Surgery can be a life-changing option for millions of epilepsy patients worldwide, but only if physicians can accurately locate the epileptogenic zone, the area where seizures originate. Bin He, professor of biomedical engineering, and his team have developed a unified, machine learning-based approach called spatial-temporal-spectral imaging (STSI) to assist. It is the first technology capable of analyzing every major type of epileptic ...

Irvine, Calif., Dec. 8, 2025 — With a $50 million lead gift from the Quilter family and approximately $30 million in new commitments, the University of California, Irvine’s Institute for Memory Impairments and Neurological Disorders will begin planning to build a state-of-the-art research and care facility to enhance its position as a global leader in Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias research and patient care.   UC Irvine alumni Charles Quilter, M.A. ’06, Ph.D. ’10, and Ann Quilter, M.S. ’79, and their family members Patrick, Chris, Matt and Patty made the generous contribution ...

URBANA, Ill. -- To meet ambitious U.S. Department of Energy targets for sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), production of purpose-grown energy crops must ramp up significantly. Although researchers have made substantial progress in understanding the management and conversion of these crops, key knowledge gaps hold the industry back. Now, two new studies from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign help fill in the blanks for Miscanthus and switchgrass management.  “We have come a long way in our understanding of purpose-grown energy crops for SAF, but we still ...

In the Middle Ages, a plague killed a third of Europe’s population. Fleas carried the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, transmitting the Black Death from infected rats to millions of people.  Another, earlier strain of Y. pestis emerged 5,000 years ago in the Bronze Age. It infected people throughout Eurasia for 2,000 years and then vanished. Unlike the Middle Age plague bacterium, this earlier Bronze Age strain could not be transmitted by fleas. How the plague circulated for so long across a vast area has long been a mystery.  Now, ...

December 8, 2025 — Millions of people already chat about their mental health with large language models (LLMs), the conversational form of artificial intelligence. Some providers have integrated LLM-based mental healthcare tools into routine workflows. John Torous, MD, MBI and colleagues, of the Division of Digital Psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, urge clinicians to take immediate action to ensure these tools are safe and helpful, not wait for ideal evaluation methodology to be developed. In the November issue ...

A good night’s sleep is more than a luxury: New research from Oregon Health & Science University suggests that insufficient sleep may shorten your life. The study published today in the journal SLEEP Advances. Researchers tapped a vast, nationwide database looking for survey trends associated with average life expectancy county by county. They compared county-level data about average life expectancy with comprehensive survey data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention between 2019 and 2025. As a behavioral driver for life expectancy, sleep stood ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Intellicule, a software company whose solutions determine the 3D structures of biomolecules imaged with cryogenic-electron microscopy (cryo-EM), has received a $217,941 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant from the National Institutes of Health. Daisuke Kihara, who leads Intellicule, said the grant will be used to develop software technology that could impact precision medicine. “It will have the potential to accelerate the development of novel drugs by offering precise structural information that can guide the design of molecules with improved ...

New York, NY (December 8, 2025) – A team of researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has uncovered why children with the same leukemia-causing gene mutation can have dramatically different outcomes: it depends on when in development the mutation first occurs. The study, led by Elvin Wagenblast, PhD, Assistant Professor of Oncological Sciences, and Pediatrics, at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, was published this week in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research. It shows that leukemia ...

Potsdam/Leipzig. The Reinhard Süring Foundation's 2025 Research Award goes to Leipzig-based atmospheric researcher Dr. Cristofer Jiménez for his contributions to a remote sensing technology that makes it possible to study the interactions between particles and clouds much better than ever before. The so-called dual-field-of-view polarisation lidar is based on two different aperture angles, which are used to observe and compare the reflections of laser beams in the atmosphere. Every three years, the Reinhard Süring Foundation Research Prize honours young scientists for outstanding work in a subfield of meteorology. In 2025, the prize was awarded for "New ...

TORONTO, Dec. 8 2025 — While targeted radiation can be an effective treatment for brain tumours, subsequent potential necrosis of the treated areas can be hard to distinguish from the tumours on a standard MRI. A new study published today led by a York University professor in the Lassonde School of Engineering found that a novel AI-based method is better able to distinguish between the two types of lesions on advanced MRI than the human eye alone, a discovery that could help clinicians more accurately identify and treat the issues.   “The study shows, for the first time, that novel attention-guided ...

Abstinent smokers experience increased pain sensitivity during withdrawal, to the point that they often require more pain relief after surgery. Why? New from JNeurosci, Zhijie Lu, from Fudan University Minhang Hospital, and Kai Wei, from Shanghai Eastern Hepatobiliary Surgery Hospital, led a team of researchers to explore brain activity linking nicotine withdrawal and pain sensitivity.  The researchers found that 30 abstinent ...