Invasive species cause environmental mayhem when they establish themselves in a new ecosystem. But these interlopers can also impact human health directly. Deadly diseases can jump from animals to humans, as the COVID-19 pandemic vividly illustrated. A new study led by researchers at UC Santa Barbara, University of Réunion and Duke University reveals that the black rat is likely responsible for transmitting the deadly hantaviruses in rural Madagascar, where forested landscapes have been converted to agriculture and settlements. The results appear in the journal Ecology and Evolution. Rats have been familiar ...

Could a gene regulatory network in gut microbes have evolved its elaborate and tightly regulated molecular machinery only to pump out antibiotics indiscriminately? Researchers from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) show this is an auxiliary function. By maintaining basal levels of genetic activity when the network is in its OFF state, these genes ensure the bacteria remain fit and adaptable to their highly variable environment in the gut. The findings were published in PNAS. This is the story of a misnomer. And an immense and intricate molecular machinery at that, ...

Washington, April 7, 2025—The American Educational Research Association (AERA) is pleased to announce the appointment of Tabbye M. Chavous as its new executive director, effective August 11, 2025. A nationally recognized scholar and seasoned leader, Chavous brings over 25 years of experience and significant accomplishments in research, teaching, and organizational advancement. Across her career, she has consistently advocated for high-quality, inclusive research, and her equity-oriented leadership is evident in her approaches to building and transforming educational environments. Chavous succeeds Felice J. Levine, who has served as executive director ...

HERSHEY, Pa. — The list of treatments for low back pain is endless, but few offer relief for the one in four Americans who suffer from this persistent pain and leading cause of disability globally. More than 80% of those with chronic low back pain wished there were better treatment options. Yet, without sufficient pain relief, many people need to take opioids, which can be addictive. The good news? A multi-institutional team, led by researchers from the Penn State College of Medicine and the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found that eight weeks of either mindfulness or cognitive behavioral ...

Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have discovered how a group of proteins linked to Parkinson’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis act as “guardians” of mitochondria, small organelles, or subunits, within a cell that make and store energy and are found in almost all plants and animals. The findings, resulting from experiments with genetically engineered mice should advance understanding of the development of Parkinson’s disease — a chronic and progressive neurodegenerative disorder whose causes are not clearly known — the scientists say. Most experts believe Parkinson’s disease is a result of some combination ...

When people let their minds wander during tasks that require attention and active thinking, it can hurt how well they learn and perform the tasks. But there are more passive kinds of learning that require less attention. Péter Simor, from Eötvös Loránd University, and colleagues explored how mind wandering influences learning in tasks requiring little attention in their JNeurosci paper.   Nearly 40 study participants performed a simple learning task while the researchers ...

The growing prevalence of human interactions with artificial intelligence has increased the need for a better understanding of how the brain processes virtual reality. Because how others behave and move can influence how people understand social scenes and even themselves, exploring whether avatar appearance influences virtual interactions is important. To provide insight on this, Vanessa Era and colleagues from Sapienza University of Rome assessed interactions between human participants and avatars with human-like or inhuman bodies.   Participants in this eNeuro paper observed avatars on a screen ...

Specialized hospital services that aid people with opioid use disorder regardless of why they are admitted can boost the number of patients who begin treatment with FDA-approved medication for opioid use disorder and increase the likelihood they remain engaged in that care once discharged, according to a new study. Reporting results from the first parallel assignment randomized clinical trial of a hospital-based addiction consultation service for people with opioid use disorder, researchers found that people who received treatment from a specialized addiction consultation service were about twice as ...

In a study published in Cell on April 7, a research team led by Prof. LI Hanjie from the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology (SIAT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has revealed the presence of microglia in the peripheral nervous system (PNS) and identified their crucial role in regulating neuronal soma size throughout evolution. Microglia, also known as macrophages of the central nervous system (CNS), are specialized immune cells vital for brain health and injury response. ...

New research shows that the adult brain can generate new neurons that integrate into key motor circuits. The findings demonstrate that stimulating natural brain processes may help repair damaged neural networks in Huntington’s and other diseases.   “Our research shows that we can encourage the brain’s own cells to grow new neurons that join in naturally with the circuits controlling movement,” said Abdellatif Benraiss, PhD, a senior author of the study, which appears in the journal Cell Reports. “This discovery offers a potential new way to restore brain function and slow the progression ...

About The Study: In this cohort of Black women, living in disadvantaged neighborhoods was associated with a higher mortality from breast cancer, even after accounting for stage at diagnosis, treatments, and individual-level lifestyle factors. Community-level interventions to reduce environmental stressors and improve conditions in disadvantaged neighborhoods, including access to high-quality cancer care, may be critical to reducing racial disparities in breast cancer survival. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Etienne X. Holder, PhD, MPH, email exholder@bu.edu. To access the embargoed study: ...

About The Study: While cardioprotective glucose-lowering therapies were not associated with an overall reduction in all-cause dementia, this meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials found that glucose lowering with glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) was associated with a statistically significant reduction in all-cause dementia. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Catriona Reddin, MD, email reddin.catriona@gmail.com. To access the embargoed study: ...

More than 7 million American adolescent girls ages 13 to 17 live in states with abortion bans, restrictive gestational limits or parental involvement requirements, according to Rutgers Health researchers.   Their study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, is the first to examine in detail the experiences of adolescent girls after states enacted restrictions on abortion access following the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision.   “As a result of Dobbs, two-thirds of girls ages 13 to 17 now live in states that ban or severely restrict their abortion ...

About The Study: In people with type 2 diabetes, both glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) and sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitors (SGLT2is) were statistically significantly associated with decreased risk of Alzheimer disease and related dementias compared with other glucose-lowering drugs, and no difference was observed between both drugs. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jingchuan Guo, MD, PhD, email guoj1@ufl.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this ...

What if humanity's search for life on other planets returns no hits? A team of researchers led by Dr. Daniel Angerhausen, a Physicist in Professor Sascha Quanz's Exoplanets and Habitability Group at ETH Zurich and a SETI Institute affiliate, tackled this question by considering what could be learned about life in the universe if future surveys detect no signs of life on other planets. The study, which has just been published in The Astronomical Journal and was carried out within the framework of the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research, PlanetS, relies on a Bayesian statistical analysis to establish the minimum number of exoplanets that should ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Immune molecules called cytokines play important roles in the body’s defense against infection, helping to control inflammation and coordinating the responses of other immune cells. A growing body of evidence suggests that some of these molecules also influence the brain, leading to behavioral changes during illness. Two new studies from MIT and Harvard Medical School, focused on a cytokine called IL-17, now add to that evidence. The researchers found that IL-17 acts on two distinct brain regions — the amygdala and the somatosensory cortex — to exert two divergent effects. In the amygdala, IL-17 can elicit feelings of anxiety, while in the cortex it promotes ...

Home care cooperatives may be the key to alleviating the shortage of paid caregivers for older Americans, a new study suggests. The research, to be published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Network Open, found that participants in cooperatives experienced more respect, control, job support, and compensation than their counterparts in traditional care services. These factors may explain how cooperatives have achieved half the turnover rates of traditional agencies, which are plagued with high turnover and employee dissatisfaction. Millions of older adults will lack the support they need to safely age at home unless new strategies are developed and policies are ...

DETROIT (April 7, 025)— Nearly every person who dies by suicide visits a doctor’s office within a year of their death. A new body of research suggests that by adopting a specific protocol, health systems can reduce suicide rates among those patients by 25%. Researchers say the findings support comprehensive widespread adoption of a method audaciously named The Zero Suicide (ZS) Model, as suicide remains among the leading causes of death in the U.S. In 2022, 49,000 people died by suicide in the U.S. Suicide was the second ...

April 7, 2025, Mountain View, CA --  What if we spend decades building advanced telescopes to search for life on other planets and come up emptyhanded? A recent study led by ETH Zurich researchers including corresponding author and SETI Institute affiliate, Dr. Daniel Angerhausen, tackled this question, exploring what we can learn about life in the universe—even if we don’t detect signs of life or habitability. Using advanced statistical modeling, the research team sought to explore how many exoplanets scientists should observe and understand ...

Even in the case of uncomplicated infections, the body prepares itself early on for the possibility of a more severe course. A research team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and Helmholtz Munich has now uncovered this mechanism. The scientists showed that, right at the onset of mild illness, the body also produces special T cells previously known only from chronic, severe infections and tumors. There are different types of T cells in the body, all of which play a crucial role in the immune system. They fight pathogens and control the immune response. However, some subtypes become less effective ...

DALLAS, April 7, 2025 — On Saturday, April 5, the Howard University football team participated in an American Heart Association Hands-Only CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) training to learn the correct rate and depth of CPR compressions to be confident and capable when faced with a cardiac emergency. According to American Heart Association data, 9 out of every 10 of people who experience cardiac arrest outside of a hospital die, in part because they do not receive immediate CPR more than half of ...

Korea University College of Medicine (Dean Pyun Sung-Bom) and Yonsei University College of Medicine (Dean Choi Jae-Young) are kicking off a step-by-step global R& D network project in earnest to train future domestic physician-scientists.   Both colleges jointly operate the "Physician-scientist Network Expansion and Career Attraction Program" supported by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. At the same time, the colleges plan to promote the training of domestic physician-scientists and ...

Nearly one million people worldwide are plagued annually by cutaneous  leishmaniasis, a devastating skin infection caused by the Leishmania parasite. Predominantly affecting vulnerable populations in tropical and subtropical regions like North Africa and South America, this disease thrives in areas marked by malnutrition, poor housing and population displacement. Left untreated, it can lead to lifelong scars, debilitating disability and deep social stigma. Despite its global impact, there is no vaccine—and existing treatments are ineffective, toxic and difficult to administer.  A new study published in the journal Nature Communications on April 4, 2025, ...

New York, NY | April 7, 2025  – The Society for Health Communication and the Journal of Health Communication at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) have published its inaugural special issue: Successes and Failures: Everything We Learned from Health Communication Campaigns and Programs. It includes nine peer-reviewed research papers from health communication programs in the U.S. and around the world, featuring insights ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Have you ever gone to a store or a restaurant where the music was so annoying that you walked right out? Now imagine what it must be like for the employees.   In a new study, researchers found that when background music at a workplace is out of sync with what workers need to do their jobs, it can affect their energy, mood – and even performance.   “Music that doesn’t fit what an employee needs to feel energized, manage emotions, and focus on task can have a real negative impact,” said Kathleen Keeler, co-lead author of the study and assistant ...