Treatment for obesity in the UK could become a “two-tier system” where the most vulnerable patients miss out altogether. Obesity experts from King’s College London and the Obesity Management Collaborative (OMC-UK) have warned that strict eligibility criteria means that only a small number of people will have access to the weight loss drug Mounjaro on the NHS. With those able to afford it paying privately for treatment. The researchers argue, in an editorial published today in the British ...

EMBARGOED by Lancet until 12:01AM on Oct. 31, 2025 Contact: Gina DiGravio, 617-358-7838, ginad@bu.edu Researchers Discuss Gaps, Obstacles and Solutions for Contraception   (Boston)—Contraception and family planning are vital aspects of sexual and reproductive health and rights. Despite major advances in modern contraception over the past 60 years, many gaps remain and the rate of unplanned pregnancies and abortions remains high. These issues have given rise to a new era in contraception research with great opportunities and many challenges.   In ...

Background and objectives Delirium, commonly observed in critically ill patients following intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), is an acute neuropsychiatric disorder characterized by disturbances in attention, consciousness, and cognition. The underlying brain network mechanisms remain poorly understood. This study aimed to explore the functional connectivity (FC) of the ascending reticular activating system (ARAS) in delirium patients with basal ganglia ICH and to identify potential biomarkers for predicting delirium onset. Methods In this cross-sectional study, brain networkomics techniques were used to examine the FC within the ARAS in ICH ...

Computed tomography (CT) is an important diagnostic tool in clinical practice, widely used for disease screening and diagnosis. However, CT scans involve X-rays, which expose patients to radiation and potential health risks. Existing low-dose CT imaging often comes with degraded image quality, thereby affecting diagnostic accuracy. Although recent deep learning methods can markedly improve low-dose reconstruction quality, most rely on large centralized paired datasets collected under diverse vendors and scanning protocols—an approach constrained in medical imaging by privacy and regulatory requirements as well as ...

Florida Atlantic University neuroscientists have uncovered a surprising role for a protein named “Frazzled” (known as DCC in mammals) in the nervous system of fruit flies, showing how it helps neurons connect and communicate with lightning speed. The discovery sheds light on the fundamental mechanisms that ensure neurons form reliable connections, or synapses, a process essential for all nervous systems, from insects to humans. In the study, researchers focused on the Giant Fiber (GF) System of Drosophila, a neural circuit that controls this fruit fly’s rapid escape reflex. ...

DALLAS, October 31, 2025 — Pulmonary embolism (PE), a type of blood clot in the lungs, sends more than half a million people to U.S. hospitals each year — and kills about one in five high-risk patients, according to the American Heart Association 2025 statistical update. PE is the third leading cause of cardiovascular death in the U.S.[1] While progress has been made in PE care, pulmonary embolism remains underdiagnosed, undertreated and inconsistently managed. To address these gaps in care, the American ...

In a major advancement for energy storage technology, Professor Yoon Seok Jung and his team at Yonsei University have revealed a new fluoride-based solid electrolyte that enables all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs) to operate beyond 5 volts safely. This paper, made available online on October 3, 2025 and was published in the Nature Energy journal, addressed a long-standing barrier in battery science, achieving high voltage stability without sacrificing ionic conductivity. As Prof. Jung explains, “Our fluoride solid electrolyte, LiCl–4Li2TiF6, opens a previously forbidden route ...

Low body weight in young women has been linked to a range of health concerns, including disrupted menstrual cycles, infertility, weakened immune function, and a long-term decline in bone density. Japan has seen a rising trend in the proportion of underweight women between the ages of 20 and 39, with little to no change over the past two decades. The persistence of this trend raises concerns over the long-term health implications, especially as lean body weight has been correlated with changing dietary habits, diseases like anorexia nervosa, and even imbalances in gut microbiota. ...

Astringency is a dry, puckering, rough, or sandpapery sensation in the mouth caused by plant-derived polyphenols. Polyphenols, including flavanols, are well known for risk reduction in cardiovascular diseases. Flavanols, found abundantly in cocoa, red wine, and berries, are associated with improved memory and cognition, as well as protection against neuronal damage. Despite these benefits, flavanols have poor bioavailability—the fraction that actually enters the bloodstream after ingestion. This has left an important knowledge gap: how can flavanols influence brain function and the nervous system when so little of them is absorbed? In response to this challenge, a research ...

Sepsis continues to be a leading cause of mortality in ICUs worldwide. Despite advances in early detection and treatment, standardized antibiotic dosing frequently ignores patient-level variability—especially that associated with sex-related physiology and gender-influenced care disparities. A newly published editorial in the Journal of Intensive Medicine on September 8, 2025, is calling attention to how biological sex and gender inequities contribute to suboptimal sepsis treatment, potentially compromising outcomes for women. Authored ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Cancer immunotherapy, which uses drugs that stimulate the body’s immune cells to attack tumors, is a promising approach to treating many types of cancer. However, it doesn’t work well for some tumors, including ovarian cancer. To elicit a better response, MIT researchers have designed new nanoparticles that can deliver an immune-stimulating molecule called IL-12 directly to ovarian tumors. When given along with immunotherapy drugs called checkpoint inhibitors, IL-12 helps the immune system launch an attack on cancer cells. Studying a mouse model of ovarian cancer, the researchers ...

A vaccine that tackles the bacteria that cause up to 200 million childhood infections every year could be possible, experts say. In the first study of its kind, an international team including those at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Oslo, the University of Oxford and the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit at Mahidol University in Thailand, analysed new and existing Haemophilus influenzae (H. influenzae) genomes, from global samples collected between 1962-2023. H. influenzae is a type of bacteria that can cause a range of infections that are widely treated with antibiotics, but ...

Protein TDP-43 malfunctions and disrupts the normal splicing of the KCNQ2 gene Mis-splicing of the gene causes neurons to fire too much, too easily in ALS and FTD  Study authors developed a new drug, which calmed overactive ALS neurons   CHICAGO --- A new Northwestern University study using patient nervous tissue and lab-grown human neurons has uncovered how a key disease protein, TDP-43, drives overactive nerve cells in the neurodegenerative diseases amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).  The findings not only explain a long-standing mystery of why nerve cells overfire ...

LAWRENCE — As climate change produces ever more heat waves, how many homes in the U.S. lack adequate cooling? Who’s most vulnerable to lethal temperatures, and exactly where do they live? A researcher at the University of Kansas has produced the most comprehensive and detailed map of air conditioning usage in the United States — data that can improve the understanding of AC access for public health officials, urban planners, emergency managers, economists, energy auditors, providers of social services, private industry and other stakeholders. The research appears today in the peer-reviewed journal Scientific ...

The phrase ‘liquid metal’ may bring to mind something hazardous, like mercury or molten steel. But in the Laboratory of Photonic Materials and Fiber Devices (FIMAP) in EPFL’s School of Engineering, it simply means a mixture of indium and gallium that is nontoxic, remains liquid at room temperature, and shows great promise for developing electronic fibers for wearables and robotic sensors. Unfortunately, as FIMAP head Fabien Sorin explains, liquid metals are extremely difficult to process, and it’s especially hard to produce electronic fibers that combine high and stable conductivity with stretchability. Now, the lab has overcome this ...

A spooky bat has been spotted flying over the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) Paranal site in Chile, right in time for Halloween. Thanks to its wide field of view, the VLT Survey Telescope (VST) was able to capture this large cloud of cosmic gas and dust, whose mesmerising appearance resembles the silhouette of a bat. Located about 10 000 light-years away, this ‘cosmic bat’ is flying between the southern constellations of Circinus and Norma. Spanning an area of the sky equivalent to four full Moons, it looks as if it's trying to hunt the glowing spot above it for food.  This nebula is a stellar nursery, a vast cloud of gas and dust from ...

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) is ranked among the top 100 most important chemicals globally. Currently, the anthraquinone oxidation method is the primary method for industrial H2O2 production, yet it faces several major issues, including complex synthesis, high energy consumption. As a more sustainable and environmentally friendly alternative, the artificial photosynthesis of H2O2 from H2O and O2 using semiconductor photocatalysts driven by renewable solar energy has attracted significant attention. A key process in this approach is the two–electron oxygen reduction reaction (2e- ORR). However, most photocatalysts face limitations, ...

New research has shown for the first time that Australian marsupials are contaminated with synthetic ‘forever chemicals’, which are linked to significant health impacts in other animals and humans. University of Melbourne researchers in the Australian Laboratory for Emerging Contaminants (ALEC) and the Melbourne Veterinary School measured the concentrations of human-made per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in possums from the greater Melbourne region, with findings published today in ...

How does the brain take out its trash? That is the job of the brain’s lymphatic drainage system, and efforts to understand how it works have pushed the boundaries of brain-imaging technologies. A new study in iScience by researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina reveals, for the first time in humans, evidence of a previously unrecognized hub in the brain’s lymphatic drainage system – the middle meningeal artery (MMA). Taking advantage of a NASA partnership that provided access to real-time MRI technologies originally developed to study how spaceflight affects fluid dynamics in the human brain, the MUSC research team, ...

People living with HIV who smoke are currently more likely to die from lung cancer than from HIV-related causes. Two cancer control researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina’s Hollings Cancer Center are setting out to change that. With more than $3 million from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute over five years, Alana Rojewski, Ph.D., and Katherine Sterba, Ph.D., both of the department of Public Health Sciences at MUSC, will build and sustain ENHANCE-TTS (ENgaging pHarmacists to AdvANCE Tobacco Treatment Service) delivery programs that promote smoking ...

October 30, 2025 Allergies | Digestive Disorders | Research Ramnik Xavier, MD, PhD, of the Department of Molecular Biology at Massachusetts General Hospital, is the senior author of a paper published in Science, “Regional encoding of enteric nervous system responses to microbiota and type 2 inflammation.” Q: How would you summarize your study for a lay audience? The enteric nervous system (ENS) is a vast network of nerves built into the walls of the intestine. While it is well known for its role in regulating digestion and the movement of food through the intestine, researchers are learning that its influence ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — UC Santa Barbara physicists Sebastian Streichan, David Patterson and Andrea Young are among the 22 mid-career researchers to be named Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Experimental Physics Investigators this year. They join 19 other physicists from around the country who will receive $1.3 million in support over five years for their innovative work to advance the frontier of fundamental research in experimental physics. “We once again received proposals from amazing mid-career investigators who are taking their research ...

New research has found that social interactions among meerkats may be crucial to their health and survival – thanks to the sharing of beneficial gut bacteria.   Published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, the study discovered that a meerkat’s social group membership strongly influences its gut microbiome – even more than factors such as age, sex, health, genetic relatedness, diet or environmental conditions such as temperature.   Microbiomes provide many health-related benefits and a healthy microbiome containing beneficial bacteria is vital to an animal’s immunity, behaviour and overall fitness.   Meerkats live in ...

Children born to mothers who had COVID-19 while pregnant face an elevated risk of developmental disorders by the time they turn 3 years old, including speech delays, autism, motor disorders, and other developmental delays, according to new research by investigators at Mass General Brigham. The findings are published in Obstetrics & Gynecology. “These findings highlight that COVID-19, like many other infections in pregnancy, may pose risks not only to the mother, but to fetal brain development,” said ...

Synchronization abounds in nature: from the flashing lights of fireflies to the movement of fish wriggling through the ocean, biological systems are often in rhythmic movement with each other. The mechanics of how this synchronization happens are complex. For instance, in the vasculature of the brain, blood vessels oscillate, expanding and contracting as needed. When there is neural activity, the arterioles expand to increase blood flow, oxygen and nutrients. These oscillations are self-sustained, ...