Survey Finds Many Americans Greatly Overestimate Primary Care Spending Background and Goal: This study, based on an online survey of 1,135 adults demographically representative of the U.S. population, aimed to measure public perceptions of primary care spending. Key Insights: Respondents believed that 51.8% of overall health care spending goes to primary care—more than 10 times the documented share of 4.7%. Additionally, respondents believed that primary care addresses 58.7% of health care needs, very close to actual primary care utilization as a percentage of all ambulatory physician ...

Ribonucleic acid, commonly known as RNA, is involved in many biological functions, and some, including gene silencing, are utilitized to cure diseases. RNA has recently gained attention as a promising drug target. Unfortunately, only a small fraction of RNA structures have been determined experimentally, and the process of uncovering these structures requires significant time and effort. Using this time scale, the structures of many life saving RNA may not be discovered for years. As a result, there is a significant gap between the types of known ...

Your immune system harbors a lifetime’s worth of information about threats it’s encountered — a biological Rolodex of baddies. Often the perpetrators are viruses and bacteria you’ve conquered; others are undercover agents like vaccines given to trigger protective immune responses or even red herrings in the form of healthy tissue caught in immunological crossfire. Now researchers at Stanford Medicine have devised a way to mine this rich internal database to diagnose diseases as diverse as diabetes COVID-19 responses to influenza vaccines. Although they envision the approach as a way to screen for multiple diseases ...

A Chinese rover that landed on Mars in 2021 detected evidence of underground beach deposits in an area thought to have once been the site of an ancient sea, providing further evidence that the planet long ago had a large ocean. The now-inactive rover, called Zhurong, operated for a year, between May 2021 and May 2022. It traveled 1.9 kilometers (1.2 miles) roughly perpendicular to escarpments thought to be an ancient shoreline from a time — 4 billion years ago — when Mars had a thicker atmosphere and a warmer climate. Along its path, the rover used ground penetrating radar (GPR) to probe up to 80 meters (260 feet) beneath the surface. This ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Mars may have once been home to sun-soaked, sandy beaches with gentle, lapping waves according to a new study published today (Feb. 24) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). An international team of scientists, including Penn State researchers, used data from the Zhurong Mars rover to identify hidden layers of rock under the planet’s surface that strongly suggest the presence of an ancient northern ocean. The new research offers the clearest evidence yet that the planet ...

Feb. 24, 2025  MSU has a satellite uplink/LTN TV studio and Comrex line for radio interviews upon request.   Contact: Emilie Lorditch: 517-355-4082, lorditch@msu.edu   Images  MSU researchers use open-access data to study climate change effects in 24,000 US lakes  EAST LANSING, Mich. – Each summer, more and more lake beaches are forced to close due to toxic algae blooms. While climate change is often blamed, new research suggests a more complex story: climate interacts with human activities like agriculture and urban runoff, which funnel excess ...

Fukuoka, Japan - Kyushu University researchers have uncovered a surprising layer of complexity in aldosterone-producing adenomas (APAs)—adrenal gland tumors that drive high blood pressure. Using cutting-edge analysis techniques, they discovered that these tumors harbor at least four distinct cell types, including ones that produce cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone. Published in the week beginning 24 February in PNAS, their findings not only explain why some patients with APAs develop unexpected health issues, like weakened bones, but also pave the way toward new treatment strategies. “Currently, the only ...

The Huns suddenly appeared in Europe in the 370s, establishing one of the most influential although short-lived empires in Europe. Scholars have long debated whether the Huns were descended from the Xiongnu. In fact, the Xiongnu Empire dissolved around 100 CE, leaving a 300-year gap before the Huns appeared in Europe. Can DNA lineages that bridge these three centuries be found? To address this question, researchers analyzed the DNA of 370 individuals that lived in historical periods spanning around 800 years, from 2nd century BCE to 6th century CE, encompassing sites in the Mongolian steppe, Central Asia, and the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe. ...

A new artificial intelligence model measures how fast a patient’s brain is aging and could be a powerful new tool for understanding, preventing and treating cognitive decline and dementia, according to USC researchers. The first-of-its-kind tool can non-invasively track the pace of brain changes by analyzing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans. Faster brain aging closely correlates with a higher risk of cognitive impairment, said Andrei Irimia, associate professor of gerontology, biomedical engineering, quantitative ...

Starting today, people with Parkinson’s disease will have a new treatment option, thanks to U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of groundbreaking new technology.   The therapy, known as adaptive deep brain stimulation, or aDBS, uses an implanted device that continuously monitors the brain for signs that Parkinson’s symptoms are developing. When it detects specific patterns of brain activity, it delivers precisely calibrated electric pulses to keep symptoms at bay.   The FDA approval covers two treatment algorithms that run on a device made by Medtronic, a medical device company. Both work by monitoring the same part of the brain, called the subthalamic nucleus. ...

Elephants, giraffes, pythons and other large species have higher cancer rates than smaller ones like mice, bats, and frogs, a new study has shown, overturning a 45-year-old belief about cancer in the animal kingdom. The research, conducted by researchers from the University of Reading, University College London and The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, examined cancer data from 263 species across four major animal groups - amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles. The findings challenge "Peto's paradox," a longstanding idea based on observations from 1977 that suggested ...

LA JOLLA, CA—Children who experience multiple cases of dengue virus develop an army of dengue-fighting T cells, according to a new study led by scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI).  The findings, published recently in JCI Insights, suggest that these T cells are key to dengue virus immunity. In fact, most children who experienced two or more dengue infections showed very minor symptoms—or no symptoms at all—when they caught the virus again. "We saw a significant T cell response in children who had been infected more than once before," says study leader and LJI Assistant Professor Daniela Weiskopf, Ph.D. Dengue virus infects up ...

Smart artificial microswimmers—small robots that resemble microorganisms like bacteria or human sperm—could potentially be used for targeted drug delivery, minimally invasive surgery, and even in fertility treatments. These types of complicated tasks won’t be accomplished by a single microswimmer. Multiple swimmers will be necessary; however, it’s unclear how such groups will move within the chemically and mechanically complex environment of the body’s fluids.  “We know that whenever a swimmer has a neighbor, it swims differently,” says Ebru Demir, an assistant ...

(Charlottesville, VA, Feb. 24, 2025) –  The Center for Open Science (COS) is pleased to announce the appointment of Daniel Correa, Chief Executive Officer of the Federation of American Scientists, and Amanda Montoya, Associate Professor of Quantitative Psychology at UCLA, to the COS Board of Directors. Both will serve three-year terms from 2025 to 2027, bringing valuable expertise in science policy, innovation, research methodology, and open science advocacy. Daniel Correa is the Chief Executive Officer of the Federation of American Scientists, ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Researchers say they found that infection with a common virus that can be transmitted from mother to fetus before birth significantly worsens an often-fatal complication of premature birth called necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC) in experiments with mice. The research team, led by Johns Hopkins Children’s Center investigators and funded by the National Institutes of Health, says the new findings advance the search for better treatments for NEC — a relatively rare condition, but still the most common emergency intestinal complication in preemies. A report on the study published Feb. 13 in Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology ...

Irvine, Calif., Feb. 24, 2025 — There’s an arms race in medicine – scientists design drugs to treat lethal bacterial infections, but bacteria can evolve defenses to those drugs, sending the researchers back to square one. In the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a University of California, Irvine-led team describes the development of a drug candidate that can stop bacteria before they have a chance to cause harm.   “The issue with antibiotics is this crisis of antibiotic ...

Ketamine can effectively treat depression, but whether depressed patients with alcohol use disorder can safely use ketamine repeatedly remains unclear clinically. To investigate this possibility, Mohamed Kabbaj and colleagues from Florida State University modeled aspects of human depression in rats using long-term isolation and assessed how isolation and alcohol exposure alter ketamine intake. The authors found that a history of isolation and alcohol use influence the rewarding properties of ketamine in a sex-dependent manner.  Female rats took ketamine more than males in general. Prior alcohol use increased female rat ketamine ...

Poor food decisions and eating habits can contribute to excessive weight gain and health problems. Nutritional labels meant to convey healthiness instead may create negative expectations about taste or pose as a time-constraining hurdle for shoppers. Doris Schicker and Jessica Freiherr, from the Fraunhofer Institute for Process Engineering and Packaging, led a study in JNeurosci to explore whether pairing food labels with a sensory stimulus, like odor, affects how people perceive foods and thus promotes healthy shopping. ...

LAWRENCE — Added sugar, derived from cheap crops like corn, is bad for babies. According to the American Heart Association, added sugars are full of energy but lack nutritional value, boosting odds of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and other health problems. But a study published today from the University of Kansas in the Journal of Food Composition and Analysis shows most infant formulas on the U.S. market contain primarily added sugars rather than the healthier, naturally occurring lactose found in cow-milk base that would be best for babies because ...

Remember when 2°C of global warming was the doomsday scenario? Well, we're now staring down the barrel of something much worse. From the fish on your plate to the weather outside your window, everything's about to change. A new study by an international team of researchers, including Jackie Dawson, full professor, Geography, Environment and Geomatics at the University of Ottawa’s Faculty of Arts, underscores the grave risks posed by insufficient national commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “Our findings ...

Philadelphia, February 24, 2025 – In metastatic cancer surveillance, monitoring the actual concentrations of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) may be critical. Researchers showed that absolute ctDNA concentration thresholds can be defined to rule out or predict impending cancer progression. They introduce a dual threshold model in a novel study in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, published by Elsevier, that may improve cancer surveillance, patient stratification, and risk-informed, personalized treatment by providing more accurate and timely assessment of disease progression. Lead ...

New research reveals insight into the impact sleep quality has on a person’s immune system, and how it could be linked to the development of diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases. The study, published in The Journal of Immunology, found that even a single night of 24-hour sleep deprivation in young, lean, and healthy individuals altered the profile of immune cells that help regulate the immune system to resemble that of individuals with obesity - a condition known to drive chronic inflammation. This suggests that the immune system is highly sensitive to sleep and may adapt rapidly to changes in sleep pattern. ...

Researchers at The University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and colleagues at Massachusetts General Hospital, have found that people with diabetes can achieve the same positive results using advanced insulin technology when trained by their primary care providers (PCPs) or through telehealth as they would by seeing a specialist in person. The study’s findings, which focused on Type 1 diabetes, are a major step forward in expanding access to cutting-edge care for people with diabetes, especially for those living in rural ...

A new study reveals how the brain’s "place cells" create internal maps to help us navigate. These specialized neurons, found in the hippocampus, were once thought to rely on precisely ordered patterns for spatial coding. However, researchers have found that their activity, which appears disordered in large spaces, actually follows universal mathematical principles. This surprising discovery suggests that randomness, not strict organization, is key to how our brains encode information about our experiences. The findings could reshape our understanding of brain function ...

Scientists have developed an AI-powered tool that detects 64% of brain abnormalities linked to epilepsy that human radiologists miss.  MELD Graph is an AI tool that could drastically change the care for 30,000 patients in the UK and 4 million worldwide with one cause of epilepsy, researchers say. The study, published today in JAMA Neurology by a team at King’s College London and University College London (UCL), shows how the tool significantly improves the detection of focal cortical dysplasia’s (FCDs) which is a leading cause of epilepsy. Researchers say the tool will speed up diagnosis times, get patients the surgical treatment ...