About The Study: The U.S. has achieved a new post-pandemic hospital occupancy steady state 11 percentage points higher than it was pre-pandemic. This persistently elevated occupancy appears to be driven by a 16% reduction in the number of staffed U.S. hospital beds rather than by a change in the number of hospitalizations. Experts in developed countries have posited that a national hospital occupancy of 85% constitutes a hospital bed shortage (a conservative estimate). The findings of the current study show that the U.S. could reach this dangerous threshold as soon as 2032, with some ...

About The Study: After more than 10 years of follow-up in the Swiss Multicenter Bypass or Sleeve Study randomized clinical trial, Roux-en-Y gastric bypass demonstrated superiority over sleeve gastrectomy for patient excess body mass index loss.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Ralph Peterli, MD, email ralph.peterli@clarunis.ch. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2024.7052) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author ...

  In the next five years, integrating AI into country response systems could save more lives by anticipating the location and trajectory of disease outbreaks.  Global group of researchers call for better collaboration between academia, government and industry, to ensure safety, accountability and ethics in the use of AI in infectious disease research.  A study published in Nature today outlines for the first time how advances in AI can accelerate breakthroughs in infectious disease research and outbreak response.  The study – which ...

In the face of the alarming number of opioid-related deaths in the U.S., there have been national efforts to increase emergency clinician prescribing of buprenorphine, a medication used to treat opioid use disorder. In a new study published in JAMA, UCLA Health researchers report on the extent and success rate of such efforts in California. Opioid-related emergency department (ED) visits, hospitalizations, and deaths have increased markedly since 1999, and the growing number of cases was declared a public health emergency in 2024. Combined ...

Expert sommeliers can take a whiff of a glass of wine and tell you a lot about what’s in your pinot noir or cabernet sauvignon. A team of physicists at CU Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have achieved a similar feat of sensing, only for a much wider range of substances. The group has developed a new laser-based device that can take any sample of gas and identify a huge variety of the molecules within it. It is sensitive enough to detect those molecules at minute concentrations all the way down to parts per trillion. ...

At a glance: Study in mice offers insights into the brain circuitry underlying certain types of reward-based choices. Researchers identified distinct groups of brain cells activated when animals anticipate a reward to be above average or below average for a choice. The findings enhance understanding of human decision-making and how the brain balances risk and reward. Every day, our brain makes thousands of decisions, big and small. Any of these decisions — from the least consequential such as picking ...

Immune therapy has transformed how cancer is treated, but many tumors continue to evade these treatments, thanks to their resemblance to healthy tissue. Now, researchers at UC San Francisco have found that some cancers, like deadly brain cancer (glioma), make unique, jumbled proteins that make them stand out. These newly recognized cancer-specific proteins, or antigens, could speed the development of potent immunotherapies that recognize and attack hard-to-treat tumors. The study, which was supported through grants from the National Institutes of Health, appears in Nature on ...

Introduction First identified by Stevens and Johnson in 1922, SJS and TEN are now recognized as disorders with a continuum of severity, from milder forms (SJS) to the most severe (TEN). SJS/TEN is associated with multiple etiological factors, most notably drug-induced liver injury (DILI), making the identification of the responsible agent crucial for patient management. However, previous studies have lacked uniformity in diagnostic approaches, limiting the ability to draw clear conclusions about causality. Epidemiology The incidence of SJS/TEN varies across regions, with notable differences between studies. For instance, ...

Any patient suffering from new or worsening medical symptoms hopes for a relatively quick and accurate diagnosis. However, for many people with episodic disabilities — periodic or intermittent conditions like migraines, lupus, Crohn’s disease and epilepsy, in which the presence and severity of symptoms fluctuate — a swift diagnosis is not guaranteed. New research from Michigan State University focuses on diagnostic delays experienced by people with one such condition: epilepsy, a neurological disorder characterized by unpredictable seizures that affects over 3 million people in the United States and 50 million worldwide. “Epilepsy ...

Introduction Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) remain a significant health burden in tropical and subtropical regions, with limited treatment options and diagnostic capabilities. These diseases are often neglected in research and policy, yet they contribute to high mortality and morbidity worldwide. Nanotechnology, particularly the conjugation of nanomaterials with drugs, presents an innovative approach to improving both the diagnosis and treatment of these diseases. Nanomaterials have unique properties that allow for enhanced drug delivery, ...

INDIANAPOLIS – It is important that a healthcare team is aware of and understands a patient’s goals of care, both medical and personal. But that information, if documented, typically is not placed in a standardized location and is difficult to find within a patient’s voluminous electronic health record (EHR). A new study by researchers from Regenstrief Institute, the Indiana University School of Medicine and Indiana University Health presents the standardized goals of care note they developed, deployed and evaluated as a quality improvement initiative at ...

New research found that supplementing maternal diet with α-tocopherol, a form of vitamin E, can reduce the development of food allergy and anaphylaxis in newborn mice.   The prevalence of food allergy in children increased 50% from 2007 to 2021 in the United States (US), with the incidence of peanut allergy tripling in that time. This new study, published in The Journal of Immunology, shows the potential for α-tocopherol in prenatal vitamins during pregnancy and lactation to address this alarming increase and reduce development of food allergy early in life.  The study found that ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping workplaces by streamlining routine tasks and boosting efficiency, particularly in retail, where innovation is essential for maintaining a competitive edge. Beyond automation, AI supports employee creativity by offering valuable insights and allowing them to focus on innovative tasks. However, research is limited on how AI service quality impacts employees in retail industries, making this an important area to explore. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University and Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea, examined how perceived AI service quality influences retail employees’ ...

One in five older adults gets an infection up to six months after heart surgery — with women far more likely to develop one, according to studies led by Michigan Medicine. The two studies examined thousands of cases involving Medicare beneficiaries who underwent coronary artery bypass grafting, also known as CABG or heart bypass, or aortic valve replacement. Women had 60% greater odds of developing postoperative infections, the three most common being urinary tract, pneumonia and sepsis. Black patients also had higher rates of overall infection (28%) ...

DALLAS, Feb. 19, 2025 — The conditions in which we are born, live, learn, work, play and age — the social drivers of health — are better predictors of health and life expectancy than our genetic code. In communities nationwide, people living in locations just a handful of miles apart can have a dramatic difference in life expectancy. To help level the playing field, the Grubhub Community Fund awarded the American Heart Association® Social Impact Funds a $2 million grant to support food security, technology innovation and economic resiliency in New York City and Chicago. “We are grateful ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Generic drugs manufactured in India are linked to significantly more “severe adverse events” for patients who use them than equivalent drugs produced in the United States, a new study finds.   These adverse events included hospitalization, disability, and in a few cases, death.  Researchers found that mature generic drugs, those that had been on the market for a relatively long time, were responsible for the finding.   The results show that all generic drugs are not equal, even though patients are often told that they are, said John Gray, co-author of the study and professor of operations at The Ohio State University’s ...

Shareholders play a crucial role in corporate governance by voting on key decisions in the companies they invest in. To enhance transparency, regulatory bodies worldwide—such as government agencies and stock exchanges—are increasingly implementing guidelines to hold institutional investors accountable for their voting behavior and ensure they fulfill their fiduciary duties. A study published in the journal Corporate Governance: An International Review on 22 January 2025 demonstrates that these regulations, even if non-binding, can encourage institutional investors to play a more active role and improve corporate governance. The study, conducted ...

Procedure is simple and could be adopted by most U.S. hospitals Roughly 2 million people in the U.S. live with limb loss; number is expected to rise Senior author, a retired U.S. Army colonel, traveled to Ukraine to set up the study CHICAGO --- A reliable method to treat post-amputation pain remains elusive, but a new Northwestern Medicine study conducted in collaboration with Ukrainian physicians suggests that hydrodissection — a simple procedure that injects fluid around nerves — may reduce residual limb pain and opioid dependence. The ...

(Embargo: 19 Feb, 10am GMT) A groundbreaking study led by Professor Ginestra Bianconi from Queen Mary University of London, in collaboration with international researchers, has unveiled a transformative framework for understanding complex systems. Published in Nature Physics, this pioneering study establishes the new field of higher-order topological dynamics, revealing how the hidden geometry of networks shapes everything from brain activity to artificial intelligence.  “Complex systems like the brain, climate, and next-generation artificial intelligence rely on interactions that extend beyond simple pairwise relationships. Our study reveals ...

A new study led by researchers from Oxford Population Health has shown that a range of environmental factors, including lifestyle (smoking and physical activity), and living conditions, have a greater impact on health and premature death than our genes. The researchers used data from nearly half a million UK Biobank participants to assess the influence of 164 environmental factors and genetic risk scores for 22 major diseases on ageing, age-related diseases, and premature death. The study is published today in Nature Medicine. Key findings Environmental factors explained 17% of the variation in risk of death, compared to less than 2% explained by genetic predisposition (as ...

Imagine a breakthrough in cancer treatment where only malignant cells are targeted, sparing healthy host cells; or patients with abnormal protein synthesis are treated to produce a healthy protein. Hiroshi Abe and his colleagues at Nagoya University have identified two applications, among others, in a new study. Their innovative approach, reported in Nature Biotechnology, called the Internal Cap-Initiated Translation (ICIT) mechanism, introduces a novel way to 'switch on' protein synthesis ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — There is a big problem with quantum technology — it’s tiny. The distinctive properties that exist at the subatomic scale usually disappear at macroscopic scales, making it difficult to harness their superior sensing and communication capabilities for real-world applications, like optical systems and advanced computing. Now, however, an international team led by physicists at Penn State and Columbia University has developed a novel approach to maintain special quantum characteristics, even in three-dimensional (3D) materials. The researchers published ...

    Illustration   A quantum "miracle material" could support magnetic switching, a team of researchers at the University of Regensburg and University of Michigan has shown.   This recently discovered capability could help enable applications in quantum computing, sensing and more. While earlier studies identified that quantum entities called excitons are sometimes effectively confined to a single line within the material chromium sulfide bromide, the new research provides a ...

Acting in the right place at the right time is the key to effective medical treatment with minimal side effects. However, this feat remains difficult to achieve. Biologists and chemists at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have succeeded in developing a tool that controls the location at which a molecule is activated by a simple pulse of light lasting only a few seconds. Tested on a protein essential for cell division, this system could be applied to other molecules. The potential applications are vast, both in basic research and in improving ...

New research from the University of Southampton has found that trust in representative institutions, such as parliaments, governments and political parties, has been declining in democratic countries around the world. The study, published in The British Journal of Political Science, presents the largest and most comprehensive analysis of trends in political trust worldwide to date. It brings together results from 3,377 surveys covering 143 countries between 1958 and 2019, representing over five million survey respondents. Whereas trust in representative institutions is generally in decline, trust in non-representative institutions ...