About The Study: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, digital media use was consistently associated with risks to child and adolescent health and development, particularly for social media. These findings highlight the need for targeted, multifaceted policies and interventions to mitigate potential harms from digital media exposure.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Samantha Teague, PhD, email sam.teague@jcu.edu.au. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2026.0085) Editor’s ...

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that people in states with abortion bans face limitations to obtaining abortion care out of state and should be supported through policy change, visible information and resources, and charitable and interpersonal social support systems.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Alia Cornell, MPH, email alia.d.cornell@kp.org. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.1068) Editor’s Note: Please see the article ...

About The Study: This cross-sectional study found that youths use smartphones approximately one-third of the school day; this use was associated with reduced cognitive control. These findings highlight the need for school-level policies and digital literacy programs that address not only overall screen time but also habitual smartphone-checking behaviors that fragment attention.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Eva H. Telzer, PhD, email ehtelzer@unc.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.1092) Editor’s ...

About The Study: The findings of this cohort study in Taiwan suggest that positive associations were observed between maternal prenatal acetaminophen prescriptions and offspring’s attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) in the full cohort but not in the sibling-matched analyses. A substantial divergence in associations in the sibling bidirectional analyses indicates unaddressed sources of bias and prevents firm conclusions from being drawn using the sibling design.  Corresponding Authors: To ...

About The Study: In this randomized clinical trial, a low-cost digital intervention increased expectation to adopt health behaviors among adults using glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), with effects persisting for 2 weeks. These findings suggest a potential role for the written microsteps intervention plus short video boosters as adjuncts to pharmacotherapy. Longer trials are warranted to determine whether the behavioral expectations stimulated by such interventions may lead to sustained behavior change.  Corresponding Author: To ...

Chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR T) cell therapy represents a milestone in leukemia treatment. CAR T works by genetically engineering a chimeric antigen receptor on the surface of the patient's T cells to target specific antigens on leukemia cells, with the goal of identifying and eliminating them. However, clinical data show that more than 50% of patients eventually relapse after CAR T treatment. One major reason is that leukemia cells can reduce or lose expression of the targeted antigen under therapeutic pressure. When this occurs, CAR T cells can no longer effectively recognize and ...

Women with certain cardiometabolic risk factors, including type 2 diabetes and high waist circumference, face a greater increase in risk for liver fibrosis than men with the same risk factors. The study, just published in JAMA Network Open, is one of the first to explore sex differences in cardiometabolic risk factors for liver fibrosis, a condition on the rise globally. Liver fibrosis is the buildup of scar tissue in the liver due to chronic inflammation. Over time, it can lead to serious complications, including cirrhosis, liver failure and liver cancer. While men face higher rates of liver fibrosis, severe cases are increasing among women, prompting ...

Today, around 70% of countries report using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve internal governmental processes, while a third use it to support policy design and implementation. Others are even exploring the possibility of using AI as a substitute to core governmental functions. Yet caution and pragmatic considerations are needed to ensure a successful AI implementation as statistics show that over 80% of AI projects fail. To support governments facing these challenges, an international group of experts led by Prof. Catherine Régis (IVADO, Université de Montréal) and Prof. Florian Martin-Bariteau (University of Ottawa) analyzed key factors ...

A new University of California San Diego study published in Cell challenges a long-standing assumption about how animal viruses become capable of sparking human epidemics and pandemics. Using a phylogenetic, genome-wide analysis across multiple viral families, researchers report that most zoonotic viruses — infectious pathogens that spread from animals to humans, including the cause of COVID-19 — do not show evidence of special evolutionary adaptation before spilling over into humans. “This work has direct relevance to the ongoing controversy around COVID-19 origins,” said Joel Wertheim, PhD, senior author ...

A single session of physical exercise can spawn a boost of neural activity in brain networks that underlie learning and memory, according to a new study led by the University of Iowa. The researchers measured neural activity in the brains of patients with epilepsy before and after they completed a bout of physical exercise. The results showed that a single exercise session produced in the participants a burst of high-frequency brain waves, called ripples, emanating from the hippocampus to areas of the brain involved in learning ...

Open-plan offices entail a clearly increased risk of workplace bullying compared with employees having their own office or sharing with just a few colleagues. This is shown in research from Linköping University, Sweden.  “Increased bullying is a tangible negative consequence of how you choose to organise the workplace. It’s important to highlight this, as it hasn’t previously been examined,” says Michael Rosander, professor at the Division of Psychology at Linköping University. Open-plan offices, where many employees share the same space, have become increasingly common. Employers often justify this development as a way to use ...

Individuals who perceive that colleagues prefer to scroll on their mobile phones during breaks rather than socialise rate their psychosocial work environment as poorer than others do. This is shown in a doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg. Research has shown that mobile phone scrolling can impair relationships. For example, many people feel that the quality of conversations deteriorates when phones are used at the same time. However, few studies have examined how relationships between co-workers are affected. In his doctoral thesis, psychologist Per Martinsson has therefore investigated what happens when mobile phones displace social interaction during breaks. The studies were ...

How quickly do we perceive whether a person we are interacting with is clever or predictable? Be it in a game, a conversation or a negotiation, we constantly infer what others are thinking and size up their intentions, and we adjust our behavior accordingly in a process that scientists call “adaptive mentalization.” A new study by the University of Zurich now reveals how our brains govern this adaptation. Differences in social mentalization A team of researchers led by Christian Ruff, a professor of neuroeconomics and decision neuroscience at the University of Zurich, examined the behavior of over 570 people ...

Researchers have discovered that mutations in the FOXJ3 gene act as a "master switch" failure, disrupting how the brain builds its layers and leading to FCD, a primary cause of drug-resistant epilepsy. The study reveals how FOXJ3 controls the formation of brain cortical layers during brain development by regulating the PTEN–mTOR signaling pathway. The PTEN-mTOR signaling pathway acts as a critical control system for cell growth, proliferation, metabolism, and survival. When this system malfunctions, ...

Research Highlights: A study that looked at over 3,000 women experiencing a first pregnancy determined that persistently higher stress levels were associated with high blood pressure post pregnancy, specifically in women who had faced adverse pregnancy outcomes, or complications in pregnancy, including high blood pressure, pre-term birth, having a smaller baby or stillbirth. Higher stress levels were detected 2-to-7 years after delivery, emphasizing a need for managing stress in women who have had adverse pregnancy outcomes, as they may be more susceptible to the negative effects of stress on their heart health. Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET Monday, March 9, 2026 DALLAS, ...

When the days start to get longer again, Dr Christine Blume’s phone rings more often. That’s because journalists want to ask the sleep researcher what spring fatigue is all about. Until now, she has always replied that there are no studies that have investigated this phenomenon. “But I always found that unsatisfactory,” says Blume, who is a researcher at the Center for Chronobiology of the University Psychiatric Clinics (UPK) and the University of Basel.That’s why she teamed up with sleep researcher Dr Albrecht Vorster from the University of Bern’s Inselspital to conduct a study that investigated ...

In a study of adults with advanced prostate cancer taking androgen-receptor pathway inhibitors and different types of anticoagulants, investigators found no evidence of an increase in patients’ bleeding or clotting risks, despite previous lab results that raised alarms. The findings are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Thromboembolism, caused by a circulating blood clot that gets stuck and causes an obstruction, is the second leading cause of death in people with cancer, ...

People living with neurological diseases such as Parkinson's disease, dementia and epilepsy face not only physical decline, but also profound questions about identity, purpose, and meaning. Yet physicians best positioned to address those concerns do not have the adequate training and tools to do so, a new paper states. The paper, published in the journal Neurology Clinical Practice by researchers from UCLA Health, the University of Colorado, Harvard Medical School and Brown University, argues that spiritual assessment should become a routine part of neurological care, and offers practical guidance for how clinicians can make it happen. The paper describes why neurologists are uniquely ...

The growing use of AI-generated scientific and science-related content, especially on social media, raises important concerns: these texts may contain false or highly persuasive information that is difficult for users to detect, potentially shaping public opinion and decision-making. Several jurisdictions and platforms are moving toward clearer disclosure of AI-generated or AI-synthesised content to protect the public. However, a new study published in JCOM warns that these labels may have the opposite effect of what regulators intend, decreasing ...

Three years ago, in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, the passage of an “ultra-energetic” cosmic neutrino was observed — the most energetic ever detected. The event drew international attention from the scientific community as well as from the media and the public, not least because the origin of this particle — whose energy exceeded that of previously observed neutrinos by more than an order of magnitude — is unknown. A new paper published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (JCAP) by the KM3NeT collaboration, which operates the KM3NeT/ARCA detector off the coast of Sicily, suggests ...

New prescriptions for stimulants among adults, largely to treat ADHD, more than doubled since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in younger adults, found new research published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.251065. In the past, stimulants have been prescribed mainly for pediatric cases of ADHD and some other conditions. However, over the last 20 years, ADHD diagnoses and stimulant prescriptions have increased globally in adults, and data indicate this trend accelerated after the start of the pandemic. Canadian researchers sought to understand whether this trend is evident in Canada and ...

A “peculiar” ancient relative of the crocodile which experts believe began life on four legs before, in adulthood, it learnt how to walk on just two has been revealed in a new study. Named Sonselasuchus cedrus, this archaic reptile was part of the shuvosaurid group, most of which had an appearance mimicking that of the ornithomimid dinosaurs that it shared the landscape with during Late Triassic time (approximately 225-201 million years ago). In peer-reviewed findings, published today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, ...

  AI can quantify calcification build-up in breast arteries via mammograms. This ‘arterial calcification’ is strongly linked to the risk of heart attack, stroke, and death. Breast cancer screening could also be used to screen for cardiovascular disease.   Sophia Antipolis, France – 9 March 2026. The risk of serious or fatal heart disease can be predicted with artificial intelligence (AI) analysis of mammograms, according to research published in the European Heart Journal [1] today (Monday).   The study ...

More images available via the link in the notes section Engineers at Oxford University have developed a rapid, ultra-low-cost method for manufacturing soft robots using common lab equipment. The method has been published today (8 March) in Advanced Science. The new technique enables researchers to fabricate soft robotic actuators - the flexible components that power movement - in under 10 minutes at a material cost of less than $0.10 (US Dollars) per unit. Principle Investigator and corresponding author Professor Antonio Forte (Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford) said: “By lowering the financial and technical barriers ...

Neuroscientists at King’s College London have pinpointed a mechanism behind the increased neural connectivity observed in the very early stages of Alzheimer’s disease.   Published in Translational Psychiatry, the study also demonstrated that a cancer medication has the potential to reduce this hyperconnectivity.  The research, funded by Alzheimer's Society and conducted in brain cells of rats, showed that low levels of the protein amyloid-beta could induce hyperconnectivity and this pattern closely resembled changes seen in the brains ...