Researchers from University of California San Diego have identified 11 genetic regions linked to delay discounting — the tendency to prefer smaller, immediate rewards over larger, delayed ones — shedding new light on how impulsive decision-making relates to both mental and physical health. The study, published on Nov. 25, 2025 in Molecular Psychiatry, analyzed genome-wide data from 134,935 23andMe participants and found that the same genetic factors that influence impulsive decision-making also overlap ...

Patients with the deadliest form of brain cancer, glioblastoma, who received MRI-guided focused ultrasound with standard-of-care chemotherapy had a nearly 40 percent increase in overall survival in a landmark trial of 34 patients led by University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) researchers. This is the first time researchers have demonstrated a potential survival benefit from using focused ultrasound to open the blood-brain barrier to improve delivery of chemotherapy to the tumor site in brain cancer patients after surgery. “Our results are very encouraging. Using focused ultrasound to open the ...

Researchers have developed the world’s first real-world head-to-head testing platform to determine whether commercial artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms are fit for NHS use to detect disease in a fair, equitable, transparent and trustworthy way, using diabetic eye disease as the first example. They say that it removes any biases that can come from companies wanting to deploy their AI software in clinical settings, putting all companies on a level playing field. Currently, NHS AI algorithm selection focuses on cost-effectiveness and matching human performance. ...

Special Report Traumatic brain injury (TBI) affects millions of Americans each year and can result in long-lasting symptoms. Previously, outpatient TBI care lacked standardized guidance that could not apply uniformly to adults with TBI who could care for themselves after hospital discharge or who did not require hospital admission. The National Academies’ 2022 report on TBI identified this gap and called for coordinated follow-up care, leading to the formation of the Action Collaborative on TBI Care. The collaborative’s Clinical Practice Guideline Working Group synthesized and adapted recommendations from 18 existing evidence-based guidelines ...

The national shortage of primary care physicians has been a concern for years, and a new study in the Annals of Family Medicine underscores how urgent the problem is and where the biggest pain point lies: in rural parts of the country that are seeing the largest population spikes in nearly a century. By studying the location of practicing family physicians across the U.S. from 2017 to 2023, authors found a year-over-year decrease in family physicians practicing in rural areas, with a net loss of 11% nationwide over the 7 years studied. The greatest losses were in the Northeast and fewest in the West.  There were 11,847 ...

Original Research  Background: Researchers examined health care challenges faced by adult adoptees and how being adopted affects relationships with their clinicians. U.S. adult adoptees completed a mixed-methods online survey. A total of 204 participants were included in the final analysis.  What This Study Found: Most participants described multiple types of adoption-related bias by clinicians: More than half of the participants reported clinicians made insensitive or inaccurate statements related to adoption (68%), ignored or dismissed adoption-related concerns (60%), or made them feel uncomfortable, unwelcome, or unsupported ...

Original Research Older Adults Who See the Same Primary Care Physician Have Fewer Preventable Hospitalizations Background: Continuity of care has been linked with fewer hospitalizations. This study examined whether better continuity is helpful for acute, potentially preventable hospitalizations that might be avoided with regular care. Researchers analyzed data for 54,376 adults aged 45 years and older from the long-term “45 and Up Study” in New South Wales, Australia. Survey responses were linked with Medicare general practitioner claims and hospital admission ...

Original Research Background: In this study, researchers aimed to understand how general practitioners experience trust in their patients, and how that trust affects patient care. Researchers interviewed 25 general practitioners across Australia.  What This Study Found: Interviewees ranged from 28 to 65 years old. Three themes described general practitioners’ trust in patients:  General practitioners’ trust in patients was an assumed starting point. General practitioners expressed a lack of trust in some complex ...

Original Research Background: Continuity of care has been linked with fewer hospitalizations. This study examined whether better continuity is helpful for acute, potentially preventable hospitalizations that might be avoided with regular care. Researchers analyzed data for 54,376 adults aged 45 years and older from the long-term “45 and Up Study” in New South Wales, Australia. Survey responses were linked with Medicare general practitioner claims and hospital admission records from 2007 to 2017. Researchers used a double machine learning approach to separate the effect of continuity of care from the ...

Research Brief  Background: In this study, researchers surveyed 134 young family physicians from 20 European countries to understand how ready they are to use AI in primary care. The web survey used the Medical AI Readiness Scale (MAIRS), which rates four areas: cognition (understanding), ability (skills), vision (future value), and ethics. The maximum possible score is 110, with higher scores indicating greater readiness. What This Study Found: Overall readiness was moderate (median 69/110) with wide variation. About one-quarter of participants said they never use AI in family medicine, ...

Special Report Latinos face significant health disparities, especially in chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, asthma, and cancer. Primary care clinicians play a critical role in managing and preventing these diseases, yet Latinos face multiple barriers to quality care. In April 2024, the Primary Care Latino Equity Research (PRIMER) Center convened the Latino Primary Care Summit on “Chronic Conditions in Latinos: Trends, Innovations and Care for the Future.” This special report summarizes the discussions at the summit and ...

Research Brief Background: In this study, researchers used the American Medical Association Physician Masterfile to identify family physicians aged 65 years or younger in the U.S. actively practicing outpatient care from 2017 to 2023. Physicians’ office addresses were mapped to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural-Urban Continuum Codes to identify and describe family physicians in rural communities. What This Study Found: There has been an 11% nationwide decline in rural family physicians from 2017 to 2023. The Northeast saw the greatest percentage loss (15.3%), while the West saw the least (3.2%). The proportion ...

Research Brief Background: Home Health Focus is a new publicly available data set representing home health use by Medicare beneficiaries at home health agency, county, and state levels from 2016 to 2019. The dataset was created to allow users to examine local and national trends without the costs or time-consuming process of entering into a data use agreement with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). What the Dataset Includes: The dataset includes basic demographics and indicators of patient function and health status. From 2016 to 2019, home health use rose from 6,853,965 stays among 5,023,681 patients to 7,035,893 stays among 5,088,300 beneficiaries. ...

Original Research Background: This study tested a process to qualify bilingual staff as medical interpreters at a large community health center. Bilingual employees (137 mostly heritage Spanish speaking individuals) completed a survey, self-rated their Spanish ability by taking a formal general Spanish language test and a formal medical interpretation test. Participants then completed a 40-hour online course and then repeated the medical interpretation test. 87 employees completed all steps.   What This Study Found: Heritage Spanish ...

Original Research  Background: In this study, researchers examined whether people who follow higher-GI or higher-GL diets have different risks of developing lung cancer. They used data from 101,732 adults in the U.S. National Cancer Institute's Prostate, Lung, Colorectal and Ovarian Cancer Screening Trial cohort who filled out a detailed diet questionnaire when they joined the study (1993–2001). These adults were followed for about 12 years to see who developed lung cancer. The researchers then compared people with the highest GI and GL to those with the lowest, accounting for ...

A controlled feeding study out of South Dakota State University shows that older adults who ate fewer ultra-processed foods naturally consumed fewer calories, lost weight and abdominal fat, and showed improvements in insulin, nutrient-sensing hormones, and inflammation. “Counting nutrients is not enough,” Moul Dey, professor of health and nutritional sciences, said. “The degree of processing changes how the body handles those same nutrients. Diet quality depends not only on nutrients but also on the ingredients and the level of processing, considered together.” For decades, the Dietary ...

Baltimore, MD — Researchers from the Institute of Human Virology (IHV) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have discovered how a specific type of immune cell may contribute to the persistence of HIV infections.  The finding offers new insight into why the virus remains difficult to cure even with effective antiretroviral therapy.  The study was published earlier this month in Science Translational Medicine. It was led by Guangming Li, PhD, and Lishan Su, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology at UMSOM and Director of the Division of Virology, Pathogenesis and Cancer, and Interim Director of the Division ...

Protected areas are often seen as refuges for plants and animals – yet they are also places where people live, work and relax. A new study led by the University of Göttingen in Germany, in collaboration with the Universities of Kassel in Germany, Jyväskylä in Finland, and Stockholm in Sweden, shows how deeply people are connected to these landscapes. The research team analyzed personal stories from residents, land managers, and visitors in protected areas of the district of Göttingen. Their findings reveal that protected areas foster local identity, support learning about nature, and provide spaces for recreation, working ...

Brittany Rodriguez and Akash Phadatare of Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s Manufacturing Science Division (MSD) have been named to SME’s prestigious 30 Under 30 program for 2025. For the past decade, the Society of Manufacturing Engineers has recognized young visionaries in the field — talented individuals with a passion for innovation across manufacturing, research and engineering disciplines. “I am immensely proud of Brittany Rodriguez and Akash Phadatare for their innovative contributions ...

November 20, 2025-- Younger workers in governmental public health place significantly higher value on nontraditional benefits than their older counterparts, according to a new study from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Flexible scheduling and remote-work policies were among the top motivators for younger employees choosing and remaining in public service. The findings are published in the Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. “Public health workers age 35 or younger consistently show lower retention rates ...

Irvine, Calif., Nov. 24, 2025 — Around the world, doctors, nurses and pharmacists are turning to evidence-based integrative approaches such as acupuncture, yoga, exercise, massage and nutrition counseling to help people with cancer manage the harsh side effects of treatment. New research led by the University of California, Irvine shows just how widespread that shift has become and how much work remains to make these therapies accessible to all. Published this month in BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, the study surveyed more than 300 oncology professionals from the Multinational Association of Supportive Care in Cancer and the Society for Integrative ...

New research led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History reveals that the majority of dogs living today have low but detectable levels of post-domestication wolf ancestry that has likely shaped characteristics including body size, sense of smell, and personality traits. The study, published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that this newly uncovered gene flow may help give unique advantages to dogs’ survival in diverse human environments. Among their findings: post-domestication wolf ancestry exists in a wide range of dog breeds, ...

Scientists have found wolf remains, thousands of years old, on a small, isolated island in the Baltic Sea – a place where the animals could only have been brought by humans. The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, Stockholm University, the University of Aberdeen and the University of East Anglia, suggest that grey wolves may have been managed or controlled by prehistoric societies. The discovery of the 3,000–5,000-year-old wolf remains was made in the Stora Förvar cave on the Swedish island of Stora Karlsö, a site known for its intensive use by seal hunters and fishers during the ...

Tropical cyclones can unleash extensive devastation, as recent storms that swept over Jamaica and the Philippines made unmistakably clear. Accurate weather forecasts that buy more time to prepare are crucial for saving lives and are rooted in a deeper understanding of climate systems. Driving this forward, researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and others have successfully identified a previously unknown cyclic climate pattern by historical reanalysis of datasets and satellite observations. The findings are published in PNAS. Jiawei Bao still remembers coming home from middle school to ...

PHILADELPHIA – Correcting misinformation after it has gone viral is a common way of informing the public that what they’ve encountered may be inaccurate, lack context, be unproven, or be demonstrably false. But repeating a misconception when refuting it carries the risk of spreading it to a larger audience, especially because the people who read a fact-checking report may not be the same ones who were originally exposed to the worrisome information. To overcome these challenges, researchers at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University ...