Secondary infections caused by bacteria or viruses during hospital care remain a long-standing global challenge, despite advances in modern medicine. In particular, mixed bacterial–viral infections in critically ill or immunocompromised patients are extremely difficult to treat and are associated with significantly increased mortality. At the same time, the rapid rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and the frequent emergence of viral variants have exposed the limitations of existing antibiotics and vaccines. These ...

EMBARGOED UNTIL MONDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2026 12:01 A.M. EST NOTE TO EDITOR: Multimedia elements available for download: https://bit.ly/3NWbA0I  Survey: 3 in 4 skip physical therapy homework, stunting progress Key takeaways: A new survey by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center reveals 76% of people admit they don’t complete their physical therapy homework. Physical therapists say successful recovery involves adding home exercises to existing routines—like ...

More than half of college students are lonely – and those who use social media the most are particularly likely to feel isolated, a study of tens of thousands of 18 to 24-year-olds in the US shows. Just 16 hours a week, or two or so hours a day, on social media was linked with higher odds of loneliness, a new peer-reviewed paper in the Journal of American College Health reports. The study’s authors said that academic institutions should educate students on the effects of social media use and encourage them to set time limits. Researcher Dr. Madelyn Hill, now an assistant professor at Ohio University, who led the study while completing ...

Intermittent fasting is unlikely to lead to greater weight loss in overweight or obese adults than traditional dietary advice or doing nothing, a new Cochrane review finds. Obesity is a significant public health problem that has become a leading cause of death in high-income countries. Worldwide adult obesity has more than tripled since 1975, according to the WHO. In 2022, 2.5 billion adults were overweight. Of these, 890 million were living with obesity. Intermittent fasting has surged in popularity ...

China’s youth is facing an unprecedented mental health crisis. Now, experts are exploring the potential healing power of artificial intelligence (AI) in a society where mental health issues have long been taboo. Clinical psychologist Dr. Olive Woo and AI expert Dr. Yuk Ming Tang suggest the technology could be transformative for accessible emotional support, provided it is implemented with care and responsibility. In their new book, DeepSeek and Mental Health Support Among Chinese Youth, the experts shed light on the escalating mental health crisis among Chinese youth and how popular AI platforms like DeepSeek are emerging as lifelines in addressing this so-called silent ...

A new study has identified an association between consumption of drinks containing a high amount of sugar and anxiety symptoms in adolescents.  Researchers at Bournemouth University were part of a team involved in reviewing the findings of multiple studies that have investigated people’s diets and their mental health, to establish common findings.  Their results have been published in the Journal of Human Nutrition and Dietetics. “With increasing concern about adolescent nutrition, most public health initiatives have emphasised the physical consequences of poor dietary habits, such as obesity and type-2 diabetes,” said Dr ...

An international team of scientists have identified how to pinpoint and predict hotspots for some of the most dangerous species of scorpion in the world. The researchers have established the key environmental conditions that determine where lethal, venomous arachnids thrive - findings that could help shine a light on flashpoints for scorpion stings in tropical regions across the globe. The team of scientists used field observations in Africa combined with computer modelling to predict where dangerous scorpion species are most likely to be found and what factors influence their distributions. Their ...

Arizona State University researchers will lead a panel discussion on household water insecurity at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting, which takes place in Phoenix next week. The panel, “Beyond the Tap: Water Insecurity in the United States,” is organized by Patrick Thomson, a research scientist with ASU’s Arizona Water for All project and will be moderated by Regents and President’s Professor Alexandra Brewis from ASU’s School of Human Evolution and Social Change. The session focuses on growing ...

Arizona State University Regents Anne Stone will present research on the evolutionary history of infectious disease at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting, which takes place in Phoenix next week. Stone’s presentation, “(Re)Emerging Pathogens: Ancient Spillovers Teach Us About Modern Plagues,” examines tuberculosis (TB), a disease that has affected humans and animals for thousands of years. Drawing on genetic analyses of ancient DNA, her research traces how TB moved between species and human populations over time and what those patterns reveal ...

Viruses exist at the boundary between living and non-living matter, while skin is a living interface between physics and biology, making them perfect—but until now overlooked—arenas for testing the interplay between quantum physics, biology and life. That’s according to arguments made by Connor Thompson, a PhD student in microbiology and immunology at the University of British Columbia, in Canada, and Samuel Morriss, a medical doctor based in Melbourne, Australia, whose two essays share the US$30,000 first prize in FQxI’s latest essay competition, presented in partnership with the Paradox Science Institute. The eight winners of the $53,000 competition—which ...

As the U.S. population ages, a growing number of older adults are living alone — a circumstance linked to increased risks of loneliness, social isolation and cognitive decline. Researchers from Arizona State University are addressing these challenges through innovative, technology-enabled interventions designed to improve health, independence and quality of life.   At the 2026 AAAS Annual Meeting, hosted in Phoenix, Arizona State University faculty from the Edson College of Nursing and Health Innovation will lead a panel discussion titled “Tech Solutions for Older Adults Living Alone with Cognitive Decline” ...

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers at Tokyo Metropolitan University have studied how fruit flies tune their development in response to environmental changes (diapause). Studying fruit fly strains from different latitudes across Japan, they showed that the sensitivity to starting reproductive diapause varies smoothly with local conditions. Through genetic sequencing, they found that the timeless (tim) gene plays a key role, adding to growing evidence that diapause is strongly affected by genes regulating circadian rhythm.     Animals have a range of survival ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A study of more than 100 kindergarten-age children suggests kids tend to think of snakes differently than they do other animals and that hearing negative or objectifying language about the slithery reptiles might contribute to that way of thinking. The study also suggests it takes minimal intervention to “inoculate” a child against snake negativity. The findings, published in Anthrozoös, are important for multiple reasons, explains co-author Jeff Loucks of Oregon State University. Snakes are reviled in many human cultures but little is known about how children develop feelings of fear and vilification toward an animal ...

FEBRUARY 2026 TIP SHEET Chemotherapy Resistance Can Chemo-Resistant Cancer Cells Be Resensitized? A new study from Sylvester researchers may have found a workaround for the long-standing problem of chemotherapy resistance and, in turn, identified an encouraging way to restore the power of widely used chemotherapy drugs. The study, published this month in Genes & Development, explains how blocking a key protein forces damaged cancer cells into a state of uncontrolled transcriptional activity. This action creates ...

Even as misinformation proliferates across the Internet, sites containing low-credibility health information remain relatively scarce and unseen. That’s according to new research from University of Utah communication scholars who tracked web-surfing activities of more than 1,000 U.S. adults for four weeks. But the findings, published in Nature Aging, illuminate a dark side. Traffic to such sites is concentrated heavily among older adults, especially among those who lean right politically. This indicates the most vulnerable ...

Adult survivors of childhood cancers are at higher risk for another cancer – such as breast, colorectal, sarcomas and thyroid cancer – that is not a relapse of their original illness. Previous cancer therapies are largely responsible, however up to 13 percent of survivors also have hereditary predisposition that elevates their risk of subsequent cancer. A recent clinical trial found that genetic services via remote centralized telehealth and in collaboration with primary care increased the uptake of genetic ...

Recent global crises have exposed the limits of a universal mortality threshold for declaring famine—an approach that can obscure how famine actually unfolds across different populations. In a paper published in the Lancet, researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and colleagues call for a fundamental re-examination of how famine thresholds are defined. “The mortality thresholds used by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) were developed for rural African settings, not middle-income urban populations,” said L.H. Lumey, MD, PhD,  Columbia Mailman School professor of Epidemiology. “There are stark disparities ...

A newly identified soil bacterium may help unlock cleaner ways to recycle carbon dioxide and produce valuable chemicals using electricity. In a recent study, researchers report that the sulfate reducing bacterium Fundidesulfovibrio terrae possesses an unusual ability to both export and absorb electrical energy while converting carbon dioxide into acetate, an industrially important organic compound. The findings reveal a previously unknown microbial strategy that could support future carbon neutral technologies and sustainable chemical production. The research team isolated the microorganism from paddy soil and discovered that ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Antibiotic treatments are losing effectiveness against a range of common bacterial pathogens, including E. coli, K. pneumoniae, Salmonella and Acinetobacter, according to a warning issued by the World Health Organization last October. For the microbe that gives rise to tuberculosis, a team of researchers from Penn State and The University of Minnesota Medical School found that a potential solution may be chemically changing the structure of a naturally occurring ...

A new study has uncovered that the Erhai Lake Basin in southwest China is releasing far more atmospheric nitrogen pollution than it absorbs, raising concerns about regional air quality, ecosystem health, and long-distance pollution transport. Atmospheric reactive nitrogen is a group of nitrogen compounds that influence air pollution, climate, and ecosystem stability. These compounds play important roles in forming fine particulate matter, worsening smog, and driving water eutrophication that threatens biodiversity and drinking water safety. Understanding where these pollutants originate and how they move through the environment is essential for designing effective pollution control strategies. In ...

Scientists are highlighting biochar, a carbon-rich material produced from biomass, as a promising solution to help soils store carbon and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, offering new hope in global climate mitigation efforts. In a new comprehensive review, researchers synthesized current knowledge on how biochar improves soil carbon storage, reduces greenhouse gases, and provides practical frameworks to measure its climate benefits. The findings demonstrate that biochar could play a crucial role in transforming soils into ...

Ikoma, Japan— Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are tiny membrane-bound particles released by cells to transport proteins and other molecules to neighboring cells. Because of this natural delivery ability, EVs have attracted growing interest as potential vehicles for therapeutic protein and genome-editing enzyme delivery. However, EVs can originate either from intracellular endosomal compartments or directly from specialized protrusions on the cell surface, and until now, it has remained unclear which EV type is more effective at delivering functional protein cargo. To address this question, researchers in ...

The American Meteorological Society has released the following Rapid Response Statement in response to the repeal of the EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding. A Response to the Decision to Rescind EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding The American Meteorological Society (AMS) is deeply concerned by the repeal of EPA’s 2009 Endangerment Finding, which correctly concluded that greenhouse gas emissions harm health and well-being for current and future generations.  AMS reaffirms key scientific conclusions of climate change that relate to the Endangerment Finding: 1. The impacts of climate change are harmful to people ...

“Like father, like son? Can parenting styles break the intergenerational pattern of alcohol and drug use?” A group of Brazilian researchers analyzed data on the behavior of 4,280 adolescents and their guardians based on this question, arriving at two important conclusions. Yes, parental attitudes are one of the most relevant factors in preventing alcohol and drug use among young people. However, the way guardians educate their children can significantly mitigate the risk, even in families where caregivers use these substances, including cigarettes, vapes (which are banned in Brazil), and marijuana. The reduction in risk is more significant when the relationship ...

The research team led by Hanmin Huang and Bangkui Yu at the University of Science and Technology of China developed a palladium-catalyzed diastereoselective and enantioselective cascade cyclization strategy, achieving the modular synthesis of chiral nitrogen-bridged ring skeletons. Using readily available salicylaldehyde and aminodiene as starting materials, and based on the team's previously developed strategy of "in-situ generation of three-membered ring palladium active intermediates from aldehydes and amines," the bridged oxazole bicyclic compounds were constructed with high diastereoselectivity ...