Only around 1 in 10 common non-surgical and non-invasive treatments for lower back pain is effective, suggests a pooled data analysis of the available research, published online in BMJ Evidence Based Medicine. And the pain relief they offer is only marginally better than that achieved with a placebo, the findings indicate. Low back pain is common and debilitating, and 80%-90% of it is categorised as non-specific, because there’s no immediately identifiable cause, note the researchers. Non-surgical and non-invasive ...

Early evidence indicates that the installation of safety nets on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco has been successful in reducing the number of suicides at the bridge. The results, published online in the journal Injury Prevention, show a 73% decline in suicides in the 12 months since the nets were completed relative to the number before net installation began. The researchers say their findings “highlight the value of installing nets on this bridge and the importance of barriers as a strategy to prevent suicides by jumping.” The ...

Increased consumption of fruit, dietary fibre, dairy products and caffeine may be associated with a reduced risk of tinnitus (ringing in the ears), suggests an analysis of the available evidence, published in the open access journal BMJ Open. The researchers stress that their findings can’t establish a direct (causal) relationship and should be interpreted with care because of the low quality of the evidence. But they say possible reasons may involve the protective effects of these diets on blood vessels and nerves, as well as their anti-inflammatory ...

Body mass index (BMI) is key method for measuring a person’s weight status, and defining if they have normal weight, overweight, or obesity. However, new research to be presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2025, Malaga, Spain, 11-14 May) shows that people with obesity at similar BMIs display significant differences in body composition in different body compartments according to their age group, such as higher body fat especially in central regions and lower muscle mass ...

HOUSTON – (March 18, 2025) – Erzsébet Merényi, a statistics research professor at Rice University, and co-investigators at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center Pratip Bhattacharya, professor of cancer systems imaging, and Dr. Patrick Pilié, assistant professor of genitourinary medical oncology, were awarded $1 million by the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) to develop artificial intelligence (AI) tools that can identify lethal forms of prostate cancer earlier and improve treatment selection. Prostate cancer ...

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) air quality monitors are disproportionally located in predominately white neighborhoods, according to University of Utah research. The EPA’s network consistently failed to capture air quality in communities of color across six major pollutants, particularly lead and sulfur dioxide, followed by ozone and carbon monoxide. EPA regulatory monitors are the key data source driving decisions about pollution reduction, urban planning and public health initiatives. Without equal monitor distribution, the data may misrepresent pollution concentrations, leaving marginalized groups at risk.  “It’s ...

For the second year in a row, Mayo Clinic physician Dr. Parminder Singh has organized a team of riders to raise funds for cancer research while tackling the 32- or 62-mile routes of the Tour de Scottsdale. Singh is a clinical trialist with SWOG Cancer Research Network, a world-renowned organization leading cancer studies across the US and beyond. SWOG trials have led to the approval of 14 cancer drugs, changed more than 100 standards of cancer care, and saved more than 3 million years of human life.  Team Hope’s youngest rider is 11-year-old Misha Rajpal who will take on the full, ...

Autoimmune diseases, which are estimated to affect more than 15 million people in the U.S., occur when the body responds to immune-system false alarms, and infection-fighting first responders are sent out to attack threats that aren’t there. Scientists have long understood how the false alarms get triggered, but the second step of dispatching the immune response has been a mystery. Now, scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania ...

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida State University chemists have created a machine learning tool that can identify the chemical composition of dried salt solutions from an image with 99% accuracy. By using robotics to prepare thousands of samples and artificial intelligence to analyze their data, they created a simple, inexpensive tool that could expand possibilities for performing chemical analysis. The work was published in Digital Discovery. “We are living in the age of artificial intelligence and big data,” ...

Fan Zhang, PhD, sees artificial intelligence as a pathway to finding an effective way to combat an intractable enemy: rheumatoid arthritis. Zhang is an assistant professor in the University of Colorado Department of Medicine’s Division of Rheumatology and also is affiliated with the Department of Biomedical Informatics on the CU Anschutz Medical Campus. She recently received a highly competitive grant from the Arthritis Foundation to further her work in harnessing AI to better predict the onset of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in particular patients, ...

BALTIMORE, March 18, 2025— A new study led by Kennedy Krieger Institute’s Center for Autism Services, Science and Innovation (CASSI) finds that a community-based screening model is helping children receive autism diagnoses faster, particularly in underserved communities. The research, published in Pediatric Investigation, highlights how the Rapid Interactive Screening Test for Autism in Toddlers (RITA-T) is making early autism identification more accessible for families facing barriers to care. RITA-T is a quick, interactive tool that assesses developmental skills often delayed in autism, such as social engagement, ...

Women with blood pressure levels in a range considered clinically normal during pregnancy but no mid-pregnancy drop in blood pressure face an increased risk of developing hypertension in the five years after giving birth. These women—about 12% of the population studied—would not be flagged as high-risk by current medical guidelines, but the new findings could help identify them as candidates for early intervention. The findings were just published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Advances. Funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, researchers collected data on blood pressure and other health factors ...

Since becoming only the second Alzheimer’s-modifying drug to gain American Federal Drug Administration approval in 2023, sales of lecanemab, known by its brand name Leqembi, have risen steadily, reaching $87-million USD in the last quarter of 2024. In its Phase 3 clinical trial, lecanemab slowed cognitive decline by 27 per cent overall, yet one subset of data suggested little to no benefit in females, though the cause of the difference was not clear. An FDA committee voted unanimously that the Phrase 3 trial verified the clinical benefit of lecanemab. Even so, several follow-up papers focused on the trial’s apparent sex difference result to cast doubt on ...

TAMPA, Fla. (Mar. 18, 2025) — Moffitt Cancer Center researchers have discovered a promising new vaccine strategy for treating a specific type of breast cancer. The innovative approach targets human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-positive, estrogen receptor-negative (HER2-positive, ER-negative) breast cancer and has shown encouraging results in a recent pilot study. Published in npj Breast Cancer, the study combined the HER2-targeting dendritic cell vaccines with standard chemotherapy, demonstrating both safety and positive response rates. The study enrolled 30 patients with stage 2 and stage 3 HER2-positive, ...

Toronto - Despite a very uncertain economic climate, investors can at least feel confident that audited financial reports are more reliable thanks to the spread of international standards. New research led by a researcher at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management shows that the quality of financial audits increasing in countries which have adopted the International Standards on Auditing, or ISA, issued through the International Federation of Accountants, the accounting profession’s worldwide body. “We show improvement in audit quality, on average,” said researcher Ole-Kristian Hope, the Deloitte Professor of Accounting at the Rotman School. However, ...

Internal displacement in Syria was used by the Assad regime to reshape the country’s political and social landscape, a new study shows. The forceful movement of people was systematically employed alongside indiscriminate violence, the research says. This was not just a consequence of war, but a strategy to depopulate key areas and repopulate them to create new political and social realities. This tactic extended the impact of displacement beyond the immediate conflict, embedding it as a long-term political tool with lasting post-war ...

Over the past two decades, Haiti has endured the devastation of two catastrophic earthquakes — first in 2010 and again in 2021. Each disaster left behind widespread destruction: buildings reduced to rubble, entire communities displaced and an overwhelming loss of life. A major factor in the severity of these tragedies was the widespread structural failure of poorly designed buildings, many of which were not constructed to withstand the powerful tremors. Marc-Ansy Laguerre, a postdoctoral associate in civil and environmental engineering at Rice University, ...

Why do people living in democratic countries vote for political candidates who openly violate democratic standards? A new study by a University of Notre Dame researcher found that diverse understandings of democracy among voters can lead to votes for authoritarian-leaning political leaders. “A considerable variety in democratic views leads part of the electorate to overlook violations of democratic norms such as minority rights protection or restraints on executive power,” said Marc Jacob, assistant ...

CLEVELAND—Brain implants hold immense promise for restoring function in patients with paralysis, epilepsy and other neurological disorders. But a team of researchers at Case Western Reserve University has discovered that bacteria can invade the brain after a medical device is implanted, contributing to inflammation and reducing the device’s long-term effectiveness.  The groundbreaking research, recently published in Nature Communications, could improve the long-term success of brain implants now that a target has been identified to address. “Understanding the role of bacteria in implant ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA – Prototyping large structures with integrated electronics, like a chair that can monitor someone’s sitting posture, is typically a laborious and wasteful process. One might need to fabricate multiple versions of the chair structure via 3D printing and laser cutting, generating a great deal of waste, before assembling the frame, grafting sensors and other fragile electronics onto it, and then wiring it up to create a working device. If the prototype fails, the maker will likely have no choice but to discard it and go back to the drawing board. MIT researchers have come up with a better way to iteratively design large and sturdy ...

It’s time for researchers to reconsider the current paradigm of cancer as a genetic disease, argued Sui Huang from the Institute for Systems Biology, USA, and colleagues in a new essay published March 18th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. The prevailing theory on the origin of cancer is that an otherwise normal cell accumulates genetic mutations that allow it to grow and reproduce unchecked. This paradigm has driven large-scale cancer genome sequencing projects, such as The Cancer Genome Atlas, to identify cancer-driving mutations ...

Food and non-alcoholic drink products in Mexico were substantially reformulated to be healthier following the 2020 introduction of warning labels identifying products with excessive content of calories, fat, salt, sugar, sweetener and caffeine     In your coverage, please use this URL to provide access to the freely available paper in PLOS Medicine: http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004533 Article title: Product reformulation in non-alcoholic beverages and foods after the implementation ...

A major review of over 67,000 animal species has found that while the natural world continues to face a biodiversity crisis, targeted conservation efforts are helping bring many species back from the brink of extinction. The study draws on data from the IUCN Red List, the world’s largest database of species conservation status. The researchers say their results, reported in the journal PLOS Biology, highlight both the successes and the need for urgent action. The world is facing a global biodiversity crisis, with 28% of more than 160,000 assessed species threatened with extinction, and an estimated one million species facing this fate due to human activities. ...

Targeted conservation actions are essential to prevent wildlife extinctions, but more efforts are needed to fully recover biodiversity, according to a study published March 18th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Ashley Simkins of the University of Cambridge, UK and colleagues. Out of over 166,000 species assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, around 28% are threatened with extinction. Global efforts to prevent extinction and recover biodiversity have had some success, but there is limited data to show which conservation actions are most effective. In this study, Simkins and colleagues compile information ...

WASHINGTON —The Journal of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (JSCAI) proudly announces the publication of a groundbreaking special issue: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Cardiovascular Interventions.   This issue explores how artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing interventional cardiology, from diagnostic precision to procedural planning and patient outcomes. It features a collection of original research, reviews, and viewpoints that delve into AI’s applications across ...