Senior midwives and researchers with experience in criminal and social justice are among those calling for improved maternity provision for pregnant women in UK prisons. In an article published by The BMJ today, Laura Abbott and colleagues highlight gaps in clinical care for pregnant women and say the systemic problems need tackling urgently to protect the health of pregnant women, new mothers, and babies while in criminal justice settings. Figures from April 2023 to March 2024 show that 229 pregnant women ...

The UK needs an overarching national strategy to tackle alcohol related harms, argue experts in The BMJ today, as deaths from alcohol in England reach their highest level on record. Julia Sinclair at the University of Southampton and colleagues warn that successive government cuts have led to reduced provision and quality of alcohol treatment, and say sustained funding is needed for screening and care, while industry must also shoulder some of the costs. Alcohol is widely available and drunk by around 80% of adults in the UK and is now well established as ...

Regular aerobic exercise could significantly reduce disease markers associated with Alzheimer’s, new research led by scientists at the University of Bristol (UK) and the Federal University of São Paulo (Brazil) has found. The findings provide new hope in the battle against this devastating disorder. Published in the journal Brain Research, the study highlights how physical activity not only protects healthy brain cells but also restores balance in the aging brain. The research focused on ...

Cambridge researchers are leading the first phase of a new research project that will lay the groundwork for future studies into the impact on children of smartphone and social media use. The work has been commissioned by the UK government’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology after a review by the UK Chief Medical Officer in 2019 found the evidence base around the links to children’s mental health were insufficient to provide strong conclusions suitable to inform policy. The project – led by a team at the University of Cambridge, in collaboration with researchers at several leading UK universities ...

DARIEN, IL — The American Academy of Sleep Medicine Foundation is proud to announce a partnership with the Howard University Medical Alumni Association to support medical students at Howard University. Through the HUMAA scholarship program, the AASM Foundation is sponsoring five scholarships, each valued at $3,000. “By supporting medical students at Howard University, we’re empowering the next generation of medical professionals who will shape the future of health care,” said Dr. R. Nisha Aurora, president of the AASM Foundation. “We’re also hoping to inspire students to consider careers ...

As climate change drives increasingly severe hurricanes, U.S. coastal communities are bearing the brunt of mounting losses. With regulations failing to curb the damage, homeowners have become the front line of defense — but their efforts often fall short, a recent study reveals. Led by Tracy Kijewski-Correa, professor of engineering and global affairs at the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame, the study, published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, explored how homeowners respond in the aftermath of hurricanes when reconstruction becomes ...

A new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances; DOI  10.29026/oea.2025.240159, discusses on-chip light control of semiconductor optoelectronic devices using integrated metasurfaces.   Since the initial demonstration of the first semiconductor laser in the early 1960s, semiconductor optoelectronic devices have achieved unparalleled commercial success and permeated every facet of human lives from communication, lighting, and entertainment to medicine. Furthermore, in response to the emergence of novel applications, such as the consumer electronics, AR/VR ...

Maytal Saar-Tsechansky was standing a few meters from Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, when he was assassinated by a right-wing extremist in Tel Aviv. “At the time, Rabin was promoting peace with the Palestinians,” says Saar-Tsechansky, professor of information, risk, and operations management and the Mary John and Ralph Spence Centennial Professor at Texas McCombs. “The assassination was the result of a lot of incitement, of some people claiming that he was the enemy of the people.” Although she typically studies artificial intelligence, the traumatic incident planted a seed for a different interest: how to ease political divisions. She began ...

A common antihistamine may offer hope for patients with a rare genetic disease that can lead to severe liver damage and ultimately require transplantation, according to new research from Rutgers Health. The study in Cellular and Molecular Gastroenterology and Hepatology found that chlorcyclizine, a decades-old allergy medication, could potentially treat erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP), a condition that creates extreme skin light sensitivity and can produce toxic levels of protoporphyrin in the liver, bone marrow, red cells, and plasma. "There is an unmet need for these patients," said Bishr Omary, senior ...

In patients with high-risk HER2-positive breast cancer, post-surgery, or adjuvant, treatment with trastuzumab emtansine (T-DM1) reduced the long-term risk of death or invasive disease by 46% and improved survival compared to trastuzumab alone, according to the final results of the phase 3 KATHERINE clinical trial led by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC Hillman Cancer Center.  The findings, published today in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), provide long-term evidence that T-DM1 is an effective adjuvant treatment for this population of breast ...

MINNEAPOLIS — People who eat more red meat, especially processed red meat like bacon, sausage and bologna, are more likely to have a higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia when compared to those who eat very little red meat, according to a study published in the January 15, 2025, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Red meat is high in saturated fat and has been shown in previous studies to increase the risk of type 2 diabetes and heart disease, which are both linked to reduced brain health,” said ...

MINNEAPOLIS — Tourette syndrome is currently diagnosed about three times more frequently in males than in females. A new study finds that female individuals are less likely to be diagnosed with the syndrome, take longer to receive a diagnosis and are older when they are diagnosed than male individuals. The study is published in the January 15, 2025, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Tourette syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder defined by ...

Red meat consumption is an established risk factor for chronic conditions, including cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. A new study by investigators from Mass General Brigham, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard found that eating greater quantities of red meat, especially in processed forms, increased risk for dementia, too. Results, published online on January 15, 2025, in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, highlight that replacing processed red meat with protein sources like nuts and legumes or fish may decrease dementia risk by approximately 20 percent. “Dietary ...

Racial disparities decreased slightly, but sex disparities increased significantly over 20-year period Fewer Black people and men underwent weight loss surgery than other racial groups and women, respectively A new study by Mass General Brigham investigators shows persistent racial disparities and growing sex disparities between patients who discussed and received weight loss surgery between 2000 and 2020. Using artificial intelligence to analyze the medical records of more than 120,000 patients with obesity, researchers found that Black people ...

A new paper by a team of Concordia researchers from the departments of Biology and Physics proposes a novel method of fighting cancer tumours that uses ultrasound-guided microbubbles — a technology already widely used in medical imaging and drug delivery. Writing in the journal Frontiers in Immunology, the researchers describe a process that uses ultrasound to modify the behaviour of cancer-fighting T cells by increasing their cell permeability. They examined how this can influence the release of more than 90 kinds of cytokines, a type of signalling molecule crucial for immune response. The researchers targeted freshly isolated human immune cells with tightly ...

In small preliminary study, fearful pet dogs exhibited significantly different microbiomes and metabolic molecules to non-fearful dogs, suggesting the gut-brain axis might be involved in fear behaviors     Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0315374 Article title: Altered microbiome and metabolome profiling in fearful companion dogs: An exploratory study  Author countries: Italy Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Examination of Large Language Model "red-teaming" defines it as a non-malicious team-effort activity to seek LLMs' limits and identifies 35 different techniques used to test them     Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0314658 Article title: Summon a demon and bind it: A grounded theory of LLM red teaming Author countries: US, Denmark Funding: VILLUM Foundation, grant No. 37176: ATTiKA: Adaptive Tools for Technical Knowledge Acquisition. The funders had no role in study design, data collection ...

Most microplastics in French bottled and tap water are smaller than 20 µm - fine enough to pass into blood and organs, but below the EU-recommended detection limit for water quality assessments.  #### Article URL: https://journals.plos.org/water/article?id=10.1371/journal.pwat.0000250 Article Title: Majority of potable water microplastics are smaller than the 20 μm EU methodology limit for consumable water quality Author Countries: Denmark, France Funding: This work and the PhD fellowship of O.H. is funded by an 80Prime CNRS grant «4DμPlast» (G.L.R, J.E.S.). This publication was supported by ANR-20-CE34-0014 ATMO-PLASTIC (G.L.R, J.E.S.) and the Plasticopyr ...

An analysis of the nine top players in the U.S. fossil fuel-derived hydrocarbon industries (oil/gas, plastics, and agrichemicals) shows tight linkages across the three different sectors, with news media, other petrochemical industry players, and politicians also frequently tagged, according to a study published January 15, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS Climate by Alaina Kinol from Northeastern University, United States, and colleagues. Previous research on connections between the fossil fuel and plastics sectors and ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA — With a more efficient method for artificial pollination, farmers in the future could grow fruits and vegetables inside multilevel warehouses, boosting yields while mitigating some of agriculture’s harmful impacts on the environment. To help make this idea a reality, MIT researchers are developing robotic insects that could someday swarm out of mechanical hives to rapidly perform precise pollination. However, even the best bug-sized robots are no match for natural pollinators like bees when it comes to endurance, speed, and maneuverability. Now, inspired by the anatomy of these natural pollinators, the researchers ...

Hamilton, ON (January 15, 2025) – Researchers at McMaster University have made an important discovery in the field of asthma research, identifying a new population of immune cells that may play a crucial role in the severity of asthma symptoms.   The study, published in Science Translational Medicine on Jan. 15, 2025, sheds light on the complex mechanisms behind severe asthma and opens new avenues for potential treatments.  Asthma is a chronic respiratory condition characterized by inflammation and narrowing of the airways, leading to difficulty breathing. Severe ...

The study, published in Science Advances, was led by researchers Qigao Jiangzuo, from Peking University, and Joan Madurell Malapeira, from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). Snow leopards (Panthera uncia) are in serious danger of extinction, with only about 4,000 specimens remaining. They are medium to large felids that live at high altitudes, over 2,000 meters above sea level, mainly in the Himalayas. Although their distinctive traits have long been recognized, the correlation between these ...

Researchers have demonstrated new wearable technologies that both generate electricity from human movement and improve the comfort of the technology for the people wearing them. The work stems from an advanced understanding of materials that increase comfort in textiles and produce electricity when they rub against another surface. At issue are molecules called amphiphiles, which are often used in consumer products to reduce friction against human skin. For example, amphiphiles are often incorporated into diapers to prevent chafing. “We set out to develop a model that would give us ...

Most treatments being pursued today to protect against Alzheimer’s disease focus on amyloid plaques and tau tangles that accumulate in the brain, but new research from Mass General Brigham and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis points to a novel—and noble—approach: using Xenon gas. The study found that Xenon gas inhalation suppressed neuroinflammation, reduced brain atrophy, and increased protective neuronal states in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. Results are published in Science Translational Medicine, and a phase 1 clinical trial of the treatment in healthy volunteers will begin in early 2025.   “It ...

A small helper for big tasks: an oxygen sensor protein protects the enzymatic machinery of biological nitrogen fixation from serious damage. Its use in biotechnology could help to reduce the use of synthetic fertiliser in agriculture in the future. A research team led by biochemist Prof. Dr Oliver Einsle from the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy and the Centre for Biological Signalling Studies (BIOSS) at the University of Freiburg has discovered exactly how the so-called Shethna protein II works. The scientists used the newly established cryo-electron microscopy in Freiburg. ...