Day May 8, 2026

An extra week of negotiations to complete an international agreement on handling future pandemics kicked off in Geneva on Monday, with sharp divisions holding up an accord. Wealthy countries and developing nations are at loggerheads in the talks at the…

Physicians experiencing pregnancy often maintained or increased their workload in the first and second trimesters, then reduced it in the third, according to a new research study from ICES and Unity Health Toronto. The study also found that surgeons returned…

A sequential, multiple assignment, randomized trial (SMART) found that people with chronic low back pain experienced slight improvement in daily function when starting treatment with physical therapy compared with cognitive behavioral therapy. While long-term pain relief was similar across different…

EULAR—the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology—has updated its recommendations on physical activity in people with inflammatory arthritis or osteoarthritis. These align with current World Health Organization (WHO) efforts to reduce sedentary behavior and promote regular activity and exercise. Physical…

Being regularly active can improve your mental well-being, reduce your chances of disease and increase your lifespan. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that adults get at least 150 minutes of moderate activity (brisk walking, easy cycling) or at least…

The precapture ELISA setup. Credit: Nature Medicine (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-026-04301-0 A new treatment for patients with life-threatening infectious diseases is being pioneered in Melbourne by researchers at The Alfred and Monash University. VICPhage, a clinical partnership between The Alfred and…

Metabolic tumor volume showed higher predictive value for progression-free survival than the established International Prognostic Index across multiple analytical methods in patients with large B-cell lymphoma undergoing CAR T-cell therapy. Credit: Journal of Nuclear Medicine (2026). DOI: 10.2967 Metabolic tumor…

People who follow “new right” media outlets are more than twice as likely to be vaccine-hesitant compared to those who never engage with those outlets, a new Johns Hopkins University study finds. Researchers surveyed nearly 3,000 adults in 2025, as…

Flu shots will no longer be required for every U.S. service member. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced Tuesday that troops can now choose whether to get the flu vaccine, rather than being required to receive it each year, The Associated…

Researchers at McGill University have found that briefly treating peanuts with cold plasma, an ionically charged gas that triggers chemical changes, reduces their potential to cause allergic reactions. The researchers say this is probably because the process causes changes to…

The results of two clinical trials—led by the Upstream Lab at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto and Oxford University, published in the New England Journal of Medicine—provide new evidence to consider when funding, prescribing, or taking Paxlovid to treat COVID-19.…

Infrasound is very low-frequency sound, below 20 Hertz (Hz), which humans typically can’t hear. It can come from natural sources like storms, or from anthropogenic sources like traffic. Some animals use it to communicate, while others avoid it. Scientists investigating…

Axial CT image with i.v. contrast. Macrocystic adenocarcinoma of the pancreatic head. Credit: public domain After decades of struggling to find a way to treat pancreatic cancer, researchers have developed several promising new drugs that could offer rare hope to…

Damage to white matter in the brain can trigger features associated with neurodegenerative disease, Cambridge researchers have discovered in a new study published in the journal Nature. Until now, it was thought that neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s…

Optimal sleep duration is associated with better executive function, with a significantly higher impact of optimal sleep among those with focal epilepsy, according to a study published online April 22 in Neurology. Xin You Tai, D.Phil., from the University of…

Research finds that one-time use of a free online tool can positively support young people’s mental health and well-being. Developed by psychologists and health researchers at the University of Bath, Project Action Brings Change (ABC) UK is a free digital…

How easily older adults can stand up from a chair may be a telling indicator of their overall quality of life. Credit: Abdul Wahid Muhammad Ikram How easily older adults can stand up from a chair may be a telling…

People who live with obesity are “tagging” a memory of being overweight on a key part of the immune system—leaving people with ongoing risk of obesity-related conditions years after losing weight, according to a 10-year-long study published in EMBO Reports.…

In a new study, researchers found that older adults with obesity had significantly decreased measures of lung function compared to those without obesity, and the results were consistent among men and women. These results could be important for the care…

Credit: Patrick Case from Pexels In a significant development in the battle against brain injury in sport, teams from the National Rugby League (NRL) and the National Rugby League for Women (NRLW) are now required to restrict the amount of…

Developed by the startup brain4care, the technology consists of a non-invasive sensor that detects micro-movements of the skull bone linked to heartbeats and transforms them into a signal that allows monitoring of intracranial compliance and dynamics. Credit: brain4care In neurological…

Credit: Mayo Clinic Mayo Clinic researchers report that a highly targeted, noninvasive form of radiation therapy reduced episodes of a life-threatening heart rhythm disorder by nearly 80% in a first-in-human early feasibility study of patients with few remaining treatment options.…

Network of interconnected CA3 pyramidal neurons in the mouse hippocampus: In young mice, the CA3 network is very dense, and the connections appear random (yellow). Credit: Jake Watson / ISTA The hippocampus is a key brain region involved in memory…

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection acquired at birth or during early infancy can lead to lifelong health complications, including chronic liver disease. Despite longstanding recommendations for prenatal screening, an estimated 12% to 16% of pregnant individuals in the U.S. are…

Many older Australians receiving government-funded home care struggle to get the support they need to live well at home, according to new research that reveals the daily challenges faced by a growing part of the community. The study, published in…

As “natural” contraception methods become more popular, experts warn they carry a risk of unwanted pregnancy. After taking the pill for a decade, Elodie Monnier Legrand decided to try “natural” birth control, an increasingly popular trend that requires tracking fertility…

Credit: Magda Ehlers from Pexels A decade ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) began requiring scientists to “consider sex as a biological variable” in order to receive NIH grant funding—a policy intended to encourage scientists to think ahead about…

Micrograph of a plasmacytoma, the histologic correlate of multiple myeloma. H&E stain. Credit: Wikipedia/CC BY-SA 3.0 Although patients with the same cancer diagnosis may respond very differently to treatment, clinicians still have limited tools at their disposal to predict who…

The location structure and histology of the thymus. Credit: Illustration from Anatomy & Physiology, Connexions Web site. , Wikimedia Commons, CC BY In patients with myasthenia gravis, the surgical removal of the thymus gland, called thymectomy, added “quality adjusted life…

For patients with early Alzheimer’s disease and mild cognitive impairment, cognition is consistently improved with multimodal lifestyle interventions (MMLIs), while monoclonal antibodies (MABs) clear amyloid plaques but only modestly preserve cognition, according to research presented at the annual meeting of…

A mother’s exposure to factors like high-fat diets and environmental contaminants can impact her offspring’s metabolism, according to new research using lab mice at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The paper is published in the journal Frontiers in Endocrinology.…

Overview of the MorphoGenie framework. Credit: Nature Communications (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-66267-w Cells contain a wealth of information about health and disease, but extracting that data reliably from microscope images remains a major challenge. Many important differences between healthy and diseased…

Graphical abstract. Credit: Cell Reports Medicine (2026). DOI: 10.1016 Researchers at VIB, VUB, and KU Leuven have identified a tiny binding site, a molecular “keyhole,” in the TRPM3 ion channel, a crucial sensor in pain signaling. TRPM3 is also linked…

UCT, Glycobiomedical Laboratory. Credit: Scientific Computing Research Unit (SCRU) Researchers from the University of Cape Town’s (UCT) Scientific Computing Research Unit (SCRU) have uncovered a critical molecular “switch” that drives the formation of cancer-associated antigens. The study, published in Nature…

The adaptive mHealth intervention modestly reduced both weekly and total gestational weight gain compared to standard care. Credit: cottonbro studio: www.pexels.com/photo/2-pregnant-woman-in-long-sleeve-dresses-5853674/ Obesity during pregnancy has been steadily increasing worldwide. In the United States, over 60% of pregnant individuals enter pregnancy…

Findings from the AltaValve Early Feasibility Study suggest that patients with a leaky mitral valve have sustained clinical benefits one year following atrial fixation Transcatheter Mitral Valve Replacement (TMVR). Researchers presented the late-breaking data at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography…

A minimally invasive heart procedure may be a better first-line treatment than medication for people living with advanced forms of atrial fibrillation, according to a major international clinical trial led by researchers at the University of British Columbia. Atrial fibrillation…

New findings from a DETOUR2 substudy show that minimally invasive percutaneous transmural arterial bypass (PTAB) may offer a promising alternative to traditional leg bypass surgery for patients with complex peripheral arterial disease (PAD), even when distal vessel run off is…

In an increasingly digital world, millions of disabled people are being systematically excluded from critical services every day, from their medical records to bank accounts to emergency response systems. These services are frequently hosted on digital platforms which can be…

Credit: Kindel Media from Pexels The American College of Physicians (ACP) supports meaningful, evidence-based performance measures for internal medicine that improve patient care but does not recommend a core measure for migraine treatment at this time, citing inadequacies in the…