Health & Medicine
- Animals
Freshwater leeches’ taste for snails could help control snail-borne diseases
A freshwater leech species will eat snails, raising the possibility that leeches could be used to control snail-borne diseases that infect humans and livestock.
- Health & Medicine
A new battery starves cancer cells of oxygen in mice
When a self-charging battery is placed on a mouse’s tumor and combined with anticancer drugs, it reduced tumor size by 90 percent.
- Health & Medicine
The antiviral drug Paxlovid reduces the risk of getting long COVID
In a study of U.S. veterans’ health records, the drug lowered the odds of developing 10 of 13 long-term health problems following a COVID-19 infection.
- Neuroscience
Scientists triggered the flow of spinal fluid in the awake brain
If future studies confirm these waking waves wash away toxic proteins from the brain, the finding could lead to new treatments for brain disorders.
- Health & Medicine
50 years ago, air pollution was linked to more reports of animal bites
Scientists spent decades tying air pollution to health and behavior problems. Now, there’s more evidence that dirty air influences aggression in animals.
- Health & Medicine
Microplastics are in our bodies. Here’s why we don’t know the health risks
Researchers are racing to try to understand how much humans are exposed and what levels are toxic.
- Health & Medicine
How raccoon dog DNA fits into the COVID-19 origins debate
Did the virus that causes COVID-19 come from animals or a lab? Evidence hints at animals. Either way, we should be prepping for the next pandemic.
- Health & Medicine
A hormone shot helped drunk mice sober up quickly
Drunk mice injected with the hormone FGF21 woke up and regained their balance faster than inebriated mice that did not receive the shot.
- Health & Medicine
Sleeping sickness is nearing elimination. An experimental drug could help
Clinical trials of acoziborole are under way in sub-Saharan Africa, where sleeping sickness is endemic.
- Health & Medicine
U.S. cases of a deadly fungus nearly doubled in recent years
Though numbers are still small, clinical cases of Candida auris in the jumped 95 percent from 2020 to 2021, a CDC survey finds.
- Health & Medicine
Maternal deaths in the U.S. keep climbing
New U.S. data show that as maternal deaths rise, a large gap between the maternal mortality rate of Black women compared with white women persists.
- Neuroscience
In mice, anxiety isn’t all in the head. It can start in the heart
Scientists used optogenetics to raise the heartbeat of a mouse, making it anxious. The finding could offer a new angle for studying anxiety disorders.
