Researchers at UCLA have developed an artificial intelligence tool that can use electronic health records to identify patients with undiagnosed Alzheimer’s disease, addressing a critical gap in Alzheimer’s care: significant underdiagnosis, particularly among underrepresented communities.
The study appears in the journal npj Digital Medicine.
An interdisciplinary research team from Dresden University of Technology (TUD), Rostock University Medical Center (UMR) and Dresden University Hospital has developed an innovative, implantable and fully absorbable sensor film. For the first time, it enables reliable early detection of circulatory disorders in intestinal anastomoses—one of the riskiest surgical procedures in the abdominal cavity. The results have now been presented in the journal Advanced Science.
Intestinal anastomoses, which is the surgical connection of two sections of the intestine after the removal of diseased tissue, carry a considerable risk of post-operative complications. In particular, circulatory disorders or immunological reactions can lead to serious consequential damage or even death within a short period of time. However, direct monitoring of the suture site has not been possible until now, which often entails corresponding risks for patients as well as considerable costs due to follow-up operations and long hospital stays.
Based on this specific medical need, the interdisciplinary network of the Else Kröner Fresenius Center (EKFZ) for Digital Health at TUD and Dresden University Hospital brought together key experts from Dresden and Rostock.
Neal Agarwal published another gift to the internet with Size of Life. It shows the scale of living things, starting with DNA, to hemoglobin, and keeps going up.
The scientific illustrations are hand-drawn (without AI) by Julius Csotonyi. Sound & FX by Aleix Ramon and cello music by Iratxe Ibaibarriaga calm the mind and encourage a slow observation of things, but also grow in complexity and weight with the scale. It kind of feels like a meditation exercise.
See also: shrinking to an atom, the speed of light, and of course the classic Powers of Ten.
Photoplethysmography (PPG) is an optical sensing technique that measures blood volume changes and underpins devices ranging from hospital-grade pulse oximeters to consumer wearables that track heart rate, sleep, and oxygenation.
Despite its widespread use, PPG accuracy can vary significantly across individuals, particularly by skin tone. Darker skin contains more melanin, which absorbs and scatters light, often leading to less reliable readings. This disparity has been linked to inaccuracies in blood-oxygen measurements among people with more melanin.
Francesco J. DeMayo & team discover uterine ZMIZ1 co-regulates estrogen receptor to establish and maintain pregnancy and general uterine health via cell growth responses and preventing uterine fibrosis:
The figure shows epithelial cell DNA synthesis (reflected by EdU incorporation) was inhibited by Zmiz1 deletion.
1Pregnancy & Female Reproduction Group, Reproductive and Development al Biology Lab, NIEHS, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA.
2Inotiv-RTP, Durham, North Carolina, USA.
3Division of Hematology-Oncology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan School of Medicine, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA.
The bacteria in our poop are a reasonable representation of what’s living in our digestive system. To understand how different drugs can impact the gut microbiome, the team cultured microbial communities from nine donor fecal samples and systematically tested them with 707 different clinically relevant drugs.
The researchers examined changes in the growth of different bacterial species, the community composition, and the metabolome – the mix of small molecules called metabolites that microbes produce and consume. They found that 141 drugs altered the microbiome of the samples and even short-term treatments created enduring changes, entirely wiping out some microbial species. The primary force behind how the community responds to drug inhibition was competition over nutrients.
“The winners and losers among our gut bacteria can often be predicted by understanding how sensitive they are to the medications and how they compete for food,” said the first author on the paper. “In other words, drugs don’t just kill bacteria; they also reshuffle the ‘buffet’ in our gut, and that reshuffling shapes which bacteria win.”
Despite the complexity of the bacterial communities, the researchers were able to create data-driven computer models that accurately predicted how they would respond to a particular drug. They factored in the sensitivity of different bacterial species to that drug and the competitive landscape – essentially, who was competing with whom for which nutrients.
Their work provides a framework for predicting how a person’s microbial community might change with a given drug, and could help scientists find ways to prevent these changes or more easily restore a healthy gut microbiome in the future.
Our gut microbiome is made up of trillions of bacteria and other microbes living in our intestines. These help our bodies break down food, assist our immune system, send chemical signals to our brain, and potentially serve many other functions that researchers are still working to understand. When the microbiome is out of balance – with not enough helpful bacteria or the wrong combination of microbes – it can affect our whole body.
The Ministry of Health intends to begin administering doses in 2026, free of charge, through the SUS, the country’s national heal care network.
In a statement, Anvisa reported that the publication makes official the conclusion of the regulatory process and enables the production and sale of the vaccine, which will be offered exclusively through the public health system.
“The registration is a milestone in the fight against dengue in Brazil. The vaccine has undergone all the technical and regulatory stages required by health legislation, ensuring its safety, quality, and efficacy,” the text reads.
Researchers from the Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore (NUS Medicine), and NHG Health’s Institute of Mental Health (IMH) have mapped how brain networks differ in individuals at Clinical High Risk (CHR) for psychosis, providing a new perspective on the mechanisms underlying the disease onset.
Published in Molecular Psychiatry, the study utilized advanced neuroimaging methods to identify early, network-level changes in more than 3,000 individuals at varying levels of risk.
The study—led by Dr. Siwei Liu, Senior Research Scientist, and Associate Professor Juan Helen Zhou, Director, both at the Center for Translational Magnetic Resonance Research (TMR), NUS Medicine, and in collaboration with Associate Professor Jimmy Lee, Senior Consultant Psychiatrist and Clinician-Scientist at IMH—sought to determine how brain networks can reveal signs in young individuals with heightened clinical risk of developing psychosis.
