The biologist’s bold “energetic view of life” looks to the body’s strangest organelles as the link between cells, health, and mind and the foundation of our experience of being alive.
Category: health – Page 6
Pentagon disburses Havana Syndrome compensation, rebrands team focused on ‘Directed Energy BioEffects’
The Defense Department has paid out millions of dollars to personnel affected by so-called Havana Syndrome and renamed a key cross-functional team as the Directed Energy Bio-Effects CFT to investigate associated issues, the Pentagon announced Friday.
According to a press release, the disbursements were the first payments associated with the 2021 HAVANA Act made under any presidential administration. The release did not say how many individuals have received compensation thus far.
The term ‘Havana Syndrome’ emerged after U.S. government personnel and their family members began reporting mysterious, often debilitating symptoms including intense ear pain, vertigo, headaches, dizziness, hearing and memory loss, visual disturbances and more in 2016. The first incidents were reported by officials who were stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, hence the origin of the name.
Some experts and lawmakers have suggested that these health problems resulted from secretive attacks by a foreign power that used directed energy systems, also known as ‘non-kinetic’ capabilities, targeted at American officials overseas.
The Pentagon has paid out millions of dollars to personnel affected by so-called Havana Syndrome and renamed a related cross-functional team.
Machine learning improves identification of asthma risk in children
A machine learning tool that analyzes information already captured in a child’s electronic health record helped pediatricians more accurately assess asthma risk in standardized clinical case scenarios, according to a pilot randomized clinical trial led by a Regenstrief Institute researcher. The study was published in Scientific Reports.
The study evaluated a machine learning-enabled clinical decision support tool called the Passive Digital Marker, which uses routinely collected EHR data to classify young children as having a high or low risk of developing persistent asthma.
Asthma is one of the most common chronic childhood diseases, but predicting which young children with wheezing or other respiratory symptoms will go on to develop persistent asthma remains difficult. While some children outgrow these symptoms, others require ongoing treatment, making early risk assessment an important but challenging part of pediatric care.
UCLA scientists develop offtheshelf immunotherapy for ovarian cancer
When the team tested the novel CAR-NKT therapy on 35 ovarian patient-derived tumor samples, the results were striking. The CAR-NKT cells successfully killed ovarian cancer cells in every single sample — including samples from both newly diagnosed patients and patients whose cancers had recurred after chemotherapy.
“Combating this high rate of recurrence in ovarian cancer is my career mission,” said co-senior author Memarzadeh, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology and a member of the UCLA Broad Stem Cell Research Center and the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center. “When I see these results, I know we’re getting closer to offering patients like mine a more effective and permanent solution.”
Newly Discovered ‘Footprint of Death’ May Help Viruses Spread
The cell churn that goes on inside our bodies is vast, with hundreds of billions of cells dying off and being replaced every day. Keeping that constant biological overhaul running smoothly is crucial in maintaining good health.
Researchers have now identified a new ‘footprint of death’ that cells leave behind as they die to guide the immune system in its waste-removal role.
It seems this process can also be hijacked by viruses to spread themselves further.
New multiple sclerosis criteria could reveal disease before symptoms appear
The international guidelines for diagnosing multiple sclerosis (MS), called the McDonald criteria, underwent their most significant overhaul in a decade in 2024. The internationally recognized framework is used to diagnose MS by combining clinical, imaging and laboratory findings. Dr. Jiwon Oh, director of the BARLO MS Centre at St. Michael’s Hospital, was among the experts who helped write them.
Now, in a commentary published in Nature Medicine, Oh has brought together nearly 30 of the world’s leading MS clinicians to critically evaluate what those changes mean and where the field must go next to improve health outcomes for people with MS. Many of its co-authors also helped develop the revised criteria in 2024.
“This commentary looks critically at the new criteria and explains why these changes matter, what challenges may arise as they’re used, and what can be done to address them,” explains Oh. “It also takes a broader look at where the field needs to go next.”
New model improves short- and long-term disease risk prediction
Researchers developed ALADYNOULLI, a Bayesian generative model that combines longitudinal health records, age, and polygenic risk to identify reproducible disease signatures across more than 683,000 participants. In UK Biobank testing, the framework achieved stronger short- and long-term risk discrimination than established clinical scores while revealing disease subgroups and genetic associations.
Epidurals not linked to increased harm for newborns or children
Having an epidural during labor is not associated with clinically significant increased risks of harm to newborn babies, including brain injury, severe breathing problems, sepsis and death, or cerebral palsy later in childhood, according to a study published in The BMJ.
The researchers say these findings “support widening availability and equitable access to epidural analgesia as a safe component of intrapartum care.”
Epidural analgesia in labor provides effective pain relief and may help reduce complications in mothers after giving birth, but evidence of its effect on newborn and child health is limited.
The invisible wearable: New skin sensors advance health monitoring
While wearable health sensors are becoming increasingly common, current iterations are awkward to wear. For example, devices attached to the face can draw unwanted attention, increase self-consciousness and influence the signals users are trying to measure. However, recent research may have found a solution by introducing ultrathin sensors that cannot be seen by observers or felt by the wearer.
In an article published in Science Advances, researchers from the Institute of Industrial Science, The University of Tokyo, and collaborating institutions reported developing thin, stretchable on-skin electrodes that are effectively invisible when worn on the face. The new technology can measure biological signals while remaining undetectable by eye and touch, allowing monitoring to take place under more natural conditions.
Biosignals such as eye movements, facial muscle activity and brain activity provide valuable information for health care monitoring and human-machine interaction. However, conventional facial electrodes can alter a person’s appearance and affect social interactions, creating what are called appearance artifacts—changes in behavior or psychological state caused simply by wearing a device that the individual and others can see.