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Women’s Health and Artificial Intelligence

Innovative approaches and tools are essential to address and narrow the women’s health gap, whereby women spend 25% more of their lives in poor health compared to men. Artificial intelligence (AI), if implemented thoughtfully and equitably, could unlock a more precise understanding of women’s health. This potential is rooted in AI’s ability to uncover patterns in data that may have eluded clinical observation or pathophysiologic understanding to date.

Benefiting Us All—Population-Level Impact of the HPV Vaccine

Worldwide in 2019, human papillomaviruses (HPV) caused approximately 620 000 new cancer cases in women and 70 000 new cancer cases in men. In unvaccinated populations before implementation of the HPV vaccine, more than 80% of sexually active people acquired HPV during their lifetime. Those at the highest risk for HPV-related cancers are people with weakened immune systems, multiple sex partners, and those who smoke tobacco. For the past 17 years, the HPV vaccine has been administered to more than 59 million women. For individuals receiving the vaccine, population-level studies have demonstrated that it has an excellent safety record and strong efficacy in the prevention of HPV infection, precancer lesions, and cervical cancer.

Simple Solutions for Complex Problems

Food insecurity remains a consistent challenge to many individuals, particularly those in low-income households. In addition to directly compromising nutrition, food insecurity can also portend poor outcomes for chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes, among others. To mitigate the deleterious effects of food insecurity, multiple intervention approaches, ranging from patient education to actual delivery of meals, have been previously tested.

Levosimendan and Weaning From VA-ECMO

Venoarterial extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (VA-ECMO) is increasingly used to treat patients with cardiogenic shock, a life-threatening condition with persistently high mortality rates. However, patients receiving VA-ECMO are at risk of major complications, including acute limb ischemia, infection, bleeding, thromboembolic events, and stroke; thus, it would be advantageous if a therapy allowed more rapid weaning and liberation from the VA-ECMO circuit.

Drones have changed warfare. Two new weapons might alter its course again

Like so many conflicts before it, the Russo-Ukraine war has forced both sides to innovate. Since they have been able to gain control of opposition air space, neither side has made wide use of traditional air assets such as fast fighter jets, which take much time and money to manufacture and so can't be risked in active operations.

Distance learning changes lives, but comes with its own challenges

Across Africa, distance education has become one of the most powerful forces for expanding access to higher learning. Open and distance learning institutions such as the Open University of Tanzania, the Zimbabwe Open University and the National Open University of Nigeria have joined long-standing providers like the University of South Africa in offering flexible study opportunities to millions of students who would otherwise be excluded from higher education.

Probing the quantum nature of black holes through entropy

In a study published in Physical Review Letters, physicists have demonstrated that black holes satisfy the third law of thermodynamics, which states that entropy remains positive and vanishes at extremely low temperatures, just like ordinary quantum systems. The finding provides strong evidence that black holes possess isolated ground states, a hallmark of quantum mechanical behavior.

Asteroid loaded with amino acids offers new clues about the origin of life on Earth

One of the most elegant theories about the origins of life on our planet is that it was kick-started by a delivery from outer space. This idea suggests that prebiotic molecules—the building blocks of life—were transported here by asteroids or other celestial bodies. While these molecules have been found in meteorite samples that have crash-landed on Earth, the findings have been complicated by the possibility of contamination from our environment.

From the volcanic crater to the lab: Extremophiles offer a lesson in survival

"Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative," wrote H. G. Wells. This principle—that survival requires change—was mastered billions of years ago by single-celled organisms living in extreme heat. Over the past few decades, studies of these organisms' adaptive mechanisms have yielded revolutionary technologies—from rapid DNA replication (PCR) and the production of heat-resistant proteins to the generation of fuels and chemicals.

What seven decades of hunting for aliens tells us

Since the 1950s, humanity has been searching for extraterrestrial life with increasingly sophisticated tools. But after decades of space probes, meteorite analysis, radio telescopes, and UFO investigations, what have we actually found? A new piece of analysis by a team led by Seyed Sina Seyedpour Layalestani from the Islamic Azad University in Iran has looked at the most compelling evidence to date; from ancient space rocks that fell to Earth carrying the building blocks of life itself. The paper is published in the International Journal of Astrobiology.

Rapid X-ray pulses enable 100-fold efficiency boost for photoionization

Speed matters. When an X-ray photon excites an atom or ion, making a core electron jump onto a higher energy level, a short-lived window of opportunity opens. For just a few femtoseconds, before an electron fills the void in the lower energy level, a second photon has the chance to be absorbed by another core electron, creating a doubly excited state.

Why being in the 'right place' isn't enough for life

A planet's habitability is determined by a confluence of many factors. So far, our explorations of potentially habitable worlds beyond our solar system have focused exclusively on their position in the "Goldilocks Zone" of their solar system, where their temperature determines whether or not liquid water can exist on their surface, and, more recently, what their atmospheres are composed of. That's in part due to the technical limitations of the instruments available to us—even the powerful James Webb Space Telescope is capable only of seeing the atmospheres of very large planets nearby.

Your dog is not a doomsday prepper—here's why they hide food and toys

Have you ever seen a dog focused on nuzzling their expensive treat under a blanket, behind a couch cushion, or into a freshly dug hole in the backyard? You might think they are behaving like a paranoid doomsday prepper, but dogs aren't stockpiling their food due to anxiety about impending disaster.

[Personal View] The fine line between the cure and the illness: the risks of prescriptive emotionality and sociality for youth mental health

School-based initiatives are increasingly promoted as solutions to the youth mental health crisis, with Social Emotional Learning (SEL) among the most widely adopted frameworks worldwide. While designed to foster healthy socio-emotional development, evidence for SEL’s long-term mental health benefits remains mixed. Concerns are also growing that universal, non-targeted SEL programs may inadvertently pathologize normal developmental experiences, reinforce self-monitoring, or generate cultural mismatches that undermine resilience.

[Articles] Dengue virus genetic diversity in unvaccinated and vaccinated dengue-infected individuals: an observational analysis of the Butantan-DV phase 3 trial in Brazil

Our phylogenetic data demonstrate that Butantan-DV breakthrough infections is not linked to any unique DENV-1 or DENV-2 lineages. The circulating strains in both groups reflect typical transmission patterns of both viruses, highlighting instances of co-circulation and lineage replacement. Notably, the absence of positive selection sites and stable synonymous/non-synonymous mutation rates provides suggestive evidence that the vaccine does not promote vaccine-driven adaptive evolution.