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The hidden role of auricular muscles in listening effort

If you can wiggle your ears, you can use muscles that helped our distant ancestors listen closely. These auricular muscles helped change the shape of the pinna, or the shell of the ear, funneling sound to the eardrums.

3 Feb 2025

Kennesaw State University's Wellstar School of Nursing secures funding to address opioid addiction

As Georgia navigates a widespread opioid addiction crisis, researchers in Kennesaw State University's Wellstar School of Nursing (WSON) are leveraging a $1.2 million grant to train budding nurses in addressing substance use disorders.

30 Jan 2025

Led by RFK Jr., conservatives embrace raw milk. Regulators say it's dangerous.

In summertime, cows wait under a canopy to be milked at Mark McAfee's farm in Fresno, California. From his Cessna 210 Centurion propeller plane, the 63-year-old can view grazing lands of the dairy company he runs that produces products such as unpasteurized milk and cheese for almost 2,000 stores.

29 Jan 2025

An Arm and a Leg: The ‘Shkreli Awards’ — for dysfunction and profiteering in health care

Every year, a health care think tank called the Lown Institute ranks the 10 worst examples of "profiteering and dysfunction" in health care and "honors" the winners.

27 Jan 2025

How fruit fly genetics could change the fight against mosquito diseases

How fruit flies mate may hold a key to limiting the spread of diseases by mosquitoes.

25 Jan 2025

Long-covid patients are frustrated that federal research hasn’t found new treatments

Erica Hayes, 40, has not felt healthy since November 2020 when she first fell ill with covid.

22 Jan 2025

Junk food turns public villain as power shifts in Washington

The new Trump administration could be coming for your snacks. For years, the federal government has steered clear of regulating junk food, fast food, and ultra-processed food.

17 Jan 2025

AI deciphers intracellular signals from extracellular recordings in heart cells

A team of researchers led by the University of California San Diego and Stanford University has developed a noninvasive method to monitor the electrical activity inside heart muscle cells from the outside, avoiding the need to physically penetrate the cells.

16 Jan 2025

New California laws target medical debt, AI care decisions, detention centers

As the nation braces for potential policy shifts under President-elect Donald Trump's "Make America Healthy Again" mantra, the nation's most populous state and largest health care market is preparing for a few changes of its own.

16 Jan 2025

U.S. dementia cases expected to surge with aging population

A new study shows that the risk of developing dementia anytime after age 55 among Americans is 42%, more than double the risk reported by older studies.

13 Jan 2025

By 2060, 1 million U.S. adults are projected to develop dementia annually

The lifetime risk of dementia is 42%, with significant variations by race and sex, underscoring the importance of public health strategies for prevention.

13 Jan 2025

Totally implantable cochlear implant promises a new era of hearing restoration

Scientists have developed a totally implantable cochlear implant that delivers hearing performance comparable to conventional devices while improving quality of life and eliminating the need for external components.

12 Jan 2025

New therapeutic target could boost CAR T-cell therapy success in solid tumors

Russell W. Jenkins, MD, PhD, a physician investigator in the Krantz Family Center for Cancer Research at the Mass General Cancer Center and an assistant professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, is senior author of a new study in Cancer Immunology Research, "TBK1 is Identified as a Therapeutic Strategy to Enhance CAR T-Cell Efficacy Using Patient-Derived Organotypic Tumor Spheroids".

10 Jan 2025

New skeletal tissue could revolutionize regenerative medicine and cartilage repair

An international research team led by the University of California, Irvine has discovered a new type of skeletal tissue that offers great potential for advancing regenerative medicine and tissue engineering.

9 Jan 2025

Aircraft noise pollution harms arteries, but heart drugs show promise in animal model research

Alpha- and beta-blockers reduce oxidative stress and inflammation caused by aircraft noise but fail to prevent hypertension, highlighting their potential to protect vascular health in noise-exposed individuals.

9 Jan 2025

KFF Health News' 'What the Health?': New Year, new Congress, new health agenda

The new, GOP-led, 119th Congress and President-elect Donald Trump have big legislative plans for the year — which mostly don't include health policy. But health is likely to play an important supporting role in efforts to renew tax cuts, revise immigration policies, and alter trade — if only to help pay for some Republican initiatives.

9 Jan 2025

Decades of research push cytomegalovirus vaccine closer to reality

Researchers review decades of progress in human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) vaccine development, emphasizing challenges, innovative platforms, and the critical need for effective prevention strategies.

6 Jan 2025

Study reveals how smell and hearing interact in mouse brains

Imagine you're at a dinner party, but you can't smell the food cooking or hear the dinner bell. Sounds like a dream, right? What if it wasn't?

6 Jan 2025

Trash incinerators disproportionately harm Black and Hispanic people

When leaders of Florida's most populous county met in September to pick a site for what could become the nation's largest trash incinerator, so many people went to the government center to protest that overflow seating spilled into the building's atrium.

23 Dec 2024

Brain's dual role in processing touch and hearing revealed

Ludwig van Beethoven began to lose his hearing at age 28 and was deaf by age 44. While the cause of his hearing loss remains a topic of scientific debate and ongoing revision, one thing is clear: Despite his hearing loss, Beethoven never ceased to compose music, likely because he was able to sense the vibrations of musical instruments and "hear" music through the sense of touch, researchers believe.

19 Dec 2024