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Scientists find that human embryos are vulnerable to COVID

A University of California, Riverside study reports that cells in the earliest stages of human development could be susceptible to infection by SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, offering new insight into how the virus interacts with developing human tissues and why that may matter for pregnancy research.

4 May 2026

New review questions whether vaping consistently helps smokers quit

A new review paper in Nicotine and Tobacco Research, published by Oxford University Press, finds that while research has previously found that vaping is associated with subsequently quitting smoking, that may not always be true.

30 Apr 2026

Wearable sweat sensor tracks vitamin levels in real time

Researchers developed a wearable electrochemical patch that detects six vitamins in sweat at nanomolar levels, combining sweat induction, microfluidic sampling, wireless readout, and pH/ionic-strength calibration. Human testing focused mainly on vitamin B9, showing sweat levels rose after supplementation or a vitamin B9-rich diet and correlated with serum levels, supporting future use for non-invasive nutrition trend monitoring.

28 Apr 2026

PCORI announces new funding for patient-centered clinical effectiveness research

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) today announced new funding to support patient-centered comparative clinical effectiveness research (CER) across a range of health conditions experienced by Americans, along with projects designed to help bring practice-changing CER results into real-world care settings.

28 Apr 2026

Media coverage and campaigns drove decline in youth vaping

Researchers from the University of California San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science have found that both anti-vaping advertising and widespread news coverage of a lung-injury outbreak tied to vaping - known as e-cigarette or vaping product use-associated lung injury (EVALI) - were critical in making 2019 a turning point in youth vaping prevalence in the United States.

24 Apr 2026

WHO reports measurable health gains but warns of unmet goals

The World Health Organization (WHO) today released its Results Report, highlighting measurable improvements in people's health worldwide in 2025, despite funding cuts affecting both the organization and the broader global health sector.

24 Apr 2026

Air quality in infancy may fundamentally shape long-term immune development

Ambient air pollution is associated with respiratory infection burden in the first year of life, according to preliminary findings from the Immune Development in Early Life (IDEaL) Rome Cohort. Findings from the cohort will be presented during the Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) 2026 Meeting, taking place April 24-27 in Boston.

24 Apr 2026

Researchers identify high rates of untreated hypertension in young veterans

Approximately half a million post-9/11 U.S. veterans who served in the military have had high blood pressure, and among them, about half were undiagnosed and one quarter were untreated, according to a new study published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association.

22 Apr 2026

Autism risk rises with multiple medications taken during pregnancy

A study links maternal use of cholesterol-inhibiting medications during pregnancy to increased autism risk in children, urging caution in prescribing practices.

22 Apr 2026

Certain prenatal medications linked to increased risk of autism

A landmark study led by researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) and published in Molecular Psychiatry has identified a significant association between prenatal prescription of commonly utilized medications and the risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children.

20 Apr 2026

US Medicaid data finds buprenorphine safe for long-term child development

Children born to mothers who used buprenorphine for opioid addiction during pregnancy do not have a greater risk of neurodevelopmental disorders, such as ADHD and autism, compared with children whose mothers took methadone, finds a large US study published by The BMJ today.

17 Apr 2026

People with chronic pain are twice as likely to smoke cigarettes

New research from the University of Kansas shows people who experience chronic pain tend to consume cigarettes and e-cigarettes at higher rates than others.

13 Apr 2026

Lab study shows cigarette smoke damaged lung cells more than e-cigarette vapor

Researchers found that cigarette smoke extract disrupted the lung cell barrier, increased IL-6 inflammation, and caused DNA damage in Calu-3 cells, while e-cigarette vapor extract showed no significant adverse effects on these measures under the study conditions. The authors caution that these were in vitro findings using liquid extracts and unflavored e-liquid, so they do not directly predict long-term human health outcomes.

12 Apr 2026

Local sales bans on flavored tobacco in California linked to reduced youth vaping

Researchers from the University of California San Diego have found that local sales bans on flavored tobacco in California are associated with reduced youth vaping over time without increasing cigarette smoking.

10 Apr 2026

Large US study finds never-married adults face higher risk for most major cancers

A large US population-based study found that never-married adults had higher cancer incidence than ever-married adults across most cancer types, with the largest disparities seen in older adults and in Black men. The pattern was especially strong for HPV-related, tobacco-related, and several reproductive cancers, suggesting marital status may act as an important social marker of cancer risk.

9 Apr 2026

Quitting tobacco could boost incomes of millions of households in India

Quitting tobacco could give a major economic uplift to the incomes of more than 20 million households in India, suggests an economic analysis published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health.

9 Apr 2026

Study reveals lung-brain link between smoking and neurodegeneration

The correlation between smoking and neurodegeneration is well-documented, with one study from 2011 finding heavy smoking in midlife was associated with a greater than 100% increase in risk of dementia, Alzheimer's and vascular dementia more than two decades later.

8 Apr 2026

Why early-onset cancers are rising and how researchers plan to stop them

Early-onset cancers are rising worldwide, and this Cell Perspective argues that cancer prevention must move beyond static risk-factor snapshots toward life-course exposure mapping, tissue-level biology, and dynamic estimates of preventability. The authors propose three linked frameworks to speed discovery of cancer causes and translate those findings into more precise prevention and interception strategies.

8 Apr 2026

What happens in the brain on psychedelics? Scientists identify a common circuit pattern

Researchers combined 11 international resting-state fMRI datasets to map how psychedelic drugs reshape brain connectivity across cortical and subcortical circuits. The mega-analysis found a shared signature of stronger coupling between transmodal association networks and unimodal or sensorimotor systems, alongside selective and variable reductions in within-network connectivity.

7 Apr 2026

Geographic disparities persist in the decline of U.S. cancer deaths

In 1991, the U.S. experienced a significant shift in cancer death rates, as, for the first time, deaths began a steady decline that continues to the present day. Researchers at Mississippi State's Social Science Research Center, in partnership with scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, examined this decline to identify where and who benefited the most from this dramatic improvement.

7 Apr 2026