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Children exposed to cannabis and tobacco before birth scored lower on thinking tests

In an exploratory analysis of 8,706 U.S. children aged 9 to 11, prenatal exposure to both cannabis and tobacco was associated with modestly lower fluid cognition scores compared with cannabis-only exposure or neither substance. Differences from tobacco-only exposure were not statistically significant, nor were differences in crystallized cognition, and the observational findings could not establish causation.

4 Nov 2026

Study reveals potential link between limited cold stress during pregnancy and birth weight

Research out of South Dakota State University has highlighted a potential connection between limited exposure to cold stress during pregnancy and birth weight.

3 Nov 2026

Prescriptive AI tools shift critical care toward personalized treatment.

Critical care requires rapid decisions from complex, evolving data. Predictive models forecast deterioration but do not guide therapy.

30 Oct 2026

Identical twins showed a survival divide when only one had Parkinson’s

Researchers followed 54 twin pairs discordant for Parkinson’s disease and found substantially higher 10-year mortality among affected twins, including in genetically identical pairs. They also observed more frequent constipation among affected twins, but dietary and nutritional differences were limited, with secondary findings requiring confirmation.

28 Oct 2026

UCL scientists design symbolic AI digital twins to treat cancer

In a new paper published in Cell Reports Medicine, the UCL team outline how they, in collaboration with a University of Cambridge team, developed a new type of treatment-predicting computer program that uses an individual's detailed genetic fingerprint to explore which treatments, if any, may kill their cancer – especially when standard treatments have failed.

26 Oct 2026

Highly sensitive people react to social cues over physical environments

Environmental sensitivity may be a misleading name for a personality trait that appears to have less to do with how people respond to their physical environments and more to do with how they are affected by social experiences and perceived threats.

15 Oct 2026

Screen time was linked to teen anxiety. Then researchers compared twins

A longitudinal study of 21,797 Swedish twins found that heavy interactive screen use during adolescence was associated with more anxiety and depressive symptoms and a higher likelihood of subsequent clinical mental health outcomes. However, these associations weakened substantially when comparing twins with different screen habits, suggesting that shared genetic and environmental factors contribute to the relationship.

12 Oct 2026

Shared family factors influence screen use and mental health problems in young people

Shared family factors, such as genes and upbringing, are likely to explain a large part of the link between high screen use and mental health problems in young people.

8 Oct 2026

Study links non-brain gene variant to anorexia risk

A gene primarily active in fat and muscles could make a person more susceptible to anorexia nervosa, a deadly eating disorder with one of the highest mortality rates of any psychiatric disease.

8 Oct 2026

UVM receives historic contract to develop medical digital twins

What if doctors could test a customized treatment on a virtual version of a critically ill patient before administering it in real life? That's the promise of medical "digital twins."

30 Sep 2026

Researchers create virtual cells to accelerate drug discovery efforts

Mitochondria - tiny structures that convert nutrients into energy - are often depicted as discrete kidney bean-shaped objects.

18 Sep 2026

Magnetic robotic fetoscope improves precision of twin transfusion surgery

In Switzerland, around 2,400 children are born as twins every year. When the fetuses share a placenta, they are connected to one another via blood vessels.

16 Sep 2026

The obesity-microbiome story is more complicated than ‘good’ and ‘bad’ bacteria

This review finds that obesity is linked to reciprocal interactions between diet, the gut microbiome, microbial metabolites, and host metabolic pathways that influence appetite, insulin sensitivity, inflammation, and energy balance across the lifespan. It highlights diet as a particularly tractable way to influence this system, while emphasizing that microbiome changes associated with GLP-1 therapies remain difficult to separate from weight loss and that functional multi-omics approaches may help enable more personalized interventions.

3 Sep 2026

What your genes can, and cannot, tell us about your personality

A meta-analysis of 46 cohorts involving 611,037 to 1.14 million participants identified 1,260 lead genetic variants associated with the Big Five personality traits, including 824 in previously unlinked genomic regions. The associations were broadly consistent across cohorts and measurement contexts, while polygenic analyses linked personality-related genetics to health, behavior, psychopathology, and life outcomes, although effects were modest and could not predict individual behavior.

3 Sep 2026

Eight-year study reveals how molecular aging scripts differ individually

Aging does not appear to follow the same molecular script for everyone, according to an eight-year study of 335 women.

3 Sep 2026

Bridging science and family story to understand schizophrenia origins

Twin studies have placed the heritability of schizophrenia at roughly eighty percent for decades. Concordance between identical twins, who share the entire genome, does not reach fifty percent. Both figures are well established, and they do not fit together comfortably.

2 Sep 2026