Injuries can't heal without a constant influx of blood's key ingredient—oxygen. A new flexible sensor developed by engineers at the University of California, Berkeley, can map blood-oxygen levels over large areas of skin, tissue and organs, potentially giving doctors a new way to monitor healing wounds in real time. "When you hear the word oximeter, the name for blood-oxygen sensors, rigid and bulky finger-clip sensors come into your mind," said Yasser Khan, a graduate student in electrical engineering and computer sciences at UC Berkeley.

The cause of a rare polio-like disease continues to elude public health officials even as the number of U.S. cases grows. Confirmed cases of acute flaccid myelitis cases have risen to 90 in 27 states, out of a possible 252 under investigation, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced November 13. That’s up from 62 confirmed cases out of 127 suspected just a month ago (SN Online: 10/16/18). There were a record 149 cases in 2016.

New research is zeroing in on a biochemical basis for the placebo effect — possibly opening a Pandora’s box for Western medicine.

Each year, there are some 13.3 million new cases of acute kidney injury (AKI), a serious affliction. Formerly known as acute renal failure, the ailment produces a rapid buildup of nitrogenous wastes and decreases urine output, usually within hours or days of disease onset. Severe complications often ensue. Currently, there is no known cure for AKI.

In a study of proteins historic in its scope, researchers at Oregon State University have pushed closer both to a vaccine for gonorrhea and toward understanding why the bacteria that cause the disease are so good at fending off antimicrobial drugs. The findings, published in Molecular & Cellular Proteomics, are especially important since the microbe, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, is considered a “superbug” because of its resistance to all classes of antibiotics available for treating infections.

The Chain of Office of the Dutch city of Leiden is a broad and colorful ceremonial necklace that, draped around the shoulders of Mayor Henri Lenferink, lends a magisterial air to official proceedings in this ancient university town. But whatever gravitas it provided Lenferink as he welcomed a group of researchers to his city, he was quick to undercut it. “I am just a humble historian,” he told the 300 members of the Society for Interdisciplinary Placebo Studies who had gathered in Leiden’s ornate municipal concert hall, “so I don’t know anything about your topic.”

How a surgeon who has been dubbed “Dr. Death” got away with harming patients for a criminally long time. By Laura Beil.

Scientists design an antibody based on llama blood that is highly effective against flu strains.

Preliminary finding turns heads at neuroscience meeting

A University of Kent study into postnatal depression (PND) found the odds of developing this condition increased by 79% when mothers had baby boys compared to baby girls. Overall the researchers identified that women who give birth to males are 71-79% more likely to develop PND. Furthermore, women whose births had complications were 174% more likely to experience PND compared to those women who had no complications.

The goal of AI is not to replace doctors, it's to optimize physician performance, releasing them from menial tasks and providing alternative assessments.

An Israeli biotech company specializing in HIV and cancer treatments has finally released the results of its first clinical trial of its HIV-drug Gammora and the news is bringing renewed hope to the many affected by this devastating retrovirus. The novel drug has been found to eliminate up to 99% of the HIV virus within four weeks of treatment.

Although the mere thought of a swarm of microrobots burrowing into an eyeball is enough to make some people squirm, scientists believe tiny, controllable delivery vehicles could be the future of eye medicine. Now, researchers have developed a tiny, rotini-shaped spiral that could one day be deployed in the thousands for targeted drug delivery.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a new system that could significantly speed up the discovery of new drugs and reduce the need for costly and time-consuming laboratory tests.

HPV vaccination rates are still too low to cut cervical cancer cases as much as is possible in the United States, a new report warns. While HPV, or human papillomavirus, vaccination has increased in recent years, rates remain well below the federal government's Healthy People 2020 goal of 80 percent of age-eligible adolescents, according to the recent report.

No two child births are the same, but the female physiology that brings people into the world is more varied and complex than what science textbooks would have you believe, new research suggests.

Many people routinely take nutritional supplements such as vitamin D and fish oil in the hopes of staving off major killers like cancer and heart disease. But the evidence about the possible benefits of the supplements has been mixed. Now, long-awaited government-funded research has produced some of the clearest evidence yet about the usefulness of taking the supplements. And the results — published in two papers — are disappointing.

The sudden, unexplained removal of a research paper on private equity firms buying dermatology practices has raised questions about corporate influence.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died in Africa and South Asia due to the widespread scourge of counterfeit medicines. So social entrepreneur Bright Simons founded a company to use technology to let people verify a medicine’s authenticity with a simple text message.

Ten minutes of mild exercise can immediately alter how certain parts of the brain communicate and coordinate with one another and improve memory function.

My wife, Laura Levis, did everything she could to save herself when the asthma attack began. She went to Somerville Hospital and called 911, too. How could she have been left to die just outside the emergency room?

When you get sick, you want the right treatment fast. But certain infectious microbes are experts at evading the very anti-bacterial drugs designed to fight them. A simple and inexpensive new test developed by UC Berkeley researchers can diagnose patients with antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria in a matter of minutes.

Taller people have a greater risk of cancer because they are bigger and so have more cells in their bodies in which dangerous mutations can occur, new research has suggested. A number of studies have previously found a link between a lofty stature and a greater risk of developing some form of cancer, with research suggesting that for every 10cm of height within the typical range for humans, the risk increases by about 10%. A similar link has also been found in dogs, with bigger breeds having a greater risk of such diseases.

Tilli Tansey navigates the extraordinary story of the life-giving liquid.

In mice, researchers found that some components of lavender odor had effects on anxiety similar to taking Valium.

A man from Gloucester, England, can walk and dance for the first time in 10 years after receiving a revolutionary stem cell transplant for his multiple sclerosis, CBS News reported on Wednesday. Roy Palmer, a 49-year-old man who used a wheelchair, opted to undergo the treatment known as hematopoietic stem cell transplantation after watching a BBC program that showed the results of the treatment.

A vaccine may one day be able to replace oral blood thinners to reduce the risk of secondary strokes caused by blood clots, without increasing the risk of serious bleeding or triggering an autoimmune response, according to new research in the American Heart Association’s journal Hypertension.

Rutgers researchers have discovered a new system to deliver antimicrobial agents – drugs, antiseptics or pesticides – that could more effectively treat or prevent bacterial infections. In a recent study in the Journal of The American Chemical Society, Professor Tewodros Asefa and Associate Professor Jeffrey Boyd synthesized nanostructured silica particles, considered to be promising drug carriers, that contained payloads of an antimicrobial agent. The researchers found that the particles were effective at killing two human bacterial pathogens.

Up to half of all patients who survive emergency medical treatment in the intensive care unit have mental problems when they return home. Doctors studying the problem say it starts with delirium.

More than half Venezuela's doctors have been forced to flee the country's crushing economic and political crisis, according to a report by health NGOs released Thursday. "Between 2012 and 2017, 22,000 Venezuelan doctors migrated" -- 55 percent of the total 39,000 doctors registered by the PanAmerican Health Organization in 2014, the report said. Some 6,000 nurses -- nearly a quarter of Venezuela's total -- also left the country during the same period. Nearly two million people have emigrated since 2015, the UN said, adding that around 5,000 people are leaving the country daily.

SPANISH scientists believe they may have managed to eliminate HIV from a patient using stem cell transplant treatment.  Scientists from the Institute for AIDS Research IrsiCaixa in Barcelona and the Gregorio Maranon Hospital in Madrid have managed to remove the virus from the blood and tissues of six patients using the treatment.

A newly discovered role for the enzyme glutamine synthetase could have important implications for developing anti-cancer drugs according to a new UCL study. An intrinsic part of tumour growth is the sprouting of blood vessels, which supply cancerous tumours with the blood and energy that they need to survive.

We face a return to the dark ages of life-threatening surgery unless we can preserve the infection-killing powers of antibiotics, according to England’s chief medical officer. Dame Sally Davies made her remarks as Public Health England (PHE) published a report showing that 3 million common surgical procedures, including caesarean sections and hip replacements, could be hazardous in a future where hospital-acquired infections have become resistant to the antibiotics we have to treat them.

An Oregon teenager’s innovation could change the way doctors treat pancreatic cancer, a deadly form of the disease that has just a 7% five-year survival rate. Rishab Jain, a 13-year-old from Stoller Middle School in Portland, on Tuesday won the Discovery Education 3M Young Scientist Challenge with an algorithm that uses machine learning to help doctors zero in on the pancreas during cancer treatment.

udith Campisi has been a leading figure in the biology of aging since the early 1990s, when her research on the basic mechanisms of cancer revealed an unexpected finding—that cells enter a phase known as senescence that prevents them from becoming cancerous. More than 25 years later, the insight has led to a new kind of drug that may slow or modestly reverse human aging.