Month: April 2025

A new study has found that certain bacteria living in the nose may influence how likely someone is to get a COVID-19 infection. The research reveals that certain types of nasal bacteria can affect the levels of key proteins the virus needs to enter human cells, offering new insight into why some people are more vulnerable to COVID-19 than others.

Heavy drinkers who have eight or more alcoholic drinks per week have an increased risk of brain lesions called hyaline arteriolosclerosis, signs of brain injury that are associated with memory and thinking problems, according to a new study.

Researchers discovered the blood vessels at the back of the eye — called retinal microvasculature — can show early signs someone is at risk of developing dementia.

Eight weeks of mindfulness or cognitive behavioral therapy were associated with improved pain, physical function and quality of life and reduced daily opioid dose in adults with chronic low back pain that required treated with daily opioids, according to a new study. This is one of the largest studies to date to evaluate mindfulness and cognitive behavioral therapy as treatment for opioid-treated chronic pain.

Scientists and researchers around the globe are investigating a series of mysteries about what happens to our bones over time.

New research could aid in improving whooping cough vaccines to once again push this disease toward eradication by targeting two key weaknesses in the infection.

Collaborative research defines a novel approach to understanding how certain proteins called transcription factors determine which genetic programs will drive cell growth and maturation. The method, called ‘Perturb-multiome,’ uses CRISPR to knock out the function of individual transcription factors across many blood cells at once. The researchers then perform single-cell analyses on each cell to measure the effects of the editing, including identifying which genes have been turned on or off and which genes are accessible (based on epigenetic markers).

Drug-carrying DNA aptamers can deliver a one-two punch to leukemia by precisely targeting the elusive cancer stem cells that seed cancer relapses, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign report. The aptamers — short single-strand snippets of DNA that can target molecules like larger antibodies do — not only deliver cancer-fighting drugs, but also are themselves toxic to the cancer stem cells, the researchers said.