Author: healthadmin
Light plays a big role in plant growth, but scientists still don’t understand how light works. Researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University have identified a previously unknown mechanism that helps explain how light affects plant development. A research team led by Professor Koichi Soga of the Graduate School of Science focused on young pea stems. They used a special technique to measure how tightly the epidermis (the outermost layer) adheres to internal tissues. Their results showed clear differences depending on the light exposure. Plants grown in the light had much stronger adhesion between these layers than plants grown in the dark.…
Get the health information and medications you need every weekday with STAT’s free newsletter Morning Rounds. Sign up here. Good morning and happy Monday. Thank you for being here. Hospitals are getting into the chatbot business These days, more and more people are asking chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude questions about diet, exercise, and health insurance. In some cases, we also receive questions about serious symptoms that would normally be discussed in a 911 call or doctor’s appointment. As STAT’s Katie Palmer reports, some hospitals are now trying to redirect those questions by building their own patient-facing chatbots that can…
New peer-reviewed research published in digital health We found that a significant proportion of Chinese recent immigrants to the United States use China-based telemedicine applications for medical advice while living in the United States. This is often in response to barriers within the U.S. health care system itself. Researchers from the University of Texas at San Antonio and Sam Houston State University found that 15% of Chinese immigrants living in the United States surveyed used China-based telemedicine apps for medical consultations. Importantly, some participants said they would utilize these services as a first line of care rather than seeking U.S.-based…
Health tech founders, engineers, and IT pros face regulatory delays and data fragmentation. Discover how telemedicine, wearables, and AI diagnostics are breaking barriers, slashing costs by 40%, and driving digital health trends into 2026.
Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore), in collaboration with China’s Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) and Swedish biotech company Lipigon Pharmaceuticals AB, is working to develop a new inhaled treatment aimed at helping patients recover faster from serious lung infections. This treatment aims to reduce excessive inflammation in the lungs that can persist even after viruses and bacteria have been cleared from the body.Infectious diseases such as seasonal influenza, Covid-19, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), avian influenza, and pneumonia trigger the body’s immune system to fight invading pathogens. However, in some patients, this immune response becomes too strong.When…
Beckman Coulter Diagnostics, a Danaher company and a global leader in clinical diagnostics, today announced that it has received the CE 2797 mark under IVDR for the Access MeMed BV assay. This enables widespread use of high-throughput host response tests that allow clinicians to differentiate between bacterial and viral infections in about 20 minutes. Image credit: Beckman Coulter Diagnostics Validated for use across the installed base of Beckman Coulter’s DxI 9000 and Access 2 immunoassay analyzers, the Access MeMed BV assay enables rapid and reliable identification of infections while leveraging a laboratory’s existing infrastructure and workflow. Beckman Coulter has partnered…
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has approved Kerendia® (finerenone), a non-steroidal selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist (nsMRA), for the treatment of symptomatic chronic heart failure (HF) with left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) ≥40% in adults in the UK. The new indication covers both heart failure phenotypes: heart failure with mildly reduced ejection fraction (HFmrEF) and heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF). Dr Fozia Ahmed, Consultant Cardiologist at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction and heart failure with mildly reduced ejection fraction are among the most difficult forms of heart failure to…
The Medical Society of the District of Columbia (MSDC) Health Physicians Foundation has announced the recipient of the 2026 Dr. Cesar A. Caceres Medical Innovation Award and the award of a $250,000 grant to Mary’s Center, a community health center serving more than 65,000 people of all ages, incomes, and backgrounds in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Mary’s Center will use this award to implement remote patient monitoring technology that allows patients facing barriers to care to securely share health information with their health care team from home. This infrastructure can support patients managing chronic medical, behavioral health, or maternal…
Medicine is complex. Fragmentation, rising costs, and constantly evolving regulations are challenges across health plans, patients, partners, and providers. With this complexity and increasing volume of medical insurance claims, improper insurance payments show no signs of slowing down. In fact, the 2025 Comprehensive Error Rate Testing (CERT) program showed an improper payment rate of 6.55%.Payment alignment may be one of the biggest cost control levers for health plans, but some organizations continue to struggle to bring their programs to a point where they can scale and grow toward year-over-year value gains. Prepaid and postpaid connections Achieving future-proof payments integrity requires…
Recent research published in personality and individual differences presents evidence that public perceptions of the lawyer’s character have changed significantly over the past 120 years. After analyzing millions of books, researchers found that while lawyers are highly honest and open to new experiences, society tends to view them as increasingly lacking in warmth. These findings suggest that the way we write about the legal profession reflects broader cultural and historical changes in the workplace and society. Throughout history, the legal profession has held a complex place in the public imagination. People often expect them to act as defenders of justice,…