Author: healthadmin

The direction of a computer-generated character’s gaze determines whether its facial expressions look like genuine emotional responses to a human observer. A fake smile or angry glare will look more real when you make direct eye contact, and a sad digital face will look more real when you look down. These findings were recently published in the journal Cognition and Emotion. Digital characters frequently appear in online therapy programs, video games, customer service applications, virtual companion software, and more. To be successful in these roles, virtual humans must develop trusting relationships with the users they interact with. This requires digital…

Northwell Health has developed what it calls a “first-of-its-kind” digital toolkit aimed at helping healthcare providers implement gun violence prevention programs across clinical settings. The new digital toolkit serves as a practical guide for health systems to adapt, implement, and scale strategies at the system, community, clinical, and organizational levels. The health system says it includes nearly 100 strategies. The guide, developed by Northwell with support from the Joyce Foundation, is “intentionally modular” to show where health systems can have the greatest impact and how to “build a balanced portfolio of interventions over time.” “As of the writing of this…

A study of individuals seeking treatment for borderline personality disorder found that there is a gap between their own perceived social preferences and their expectations about the social preferences of others, which can foster a vicious cycle of misunderstanding and disappointment in social relationships. This vicious cycle can then lead to increased feelings of loneliness. The paper was published in General psychiatry. Borderline personality disorder is a mental health condition characterized by ongoing problems with emotional regulation, self-image, behavior, and relationships. People with this condition frequently experience very intense emotions that change rapidly, sometimes over hours or days. Common features…

When a very massive star reaches the end of its life, it explodes as a supernova, scattering elements such as carbon and iron into space. Another, rarer type of explosion occurs when two neutron stars, the dense remains of dead stars, collide. This phenomenon, known as a kilonova, produces even heavier elements such as gold and uranium. These materials are essential ingredients for forming stars, planets, and ultimately everything around us. So far, scientists have identified only one clear example of a kilonova. The event, called GW170817, occurred in 2017 when two neutron stars merged. The collision emitted both gravitational…

The TV show “The Pit” has received praise from viewers, critics and even emergency physicians for its depiction of the frenetic reality of the emergency department. But that action stops when doctors are faced with a simple but ominous on-screen message: “Network offline.” For most of this season, they have been serving patients without internet. In other words, they have fallen into “digital darkness” and been cut off from the electronic systems that are the mainstay of patient care. Although Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center (Pitt) is fictional, the dangers of a digital darkness event are devastatingly real. Defined by loss…

Damian Garde covers the global pharmaceutical industry as a general live and feature journalism reporter and contributes to STAT’s industry-leading events.The Food and Drug Administration will accelerate its review of psychedelic drugs developed by Compass Pathways, Usona Institute and Transcend Therapeutics for mental disorders as part of the Trump administration’s plan to increase access to controversial but promising drugs. The agency will specifically grant priority review vouchers to Compass’ psilocybin product for treatment-resistant depression, Usona’s drug-like drug for major depressive disorder, and Transcend’s MDMA-like drug for post-traumatic stress disorder. The FDA identified the drugs that received vouchers, but not the…

New clues from genetic research may help explain the cause of the most common heart defects present at birth. Researchers in Sweden have identified a rare DNA change during fetal development that can cause a condition known as bicuspid aortic valve (BAV). A team of researchers from KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Karolinska Institutet, published in Nature Communications, identified nearly 30 times more genes potentially associated with BAV than previously known genes. The aortic valve has three leaflets (thin flaps of tissue) that open and close to control blood flow. A bicuspid aortic valve is a valve with only…

Science progresses by proposing ideas and trying to prove them wrong. This process becomes especially difficult when dealing with the universe at its largest scale. Dark energy and dark matter are among the most difficult concepts to test. Observations across vast regions of the universe clearly suggest that something influences gravity in a way that Einstein’s theory does not fully explain. But within our solar system, everything appears to be working as expected. A new study by Slava Turishev, a physicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, considers how researchers can address this discrepancy. His work suggests that being extremely precise…

Analysts at Guggenheim Securities predicted in a note to investors that established sales force and payer approval standards will facilitate the rapid launch of new indications for Travele Therapeutics’ Filspari, leading to peak franchise sales of $3.1 billion. Earlier this month, Travere won FDA approval for the treatment of focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). Sales of Filspari in its first indication, IgA nephropathy (IgAN), have increased gradually since Travere won approval three years ago, reaching $322 million last year. Guggenheim analysts expect Philspari to get off to a more explosive start with rare kidney disease FSGS. Analysts said the FSGS launch…

Recent research has linked political differences in attitudes to climate change to measurable variations in factual knowledge on the issue. This research Journal of Environmental Psychologyrevealed that left-leaning participants generally scored higher on tests of climate change knowledge than right-leaning participants. The findings suggest that these differences in fundamental understanding are related to broader disparities in how people view climate change policies and individual conservation actions. Climate change remains a highly polarizing topic in many Western countries. Polling data regularly shows that voters on the political left tend to view environmental change as a pressing problem that requires immediate government…