How to stop fixating on the daily COVID numbers

Daily updates of COVID case numbers have been part of our pandemic lives. These numbers are reported, analyzed and widely shared. They’re conversation starters, and with good reason. Until recently, daily numbers had direct consequences. Officials used them to make decisions that significantly impacted our lives. No wonder many of us were glued to the […]

Have diabetes? Here’s how to save your sight

(HealthDay)—Managing your diabetes can be tough, but your eyes might thank you for it. Diabetic retinopathy is a diabetes complication that damages the retina’s blood vessels, often resulting in vision loss and blindness. The condition occurs in more than half of people with diabetes. It affects nearly 8 million Americans and that number is expected […]

How Billing Turns a Routine Birth Into a High-Cost Emergency

Caitlin Wells Salerno knew that some mammals — like the golden-mantled ground squirrels she studies in the Rocky Mountains — invest an insane amount of resources in their young. That didn’t prepare her for the resources the conservation biologist would owe after the birth of her second son. Wells Salerno went into labor on the […]

How the brain deals with uncertainty

As we interact with the world, we are constantly presented with information that is unreliable or incomplete—from jumbled voices in a crowded room to solicitous strangers with unknown motivations. Fortunately, our brains are well equipped to evaluate the quality of the evidence we use to make decisions, usually allowing us to act deliberately, without jumping […]

How cannabis-like substances keep the brain in balance

Whenever we learn, remember or forget something, a surprisingly active role is played by cannabis-like substances in the brain. Researchers at Utrecht University found that the substances actively balance connections in the brain that allow cells to either activate or inhibit each other. The discovery reveals how brain cells influence each other, and how psychiatric […]

How the COVID pandemic made the opioid epidemic worse, even as telehealth helped

(HealthDay)—The COVID-19 pandemic has shaken up the U.S. opioid crisis in ways bad and good, increasing the risk of use and overdose but also spurring innovative approaches to treatment. The pandemic has definitely been linked to an increase in opioid use and overdose deaths, Tufts University’s Thomas Stopka said during a HealthDay Now video interview. […]

Russell Wilson Reveals How to Think Like a Champion

As the Seattle Seahawks meet the Green Bay Packers this weekend, there won’t be a lot of positive thinking going on in Russell Wilson’s mind. That’s because he’s found something far more effective when it comes to playing well. In a foreword to the new book It Takes What It Takes by Trevor Moawad, the […]

How protein clogs in cellular entrances cause Parkinson’s disease

Mutations in a protein known to cause Parkinson’s Disease derange transportation in and out of brain cells, reports a team of UConn Health researchers in the 27 July issue of Science Signaling. The toxic traffic jams that result eventually lead to certain brain cell death and the characteristic symptoms of Parkinson’s. “We figured out how […]