Brazil's Bolsa Fam lia Program, one of the world's largest conditional cash transfer programs, was responsible for the reduction of more than half the number of tuberculosis cases and deaths among those living in extreme poverty and indigenous groups.

A genetic fault long believed to drive the development of esophageal cancer may in fact play a protective role early in the disease. This unexpected discovery could help doctors identify which individuals are at greater risk of developing cancer, potentially leading to more personalized and effective preventive strategies.

Farmers are receiving less of what consumers spend on food, as modern food systems increasingly direct costs toward value-added components like processing, transport, and marketing. A study shows that this effect shapes how food prices respond to agricultural climate policies: While value-added components buffer consumer price changes in wealthier countries, low-income countries -- where farming costs dominate -- face greater challenges in managing food price increases due to climate policies.

Tumor cells circulating in the blood are the 'germ cells' of breast cancer metastases. They are very rare and could not be propagated in the culture dish until now, which made research into therapy resistance difficult. A team has now succeeded for the first time in cultivating stable tumor organoids directly from blood samples of breast cancer patients. Using these mini-tumors, the researchers were able to decipher a molecular signaling pathway that ensures the cancer cells' survival and resistance to therapy. With this knowledge, the team was able to develop an approach to specifically eliminate these tumor cells in lab experiments.

Each year, most species of bacteria in a Wisconsin lake rapidly evolved, apparently in response to dramatically changing seasons, and then evolved back.

Pollination by animals contributes to a third of global food production, but little research has been done into the extent to which the identity of pollinators, pollen and crop varieties influence fruit quality when it comes to the nutritional, sensory and commercial value of crops. Pollinators influence the quality of crops through their movement patterns on the plantations and through the plant variety they visit. Researchers argue that the blanket promotion of pollinators has so far been too much of a priority -- at the expense of plant quality, which could be improved by taking into account the species-specific behavior of pollinators and the distribution patterns of crop varieties in the field.

Bioengineers have developed a new construction kit for building custom sense-and-respond circuits in human cells. The research could revolutionize therapies for complex conditions like autoimmune disease and cancer.

In April 2021, a provision in the 21st Century Cures act took effect which required that all medical test results be released to a patient's electronic medical record as soon as they become available. As a result of this newer law, many patients are seeing and reading their test results even before their doctor has. The problem is that many medical reports aren't written with patients in mind.

Antibodies that bind to a previously untargeted portion of the malaria parasite could lead to new monoclonal antibody treatments and vaccines for malaria.

A study found public-private partnerships to develop, produce and distribute COVID-19 diagnostic tests saved approximately 1.4 million lives and prevented an estimated 7 million patient hospitalizations in the U.S. during the pandemic.

Researchers uncovered new findings about involuntary muscle movements that come with long-term administration of Parkinson's drug levodopa.

Scientists recently discovered that the giant 'conveyer belt' currents that push star-forged material out of our galaxy and pull it back in can also transport carbon atoms. That means that a good deal of the carbon here on Earth, including the carbon in our bodies, likely left the galaxy at some point!

Much of our knowledge of the protein PD-1, a leading cancer treatment target, comes from studies in mice. In a comprehensive assessment of PD-1, researchers have found that PD-1 in mice is significantly weaker than the human version, providing new information on how cancer treatments are developed.

Chemistry researchers have taken a key step toward next-generation optical computing and memory with the discovery of luminescent nanocrystals that can be quickly toggled from light to dark and back again.

Interactions with friends and family may keep us healthy because they boost our immune system and reduce our risk of diseases such as heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes, new research suggests. Researchers drew this conclusion after studying proteins from blood samples taken from over 42,000 adults recruited to the UK Biobank.

A new study has found that many cases of high-risk nonmetastatic hormone-sensitive prostate cancer may be more advanced than previously thought.

A new study presents what is believed to be the oldest known example in the fossil record of an evolutionary arms race. These 517-million-year-old predator-prey interactions occurred in the ocean covering what is now South Australia between a small, shelled animal distantly related to brachiopods and an unknown marine animal capable of piercing its shell.

Researchers design a new way to more reliably evaluate AI models' ability to make clinical decisions in realistic scenarios that closely mimic real-life interactions. The analysis finds that large-language models excel at making diagnoses from exam-style questions but struggle to do so from conversational notes. The researchers propose set of guidelines to optimize AI tools' performance and align them with real-world practice before integrating them into the clinic.

A balanced diet is important for reducing hunger and malnutrition. Researchers thus advocate that small farmers in low- and middle-income countries should try to produce as many different foods as possible for their own consumption. However, a study is now questioning this recommendation to some extent. It suggests that good access to regional markets is more important than farmers growing a large diversity of crops on their own smallholding. Better-functioning markets increase the variety of foods available locally, which benefits the population as a whole.

Steroid hormones are among the most widespread aquatic micropollutants. They are harmful to human health, and they cause ecological imbalances in aquatic environments. Researchers investigated how steroid hormones are degraded in an electrochemical membrane reactor with carbon nanotube membranes. They found that adsorption of steroid hormones on the carbon nanotubes did not limit the hormones' subsequent degradation.