Despite humanity’s scientific achievements and globalized economy, malnutrition remains a global issue. The United Nations estimated that 2.33 billion people experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2023.

A 240-year-old drug called digoxin could save the National Health Service (NHS) at least £100 million each year when treating older patients with atrial fibrillation and heart failure. This was compared to usual treatment with a beta-blocker according to a new study published in the journal Heart from the University of Birmingham, the city where digoxin was first used in 1785.

The study found that the rates of patients leaving before medically advised increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were 721 million emergency department visits from 2016 to 2021, of which 194 million (26.9  percent) occurred after March 2020. Patients left before medically advised in 5.9 million emergency department visits during the study period—especially in the second, third and fourth quarters of 2020 and fourth quarter of 2021—for a 53.6 percent increase over pre-pandemic levels. The researchers noted that the increase could be the result of concern about COVID-19 infection and dissatisfaction with longer waiting times and other factors triggered by the surge in pandemic-related demands on hospitals.

A researcher with The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio School of Dentistry and her biotechnology company teamed with the school to earn a $400,000 Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) grant, funded by the National Institutes of Health, aimed at getting a breakthrough oral cancer drug to market faster.

In a new study amid current and at times heated debates over U.S.-Canada trade policy, researchers assessed the long-term effects of the 1989 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) on the Canadian labor market using data from the mid-1980s to the start of the 2000s. They found that workers were not harmed by a dramatic increase in trade between the two countries.

India, the world’s most populated country, has been successfully working to recover one of the largest, and most iconic, carnivores, the tiger, for decades. Protection, prey, peace, and prosperity have been key factors in the tiger recovery within this densely populated country, according to a new study. According to its authors, success in India offers a rare opportunity to explore the socio-ecological factors influencing tiger recovery more broadly. Earth’s large carnivores, crucial for maintaining ecosystem health, are among the most threatened species, impacted by habitat loss, prey depletion, human conflict, and illegal exploitation. These apex predators – vital for maintaining trophic cascades and ecosystem health – face diminishing populations, particularly in developing regions, where challenges like habitat fragmentation and high poverty compound conservation and recovery efforts. Tigers, once widespread across Asia, had been eliminated from over 90% of their historic range, leaving only about 3,600 wild individuals by the early 21st century. In response, tiger-range countries launched the Global Tiger Recovery Program in 2010 with the goal of doubling tiger populations by 2022. Despite hosting some of the densest human populations on Earth, India achieved this target and is now home to roughly 75% of the world’s wild tigers.

 

Drawing on 20 years of extensive national-scale tiger monitoring data, Yadvendradev Jhala and colleagues analyzed 381,000 square kilometers (km²) of tiger habitats using advanced occupancy models and high-resolution spatial datasets. The findings show that tigers have increased their range by nearly 3,000 km² annually over the past 2 decades, with a large portion of their current territory (45%) shared with ~60 million people in India. Protected areas, abundant with prey species, played a vital role in providing refuge, allowing tigers to repopulate surrounding multi-use landscapes. However, regions affected by high poverty, armed conflict, and habitat loss saw continued absence of tigers and localized extinctions, underscoring the importance of socioeconomic and political factors in ensuring successful recovery. “The success of tiger recovery in India offers important lessons for tiger-range countries as well as other regions for conserving large carnivores while benefitting biodiversity and communities simultaneously,” write Jhala et al. “It rekindles hope for a biodiverse Anthropocene.”