As Europe marks European Antibiotic Awareness Day (EAAD), new data published today by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) reveal a stark reality: antimicrobial resistance (AMR) continues to rise across the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA), threatening to reverse years of medical progress.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a machine learning approach that could help public health officials anticipate disease outbreaks by analyzing vaccine skepticism on social media. Using the mathematical concept of tipping points, the team showed that online misinformation spreads much like a contagion and can signal heightened outbreak risk well before illness appears. Their model, tested on posts from California ahead of a 2014 measles outbreak, detected early warning patterns that traditional tweet-counting methods missed. This work supports Waterloo’s efforts to strengthen evidence-based decision-making and rebuild public trust in science, and the model could eventually be adapted across platforms like TikTok and Instagram to help identify communities nearing a critical shift in vaccination sentiment.

Nearly half of U.S. adults (47%) are worried they won’t be able to afford necessary healthcare in the coming year, the highest level of concern recorded since West Health and Gallup began tracking in 2021. The share of Americans reporting that they or someone in their household were not able to pay for prescription medications in the past three months has reached a record high of 20%, or one in five Americans.

Strongest evidence yet of the anti-obesity effects of black cumin found using cell experiments and clinical trials.