Many parents feel reassured when their child’s recurrent abdominal pain is investigated and no underlying organic condition is found. However, a study by researchers at Semmelweis University, published in the International Journal of Pediatrics, suggests that this may be when it is worth asking a few further questions: Does the child experience pain elsewhere in the body? Has the pain persisted for at least a year? If the answer to either question is yes, it may be a warning sign. 

Researchers created a nationwide pollution snapshot of 4 diamide insecticides (DAIs) across 47 cities and 9 major Chinese river basins. Cyantraniliprole (CYTP) was the most abundant, but broflanilide (BFA) produced the highest screening-level concern for benthic midges because its species-specific chronic threshold was lower. Crop-use patterns shaped regional composition patterns. Children’s modeled cumulative exposure from raw surface-water ingestion was 2.4 times the adults’ value, although all hazard quotients remained below 1.

Under universal health coverage, allocating antidepressant benefits requires balancing health costs, clinical efficacy, and patient financial protection. We propose a dual societal–household disease-burden optimization framework and a triple-population cooperative particle swarm algorithm. Validated on real-world data from City S, China, the optimized reimbursement package cuts household out-of-pocket spending by up to 48.97% per unit treatment effect, offering a transferable decision-support tool for mental health financing and health equity in low- and middle-income countries.

Wearable electronics are rapidly transforming healthcare by enabling continuous, real-time monitoring of physiological and molecular signals directly at the point of need. This shift supports a transition from episodic, generalized care toward precision diagnosis, where individualized, longitudinal data guide early detection, risk stratification, and treatment decisions. Central to this transformation is the convergence of advanced manufacturing and heterogeneous integration strategies, which enable the development of compact, multimodal, and highly conformable diagnostic platforms. In this review, we examine how advances in materials engineering, micro/nanofabrication, and system integration have transformed wearable devices from single-parameter sensors into fully integrated, multimodal diagnostic systems. We outline key architectures and transduction mechanisms and highlight manufacturing approaches such as printing, 3D fabrication, photolithography, and laser writing. We emphasize heterogeneous integration strategies that combine sensing, electronics, power, and communication into skin-conformal platforms for long-term use. These advances enable precision diagnostics through continuous monitoring, multimodal data fusion, and individualized baselines. We also outline key challenges to clinical translation and discuss future directions toward robust, scalable, and clinically actionable systems, providing a strategic outlook for next-generation wearable electronics in precision diagnosis.

A common asthma medication improves motor skills and muscle strength in children with congenital myopathies, a group of incurable muscle diseases. In a study, children receiving the drug were able to both walk and stand up more quickly.

In a new, paradigm-shifting study in ovaries from 28 women, scientists at Northwestern University and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging found in the decades well past menopause, the ovary remains biologically active and continues to remodel with age, showing increased inflammation and changes in tissue structure. The study also found a molecular link between ovarian aging and cancer.

“In the ovary, we reach a point of no return with respect to fertility in which it's no longer producing eggs, and I would venture to say most people assume those ovaries are just sitting there doing nothing, similar to the appendix,” said co-corresponding author Francesca Duncan, associate professor of reproductive science in medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. “But that's what makes this study very different.” 

The findings challenge the notion that the ovary is an innocent bystander after reproduction ends, raising new questions about whether it could play a more active role in aging and chronic disease in women. 

A study of 320 lonely adults from 12 low-income neighborhoods found that prescriptions for time spent in nature significantly reduced symptoms of loneliness, with lasting impacts. Some countries are now pointing to "nature-based social prescribing" as an antidote to the global loneliness epidemic.

Children with intellectual disabilities face greater mental health difficulties when they are from a disadvantaged background, finds a new study led by UCL researchers.