College students with anxiety, depression and eating disorders may be more likely to start and to respond more positively to therapy offered via a digital app compared to referrals to in-person campus clinics, according to a study led by Penn State researchers and published today (May 7) in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

OAKLAND, Calif., May 7, 2026 -- A study published today in The Permanente Journal sheds light on what’s driving physicians to leave clinical practice early — and how those reasons are shifting. Researchers from the American Medical Association (AMA) analyzed survey responses from 971 clinically inactive physicians across all specialties who completed residency between 2000 and 2022. Their findings offer insights into why physicians are stepping away from patient care — or not entering the clinical workforce at all — especially as the nation faces a growing physician shortage.

Myocarditis is recognized as a rare but serious adverse reaction to messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccination against COVID-19. Researchers at University of Tsukuba have demonstrated that mRNA vaccination induces the generation of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species under conditions of mitochondrial vulnerability, which triggers inflammatory cell death in cardiomyocytes, ultimately leading to impaired cardiac function.

Researchers at University of Tsukuba found that cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) microdynamic motion shows region-specific alterations after mild traumatic brain injury (TBI). Using a specialized magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technique, the team non-invasively visualized these CSF changes, which have been difficult to quantify with conventional imaging. The approach is expected to advance the understanding of the relationship between post-traumatic brain conditions and cognitive function.

Researchers at University of Tsukuba report that patients with congenital heart disease (CHD) who were more physically active during childhood spend less time engaging in sedentary behavior and participate in higher levels of physical activity in adulthood. These findings may help inform the development of individualized lifestyle interventions for patients with CHD.

Excessive phosphate loading within the proximal tubular lumen has been proposed as a key mechanism driving progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) through calcium phosphate microcrystallopathy. Researchers at the University of Tsukuba demonstrated that individuals with higher estimated proximal tubular fluid phosphate (ePTFp) concentration—a noninvasive index derived from blood and urine measurements—experience a more rapid age-related decline in kidney function. These findings suggest that ePTFp may serve as a useful marker for predicting CKD progression.

The loss of physical traits—such as limbs in snakes or eyes in cavefish—is a common feature of evolution, yet the genetic mechanisms enabling such changes remain incompletely understood. In a study published in Science Advances, researchers at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology reveal how organisms can undergo significant morphological changes despite possessing highly stable and redundant genetic regulatory systems.

Led by Dr. Ella Preger-Ben Noon and Ph.D. candidate Areej Said-Ahmad from the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, the team investigated how gene expression evolves when controlled by multiple enhancers—DNA regulatory elements that ensure precise and robust activation of genes during development. These enhancers often function redundantly, buffering against mutations and maintaining stable gene activity.

Focusing on the fruit fly Drosophila sechellia, which has evolutionarily lost larval hair-like structures (trichomes), the researchers examined regulation of the shavenbaby gene, known to control this trait. Surprisingly, they found that four separate enhancers governing this gene independently lost their activity over time, each through a different molecular mechanism.

The study identified several distinct pathways leading to reduced enhancer function, including deletion of critical DNA segments, loss and gain of transcription factor binding sites, emergence of silencing elements, and activation of previously hidden repressive effects. Despite acting within the same regulatory system, these diverse changes all converged on the same evolutionary outcome: loss of gene expression and, consequently, loss of the physical trait.

These findings resolve the “stability paradox” by showing that regulatory redundancy, while promoting robustness, also creates multiple opportunities for evolutionary change. The work highlights how complex genetic systems can remain stable overall while still allowing flexibility in form and structure, offering new insights into the molecular basis of evolutionary diversity.