Radically different
Nature Medicine, Published online: 03 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41591-026-04381-y
A study of Exemplar countries—Nepal, Senegal and Zambia—previously recognized for major gains in maternal and neonatal health found that, despite high coverage of childbirth care by skilled health personnel, the quality of care remains substandard.
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 03 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02316-x
By combining single-cell sequencing and morphogen screening, researchers map how signaling cues shape cell identity in mid-hindbrain organoids and identify conditions that generate novel posterior brain neuron types.
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 03 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02313-0
This study identifies a brainstem pathway through which vagus nerve stimulation reduces pain and negative affect, showing how the caudal nucleus of the solitary tract transforms pain signals and regulates pain-related dopamine responses.
Nature Neuroscience, Published online: 03 June 2026; doi:10.1038/s41593-026-02315-y
O’Neill, Posani and colleagues show that while single amygdala neurons encode multiple emotional state-related variables (for example, valence, fear and safety), population-level geometry can enable one variable to be read out cleanly without interference.
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Good morning. As discussed, it’s Ice Cream Every Day Season. But yesterday I was reminded, through a harrowing arachnid encounter while pedaling uphill, that it’s also Spiders On My Bike Every Day Season. (I park next to a shrub.)
The all-star lineup of ultra-processed food researchers who teamed up on a new special edition of the American Journal of Public Health have an overarching message for policymakers: “Do policy!”
That directive, offered by food politics scholar Marion Nestle during a press call ahead of the issue’s release, is accompanied by new polling that shows broad cross-partisan concerns over the health harms associated with ultra-processed foods.
A survey of 2,000 U.S. adults included in the new issue found that the overwhelming majority of Democrats, Republicans, and independents agreed that ultra-processed foods are addictive and a major cause of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. The survey also found majority support in all parties for government interventions including testing additives for safety before they can be included in food products, banning artificial dyes, requiring warning labels, and ordering companies to reduce the amount of sugar and salt in their foods.
As a yoga instructor in a clinic for people with eating disorders, I don’t see many straight cisgender male clients. But when I do, many have one thing in common: military service.
It is so common that, anecdotally, I would say a military background is one of the greatest risk factors for eating disorders in this population. Indeed, troops and veterans experience eating disorders and disordered eating at higher rates than civilians. For example, veterans have bulimia at rates about three times higher than civilians. Many of the male service members and veterans I work with feel their bodies will never be lean enough, strong enough, or “combat-ready” enough.
In 2020, the National Institutes of Health funded a network of 10 centers intended to “expand knowledge on re-emerging and emerging infectious diseases.” But when dangerous Ebola and hantaviruses spilled over and caused outbreaks in recent months, those research centers have not been in a position to provide aid. In 2025, the centers’ grants were terminated by the Trump administration as part of cuts that targeted work related to Covid-19 and pandemic preparedness.
The network “has been deemed unsafe for Americans and not a good use of taxpayer funding,” the agency told its grantees in May 2025. Of the $82 million allocated to the program over the course of five years, $14.9 million remained unspent, according to data collected by Grant Witness.
While the centers weren’t on the front lines of outbreak responses like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or USAID, some researchers involved in the network said the NIH cuts have weakened relationships with experts in other countries that they spent years fostering, with the hopes that it would streamline outbreak responses and the creation of diagnostics and treatments.
Medicaid leaders and advocates say they’re shocked by the Trump administration’s harsh directives for implementing Medicaid work requirements, which they say mark a pivot from how federal officials had characterized their plans just weeks ago.
Much of the conversation around the nearly 400-page rule that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released Monday afternoon centers on one of the ways that people can be exempted from work requirements: medical frailty. Getting that exemption will be more difficult than most people had expected, meaning that more sick and disabled people are likely to lose their Medicaid coverage.
“This is where we’ll see large and harmful coverage losses,” said Benjamin Sommers, an economics professor at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. “This is a population that has high medical needs and is at major risk for harm if they lose coverage. That is the headline implication of the new rule.”