Brown rats found and analyzed near Atlanta now carry rat lungworm, researchers report. It’s a parasite that can trigger a dangerous brain encephalitis in both people and pets, and which now threatens a wide area of the U.S. Southeast. Researchers in Georgia say the microscopic rat lungworm, known scientifically as Angiostrongylus cantonensis, typically begins its…  read on >  read on >

A deadly infection associated with hospitalization may not be the fault of the hospital, but may instead stem from the patients themselves, a new study suggests. Infection caused by the bacterium Clostridioides difficile, or C. diff, is still common in hospitals, despite extensive infection control procedures. The new research may help explain why that’s so.…  read on >  read on >

How big is a hospital bed’s carbon footprint? Pretty big, new research shows. One hospital bed alone was roughly equivalent to the carbon footprint of five Canadian households, according to researchers studying a British Columbia hospital during 2019. They identified energy and water use and the purchasing of medical products as the hospital’s primary energy…  read on >  read on >

A job that’s demanding but less than rewarding may take a big toll on a man’s heart health, a large new study suggests. The study, of nearly 6,500 white-collar workers, found that men who habitually felt stressed on the job had up to double the risk of developing heart disease as their peers who were…  read on >  read on >

Emergency medicine doctors someday might rely on consultation from artificial intelligence (AI) programs like ChatGPT to help them quickly and accurately diagnose patients’ ailments. A new study found that ChatGPT performed about as well as human doctors in diagnosing patients, when both are given the same set of clinical information. “In the end, they were…  read on >  read on >