It’s not just bumper-to-bumper highway traffic that’s causing your blood pressure to spike during your daily commute. New research shows that the exhaust fumes spewing from all those vehicles triggers a significant increase in car passengers’ blood pressure. The observed increase is comparable to the effect of a high-salt diet, researchers found, and the effect…  read on >  read on >

The world is being flooded with internet-driven misinformation, but there are ways to counter fake news with the facts, a new report says. These include aggressive fact-checking, preemptively debunking lies before they take root and nudging people to be more skeptical before sharing information, the American Psychological Association analysis found. The product of more than…  read on >  read on >

TUESDAY, Nov. 28, 2023 (Healthday News) — The prevalence of a highly mutated COVID variant has tripled in the past two weeks, new government data shows. Now, nearly 1 in 10 new COVID cases are fueled by the BA.2.86 variant, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday. The variant is spreading the fastest in…  read on >  read on >

It might seem that surfing the web could cause a person’s mental health to suffer, but a landmark new study has concluded that internet use poses no major threat to people’s psychological well-being. Researchers compared country-level internet and broadband use to the mental well-being of millions of people in dozens of countries, and came away…  read on >  read on >

Repeated COVID-19 outbreaks in nursing homes have had a stark and lasting impact on vulnerable older residents, a new study reports. Long COVID has left many residents of these facilities relying more and more on staff to help them months later with basic, everyday activities such as bathing and using the toilet.  Many also experience…  read on >  read on >

A new type of bacterial infection could be the culprit behind a mysterious canine respiratory illness that has been infecting dogs from coast to coast, New Hampshire researchers say. Genetic sequencing of samples from 70 infected dogs from New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Massachusetts has revealed a previously unknown bacterium, researchers from the New Hampshire…  read on >  read on >