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Suffering climate change-related disasters is associated with a cumulative deterioration in mental health, meaning that the effects are exacerbated by successive events, according to an Australian study. The research, published in The Lancet Public Health, is based on longitudinal data from 2009 to 2019 on 5,000 people who suffered damage to their homes after at least one disaster (flood, wildfire, or cyclone).

Power shortages left millions of people in the Iberian peninsula and parts of southern France without electricity on Monday. The situation was exacerbated by the failure of telecommunications, which were vulnerable to the power failure.

A survey conducted in the United States by the Harvard Opinion Research Program shows that more than four in ten American adults (44%) say that changes in federal leadership will cause them to lose confidence in the recommendations of public health agencies, compared to 28% who say they will trust them more. The survey, which included a sample of more than 3,300 participants aged 18 and older, also revealed that other health issues have strong support among Democrats and Republicans, such as chronic disease prevention, pandemic protection, and reducing maternal and infant mortality.

The power outage that occurred after midday on Monday has left millions of people in the Iberian peninsula and some parts of southern France without electricity. According to Red Eléctrica, at 11:15 (peninsular time) on Tuesday, the peninsular electricity system was back to normal. ‘After surpassing the morning peak demand at 8:35 am with 28,677 MW, the night peak is expected at 21:10 pm with 31,200 MW’, they indicate.

An analysis carried out in the United States has shown that, through intensive breeding and artificial selection, humans have pushed breeds such as pugs and Persian cats to evolve with very similar skulls and flattened faces. These two species, which have a common ancestor but have been evolutionarily separated for 50 million years, have converged to the point where they resemble each other more than they do members of their own species or their ancestors. According to the study, published in PNAS, ‘this phenomenon has not been observed before in domesticated species.’ The authors lament that humans ‘have bred brachycephalic breeds to such an extreme that they are prone to respiratory, feeding and birthing problems and would not survive in the wild.’

An Australian team has conducted a study involving mice and humans that suggests that vaccine boosters would be more effective if administered in the same arm as the previous dose, at least in the short term. However, other recent research has pointed in the opposite direction. The results are published in the journal Cell.

A research team has managed to ‘rejuvenate’ embryonic stem cells from mice to give them greater differentiation potential, according to an article published in the EMBO Journal. Changing the type of sugar these cells use to grow modifies their metabolism and, according to the researchers, could improve their therapeutic potential or their use in in vitro fertilisation treatments.  

If immunisation rates continue to decline over an extended period, measles and even other eradicated diseases—such as rubella and polio—could re-emerge in the United States at endemic levels, according to a new study published today in the journal JAMA.

The frequency of aggressive coalitions among female bonobos is associated with greater power over males, according to a study published in Communications Biology. The analysis is based on observations of six wild bonobo communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo between 1993 and 2021.

An international team has successfully sent quantum messages 254 kilometres away using an existing telecommunications network in Germany. A quantum Internet would theoretically be faster and more secure, and this demonstration suggests that this type of communication can be achieved in real-world conditions. The results are published in the journal Nature.