If you ever had a sex-ed class in school, you have probably seen a visual of sperm swimming with a wagging tail. Now, high-tech tools have shattered that view of how sperm move.

More than 300 years ago, a Dutch scientist used an early microscope to observe human sperm in motion. He saw that they appeared to swim using a tail that moved from one side to the other.

But scient...

Stroke patients in rural areas of the United States are less likely to get cutting-edge treatments and more likely to die than those in cities.

That's the takeaway from a new analysis of nationwide data on more than 790,000 adults who were hospitalized with stroke between 2012 and 2017. Most were 64 or older.

Compared to patients in cities, those treated at rural hospitals w...

Technology often makes life easier to manage, and new research confirms that's definitely the case for people with type 1 diabetes.

Continuous glucose monitors -- devices that approximate blood sugar levels every few minutes -- can help teens and young adults better manage their diabetes. They can also help older adults prevent dangerously low blood sugar levels (hypoglycemia), accor...

The first video game to help treat kids with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

EndeavorRx is a prescription-only game designed to help improve attention in 8- to 12-year-olds with ADHD who have confirmed attention problems.

It is the first game-based treatment authorized by the FDA for any condition.

Streaks of color swirl through a pulsing, black-and-white image of a patient's heart. They represent blood, and they're color-coded based on speed: turquoise and green for the fastest flow, yellow and red for the slowest.

This real-time video, which can be rotated and viewed from any angle, allows doctors to spot problems like a leaky heart valve or a failing surgical repair with unpr...

Bright yellow and looking like a headless deer, Spot can travel across ground too risky for humans. "Built for dirt and danger," in the words of its maker Boston Dynamics, this robot is now helping humans battle a different threat: the spread of coronavirus.

Equipped with an iPad and two-way radio, Spot has been making the rounds at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston since April. ...

Back before coronavirus took over the headlines, every week seemed to bring another report about artificial intelligence besting human doctors at everything from diagnosing skin cancer to spotting pneumonia on chest X-rays.

But these artificial intelligence (AI) tools -- computer programs that get better at performing a task by being "trained" on the right kind of data -- are years aw...

An injectable electrode could prove a better way to ease chronic nerve pain than opioid painkillers or bulky and expensive implants, animal research suggests.

It's called an "injectrode." It appears easier and cheaper than spinal implants for debilitating back pain, and safer than long-term use of opioids like OxyContin (oxycodone), a recent paper suggests.

A liquid silicone...

The latest addition to medical haute couture may be a necklace outfitted with a pendant that people can use to screen themselves for signs of an abnormal heart rhythm condition known as atrial fibrillation.

Fashioned by a team of Finnish researchers, the pendant houses a portable electrocardiogram (EKG) designed to transmit heart readings to a cellphone app and ultimately to a cloud-b...

Love to cuddle up? It might bring a 'mind meld,' too, new research shows.

People in close physical contact appear to have synchronized brain patterns, a revolutionary new MRI technique has revealed.

A functional MRI scan of two people cuddling under a blanket showed that their brains appeared to be falling into similar patterns of action and response, as they took turns gent...

For many COVID-19 patients battling for their lives in the ICU, a runaway immune system response -- known as a "cytokine storm" -- is their primary foe.

Doctors have few tools to help tame this hyperinflammatory condition, but early research is suggesting that nanotechnology might safely deliver drugs to affected tissues, quieting the storm.

It's so far only been tested in m...

Supplies of personal protective equipment remain scarce across the United States, especially the N95 respirator masks that health care workers use to protect themselves from the new coronavirus.

To help extend the useful life of available equipment, researchers and hospitals are turning to a long-known, if little-used, means of disinfection -- ultraviolet radiation.

"It's ge...

Testing for the COVID-19 coronavirus can be an unpleasant affair, with a doctor or nurse shoving a cotton swab deep into your nasal cavity to get a good sample.

But results that are just as accurate can be obtained from a more easily acquired saliva sample, a new Yale study reports.

Saliva samples taken from just inside the mouth were more accurate and consistent than deep n...

Contact lenses may someday do more than correct poor vision, with new, preliminary research in animals suggesting they could also monitor your diabetes and deliver medications.

The new lenses were designed to check blood sugar levels and to deliver drugs to the eye, possibly for the eye disease related to diabetes called diabetic retinopathy. After trying them out on rabbits, scienti...

Artificial intelligence may reduce the need for glioma brain cancer patients to have biopsies to determine the best treatment for their tumors, researchers report.

Currently, it's common to remove glioma samples from patients and analyze them to select appropriate therapy.

But scientists have been testing imaging techniques that might be used instead of biopsies to assess gl...

Next time you inspect your salad greens to make sure they look clean, consider this: Researchers are trying to determine if drying leafy greens using the spin cycle of a retrofitted washing machine is safe.

Some farmers use the method instead of expensive, commercial-grade spinners to dry leafy greens after they're washed. But it's not clear using a converted washing machine is safe.<...

Few think of the toilet as a font of valuable information, outside what you might read while you're sitting on the throne.

But a "smart toilet" is being developed that will help track your health by analyzing your excretions, researchers say.

The toilet would be fitted with technology that can detect a range of disease markers in stool and urine, said Seung-min Park, a senio...

Today's youngsters are as socially skilled as previous generations, despite concerns about their heavy use of technology, like smartphones and social media, new research shows.

The researchers compared teacher and parent evaluations of more than 19,000 U.S. children who started kindergarten in 1998 -- six years before Facebook appeared -- with more than 13,000 who began school in 2010...

Researchers have come up with a new twist on antibacterial technology.

By giving a metal surface a different texture, the team at Purdue University in Indiana said it may be possible to turn that surface into an immediate bacteria killer.

The technique won't kill viruses like the one responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, because they are much smaller than bacteria, the res...

THURSDAY, April 16, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- With protective gear in short supply, Duke University researchers say they've designed a much-needed respirator for health care workers battling COVID-19.

The respirator was created by a medical and engineering team at the university and is being used by Duke Health doctors treating patients with suspected cases of COVID-19.

The ...

Long periods of time in space may cause brain volume increases in astronauts, new research shows.

Extended periods in space have long been known to cause vision problems. And more than half of International Space Station crew members have reported vision changes.

Increased pressure inside the head might contribute to vision problems, scientists have suggested.

To l...

Your smartphone could help stem the spread of coronavirus, British researchers claim.

How? Their proposal for an app would record other app users who had recently been in close proximity. If a user became infected, he or she would update their status on their smartphone app, which would instantly and anonymously contact those app users who had been near the infected person.

...

In the best of times, it can be hard to get mental health treatment. But these definitely aren't the best of times, and even for people who have established relationships with mental health professionals, the coronavirus pandemic is making it harder to find the right care.

The good news is that insurance companies are often reimbursing for telehealth behavioral health services now (e...

Researchers are gathering data from thousands of Americans to create an "early warning system" that can identify people in the early stages of COVID-19.

More than 12,000 people -- including thousands of health care workers in California and West Virginia -- are already wearing specially designed Oura rings that track their temperature, breathing, heart and activity.

"Our fi...

Yet another potential vaccine against the new coronavirus is in early development -- one that researchers say could be rapidly made and distributed if it proves effective.

The vaccine has only been tested in lab mice, but it's able to spur the animals' immune systems to produce antibodies against the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

Researchers at the University of Pittsbur...

Rising prices have grabbed headlines as people struggle to afford their lifesaving insulin, but new research may have found an alternative for people with type 2 diabetes.

The study found that combining a wearable, patch-like insulin delivery device (called the V-Go) and an older, cheaper insulin could safely help people with type 2 diabetes achieve good blood sugar control.

Artificial intelligence (AI) may be able to identify people who will develop type 2 diabetes, researchers say.

For the study, the researchers used machine learning AI to analyze more than 509,000 annual health checkup records of more than 139,000 people in Japan from 2008 to 2018. They included more than 65,000 who did not have diabetes in 2008.

The data included information...

An international team has designed a computer program that predicts with up to 80% accuracy which COVID-19 patients will develop serious respiratory disease.

Developed by U.S. and Chinese researchers, the artificial intelligence (AI) program has been tested at two hospitals in China with 53 patients who were diagnosed in January with COVID-19. The new tool is considered experiment...

Imagine needing insulin to live but a natural disaster suddenly cuts off access to your medication. New drone technology may one day come to the rescue by making urgent deliveries to remote locations, researchers say.

The world's first documented drone delivery of medications to a diabetes patient in a difficult-to-reach community is described in a new paper.

The 16-minute...

Technology can help you maintain social connections if you're staying home during the coronavirus pandemic, an expert says.

"When using technology to stay connected, prioritize keeping deeper, meaningful connections with people," said Stephen Benning, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Benning suggests using Skype or other video mes...

A new study casts doubt on claims that artificial intelligence (AI) equals or surpasses the ability of human experts to interpret medical images.

Many previous studies were of poor quality and may have exaggerated the benefits of AI, which could pose a risk to the safety of millions of patients, the study authors claimed.

The investigators reviewed two randomized clinical tr...

As the coronavirus pandemic stresses the U.S. health care system, personal protective equipment -- including high-tech masks -- are in desperately short supply.

But a new study suggests an innovative solution: Reusable respirators typically used by construction or factory workers may be a viable alternative to disposable N95 respirators used by health care personnel.

The r...

Robots can provide significant help in the fight against coronavirus, experts say.

Their uses include: patient care such as telemedicine and decontamination; logistics such as delivery and handling contaminated waste; monitoring compliance with voluntary quarantines, and helping people maintain social connections, according to a paper published March 25 in the journal Science Robot...