England's senior hospital doctors will strike on 25 and 26 November and cover only emergencies, as their union says pay has fallen by a quarter

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18 more stories on this beat.

Each with its own sources. None of these is a link to the story above.

1. 02

   Newry's births likely to move to Craigavon

   The Southern Health Trust in Northern Ireland plans to move births and inpatient maternity care from Daisy Hill Hospital in Newry to Craigavon Area Hospital from 23 November. [8] Its chief executive, Steve Spoerry, told the Stormont health committee the move is highly probable. [8] The trust has five empty consultant obstetrician posts and cannot staff day and night rotas at both hospitals. [8] Craigavon would take about 1,400 extra births a year. [8]

   Why it matters — Families in Kilkeel would add about an hour to the trip. [8] One Newry mother in premature labour was sent to the Ulster Hospital instead, because Craigavon had no room that night. [8]

2. 03

   Medicare may stop paying outside home-check firms

   Medicare, the US government health plan for people over 65, has proposed paying for remote monitoring only when someone at the doctor's own clinic does it. [9] Remote monitoring means devices such as blood-pressure cuffs send readings to a care team, and nurses call when numbers go wrong. [9] Most clinics hire technology companies to do this. [9] The plan follows reports by government auditors in 2024 and 2025 that raised fraud concerns. [9]

   Why it matters — Caroline Pearson of the Peterson Center on Healthcare says rural patients would be hit hardest, because rural clinics rarely run their own programmes. [9] Humana, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association and Sutter Health, which runs its own programme, largely back the change. [9]

3. 04

   More women in ban states don't know where to go

   53% of women aged 18 to 49 in US states that ban abortion say they would not know where to get one if they needed it, up from 43% in 2024. [10] That is from a survey by KFF, a US health research group, of 3,538 women this spring. [10] Nationally the share rose from 26% to 32%. [10] Abortion pills can now be prescribed online and posted even into ban states, but only 8% of women there know this. [10]

   202443%

   202653%

   Why it matters — 12% of women now know someone who struggled to get an abortion because of state rules, up from 8%. [10] 59% worry the bans could make a future pregnancy less safe. [10]

4. 05

   Electric stoves eased asthma in Cleveland

   Adults with poorly controlled asthma in Cleveland, Ohio, reported far fewer symptoms a few months after their gas stoves were swapped for electric ones. [11] A gas flame gives off nitrogen dioxide, a gas that can set off asthma. [11] The 85 people reported gains two to three times as large as asthma medicines usually bring, Science News reports. [11] The work was led by Ashwini Sehgal of Case Western Reserve University. [11] They also reported fewer emergency visits. [11]

   Why it matters — The project was meant to follow 1,200 homes for a year, until the Trump administration ended its government grant early. [11] With no comparison group, the next step is a trial where some homes wait six months for their stove. [11]

5. 06

   Bowel cancer is rising, rarely, in children

   Colon and rectal cancer is being found more often in US children and teenagers, though it is still very rare. [12] Among 10- to 14-year-olds the rate went from 1 in a million in 1999 to 6 in a million in 2020, an analysis of US health agency data found. [12] Researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Ohio studied 84 patients aged 21 or under. [12] Eight in ten were found after the cancer had spread, against six in ten across all ages. [12]

   19991

   20206

   Why it matters — 75% of them had back or belly pain first, a symptom that usually has a commoner cause. [12] Nobody knows yet why the rate is rising; gut bacteria, processed food and childhood antibiotics are being studied. [12]

6. 07

   Schizophrenia medicines linked to fewer deaths

   People with schizophrenia who took antipsychotic medicines died at about two-thirds the rate of those who did not, a review of 68 studies covering 1.42 million people finds. [13] Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that can bring hallucinations and false beliefs, and antipsychotics are the main medicines for it. [13] The same review linked them to more cancer, 41% higher, more broken bones, 35% higher, and more lung infections. [13]

   Why it matters — The studies watched patients rather than testing the medicines against a dummy pill, so they show links, not proof. [13] The authors, writing in Molecular Psychiatry, say several estimates rest on only a few studies. [13]

7. 08

   A lifelong plan for women's hearts

   Four US medical groups, including the American Heart Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, published guidance on Monday for women's heart care across life. [14] It is built around four stages: periods, pregnancy, perimenopause and menopause. [14] Heart disease is the leading cause of death in women, and US trials have had to include women only since 1993. [14] The guidance names perimenopause, roughly age 45 to 51, as the stage when changes in cholesterol can be early signs of heart risk. [14]

   Why it matters — Sadiya Khan of Northwestern University, who led the writing, says women see many different doctors with no shared plan. [14] The guidance asks each one to carry warnings forward, such as high blood pressure in pregnancy. [14]

8. 09

   Long COVID tied to high blood pressure

   Adults in Stockholm with long COVID were 14% more likely to develop high blood pressure than others, a study of more than 1.2 million people aged 18 to 65 finds. [15] Long COVID means symptoms that last for months after the infection. [15] The link held even when the first illness was mild enough to stay out of hospital. [15] Anyone who already had high blood pressure was left out. [15]

   Why it matters — High blood pressure is one of the main heart risks that can be changed, the researchers write. [15] The study used health records only, so it could not measure blood pressure or show what causes the link. [15]

9. 10

   AI helped X-ray staff only a little

   In one emergency department in Singapore, 13 radiographers screened 2,496 X-rays for broken bones over three months, first alone and then with an AI program. [16] Radiographers are the staff who take X-rays; here they also gave the first reading. [16] They were right 97.6% of the time alone and 98.0% with the AI. [16] The AI on its own found 75.6% of fractures, against 91.6% for the radiographers. [16]

   AI program alone75.6%

   Radiographers alone91.6%

   Why it matters — With the AI they fixed 11 mistakes and made one new one. [16] The program gave no answer on 8.8% of scans, which the authors in npj Digital Medicine say mattered as much as accuracy. [16]

10. 11

    A body-clock type of depression

    About 23% of 11,380 Australians with depression fit a proposed type called circadian depression, a study finds. [17] Circadian means tied to the body clock, the roughly 24-hour timer that sets when we sleep and wake. [17] People in this group tended to be night owls, slept longer when depressed and felt tired in the mornings. [17] They reported less benefit and more side effects from two common kinds of antidepressant. [17]

    Why it matters — People recalled their own symptoms and no one's clock was measured, so it is not yet clear this is a separate type. [17] Everyone in the study had European ancestry. [17]

11. 12

    A third of young adults ask chatbots about drugs

    32% of 995 US adults aged 18 to 29 have used AI chatbots such as ChatGPT to look up drugs or alcohol, a study in JMIR Formative Research finds. [18] Nearly half of them did so at least once a month. [18] Most wanted to know the risks, and about half asked about particular drugs, including doses. [18] They rated the chatbots 3.66 out of five for trust. [18]

    Why it matters — Nobody yet knows how accurate the answers are, which the authors say is their next question. [18] Mireia Triguero Roura of Rutgers University, the lead author, warns that wrong answers could lead to risky use. [18]

12. 13

    A program reads breast cancer risk

    A computer program called BREST-AI predicts a woman's chance of breast cancer in the next three years from a mammogram that showed no cancer, researchers report in npj Breast Cancer. [19] A mammogram is an X-ray of the breast. [19] It learned from scans of 58,591 women. [19] In a UK test it scored 0.751 on a scale where 0.5 is a coin toss and 1 is perfect, beating an older tool, Mirai, at 0.700. [19]

    Why it matters — A risk score like this is what screening would need to call some women back more often than others. [19] In a smaller US test the gain over Mirai was not clear. [19]

13. 14

    Dengue settles in Brazil's cool south

    Dengue, a virus spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, has taken hold in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil's southernmost state, which has a temperate climate, a study in Nature Communications finds. [20] The mosquito spread across the state's towns from 2015 to 2023. [20] By 2023 nearly half of its towns had 20 or more cases per 100,000 people a year. [20] Brazil had 70% of the world's reported dengue cases in 2024. [20]

    Why it matters — Most people in the state have never had dengue, so few have any protection from an earlier infection. [20] The authors call for more mosquito control and watching in newly hit areas. [20]

14. 15

    Heavy cannabis use and night-time breathing

    US adults who use cannabis on 16 or more days a month report loud snoring or stopped breathing in sleep more often than non-users, 55.2% against 44.3%, a study in Sleep Health finds. [21] These are signs of sleep apnoea, when the throat closes during sleep. [21] The link held after allowing for body weight and tobacco smoking. [21] Trouble sleeping is one of the main reasons people give for using cannabis. [21]

    Why it matters — People were asked what others had seen, not tested, so the study shows a link, not a cause. [21] The American Academy of Sleep Medicine already advises against cannabis for sleep apnoea. [21]

15. 16

    Testosterone and bone after menopause

    Adding testosterone to hormone therapy after menopause raised bone density in the lower spine, while oestrogen alone only held it steady, a small study of 51 women finds. [22] Each woman tried both treatments for at least a year. [22] Sona Davis of the University of Southern California presented it this month at the Menopause Society's meeting in San Diego. [22] It has not yet been checked by other scientists in a journal. [22]

    Why it matters — Denser bone is not the same as fewer broken bones, and the study did not count fractures. [22] Larger and longer trials are still needed. [22]

16. 17

    India's caste gap in tobacco narrows

    Men from India's Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, groups long held down by the caste system, use more tobacco than upper-caste men, a study in Scientific Reports finds. [23] It used three national health surveys, from 2005-06 to 2019-21. [23] The gap narrowed considerably over those years. [23] Household wealth, schooling, type of work and reading newspapers explained much of it. [23]

    Why it matters — The authors call for help aimed at poorer communities, health teaching in their own culture and support to quit. [23]

17. 18

    Fear of tiny holes is mostly disgust

    Trypophobia, a strong dislike of clusters of small holes such as a lotus seed pod, is driven mainly by disgust rather than fear, a 2026 review concludes. [24] Geoff Cole of the University of Essex first suggested in 2013 that it was a fear of venomous animals. [24] After looking at the experiments since, he now favours a defence against disease, since hole clusters can look like skin sores or parasites. [24]

    Why it matters — In one test pupils narrowed at hole images, which goes with disgust, while fear widens them. [24] By some estimates about one in six people have it, and for some it brings panic attacks. [24]

18. 19

    Mental activities and older minds in China

    Older adults in China who did more kinds of mental activity kept their thinking better than expected for their age and schooling, a study in npj Aging finds. [25] It followed 3,293 adults aged 60 and over from 2011 to 2020. [25] Social activities helped up to about three kinds, then levelled off. [25] The social link showed in men but not in women, though more women took part. [25]

    Why it matters — The study watched people rather than testing activities, so it shows a link. [25] The authors say activity came before the better scores, which fits the link running that way. [25]