A firm that ran online booking for about 500 GP surgeries in England went bust, sending patients back to the phones

The rest of the day

14 more stories on this beat.

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

1. 02

   Lancet: treat the manosphere like smoking

   Writers in the Lancet, a medical journal, say the manosphere is a public health problem. [6] The manosphere is a set of online groups sharing beliefs about manhood and hatred of women. [6] The authors say it is now a business that profits from the most extreme posts. [6] Kent Buse, a co-author, said: "This is a business model, not a fringe." [6] They want a response like the one against tobacco, joining governments, schools and health services. [6] The Lancet published it beside a new series of papers on men's health. [7]

   Why it matters — The authors say loneliness and money worries leave young men looking for somewhere to belong. [6] Sarah Hawkes, the other author, said boys need "something better", not just warnings. [6]

2. 03

   An 83-year-old drove himself to heart tests

   Charles Swift, 83, had to drive himself 70 miles to hospital tests in west Wales. [13] He has had 2 heart attacks and treatment for 3 types of cancer. [13] The Welsh Ambulance Service refused him free hospital transport because he owned a car. [13] The trip there and back took him 4 hours. [13] The service now says it has retrained call takers, so he would get a different answer. [13] Dolen Teifi, a volunteer transport charity, took 145 calls in 2 months about cancelled hospital trips. [13]

   Why it matters — Local councillors say hospital services keep moving further from homes in rural Ceredigion. [13] The charity says older patients are not comfortable driving to hospitals they do not know. [13]

3. 04

   More patients ask for Alzheimer's blood tests

   New blood tests can show signs of Alzheimer's disease building up in the brain. [12] They measure a protein called p-tau217, which tracks amyloid plaques, a hallmark of Alzheimer's. [12] In September, the US drug regulator approved 2 such tests. [12] They were approved only for people who already have symptoms. [12] Yet more and more patients are asking their doctors about them, NPR reports. [12] Susan Dancer, 60, whose mother and grandmother died with Alzheimer's symptoms, got one in a trial. [12] Her result was 0.10, below the 0.18 level she had hoped to be under. [12]

   Why it matters — Neurologist David Holtzman says a healthy person with a positive result has no treatment yet. [12] Researchers are now testing whether treating such people early can delay the disease. [12]

4. 05

   The brain keeps clearing faulty cells for life

   The brain keeps removing nerve cells with DNA errors through adult life, a Nature study confirms. [10] In adults the clear-out runs much more slowly than around the time of birth. [10] Cells that fail to link up with their neighbours lose out and die. [10] Christopher Walsh, a senior author at Boston Children's Hospital, called this "nature's quality control". [10] Diane Shao, a Harvard neurologist, says a broken clear-out could be part of autism. [10] Autism is one of several conditions that begin while the brain is still developing. [10]

   Why it matters — The team is also checking whether the clear-out plays a part in Alzheimer's later in life. [10] Shao says knowing how it works could one day point researchers to what to protect. [10]

5. 06

   One brain signal tied to schizophrenia's symptoms

   Schizophrenia is a mental illness that changes how people experience the world and speak. [11] A McGill University team measured beta waves, a brain rhythm that helps coordinate sensing and moving. [11] People with schizophrenia had weaker, slower beta waves than 25 people without it. [11] Those with the weakest signal had the most jumbled speech and the worst symptoms. [11] The study, in Science Advances, tested only 50 people in all. [11]

   Why it matters — If confirmed, it might help spot young people at risk of psychosis earlier. [11] Psychosis means losing touch with what is real, through hallucinations or false beliefs. [11]

6. 07

   Party names as nouns drew more prejudice

   Facebook posts using a party name as a noun drew more prejudiced replies, a study finds. [8] "Senate Republicans" uses the party as a noun; "Republican senators" uses it as an adjective. [8] The team checked 45,780 posts and 769,684 replies on US Facebook pages. [8] On a typical page, 16.7% of replies under noun posts showed party prejudice, against 14.8%. [8] Broad claims like "Democrats want climate action" also drew more prejudiced replies. [8] Social psychologists Carsten Sander and Juliane Degner did the work at the University of Hamburg. [8]

   Why it matters — Naming a group by one label makes its members seem all the same, the authors say. [8] The study only watched posts, so it cannot prove the wording caused the prejudice. [8]

7. 08

   Nearly 1 in 4 UK teenagers short of vitamin D

   Nearly 1 in 4 UK 11- to 18-year-olds were short of vitamin D last year. [16] The figure comes from the National Diet and Nutrition Survey. [16] The body makes most of its vitamin D when sunlight hits the skin. [16] Darker skin needs stronger light to make the same amount. [16] Saskia Reeves-Priestley, a 23-year-old teacher, collapsed at work and was found deficient. [16] Doctors in the UK do not routinely test for it. [16]

   Why it matters — Low vitamin D can soften bones, causing rickets in babies and young children. [16] Doctor Suma Uday says "they call it the silent disease" because it is easy to miss. [16]

8. 09

   Fibre hides in the scraps people bin

   Peels, stalks and cores often hold more fibre than the parts people eat, a study finds. [15] Only 4% of UK adults eat the 30g of fibre a day that is advised. [15] Fibre helps the gut work and is linked to less heart disease and bowel cancer. [15] King's College London scientists tested 12 kinds of fruit and vegetables. [15] Pineapple skin and core held 5 times more fibre than the flesh. [15] In the college canteen, dishes made from scraps made up a third of hot meal sales. [15]

   Why it matters — The British Nutrition Foundation warns that green potatoes and rhubarb leaves are toxic. [15] Project lead Rachel Gibson says binned scraps also waste money people paid for food. [15]

9. 10

   Ethiopia builds a simple child death-risk score

   In north-west Ethiopia, 27.3% of 565 children in intensive care died, a study finds. [19] Doctors there built a simple score to spot which sick children are most at risk. [19] It uses 9 things already on record, like oxygen levels and living in the countryside. [19] It correctly flagged 85% of the children who died. [19] Most existing scores need lab tests and machines that poorer hospitals often lack. [19]

   Why it matters — A score built from routine notes could help such hospitals decide who to treat first. [19] Living in the countryside was itself one of the warning signs. [19]

10. 11

    More violence in Hong Kong homes with SEN children

    In Hong Kong, families raising children with special educational needs reported more violence at home. [18] 23.1% of those families had faced several kinds of family violence, against 8.2% of others. [18] The survey covered 1,400 families between August 2022 and March 2023. [18] Lower income and less support from others were also more common in those homes. [18] Researchers at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University ran the study. [18]

    Why it matters — They say services that already see these children could spot family violence early. [18] The survey took one snapshot, so it cannot show which came first. [18]

11. 12

    HIV protection habits mostly stick

    Gay and bisexual men in a French study mostly kept the same HIV protection. [20] The study followed men in a group using PrEP, a medicine that protects against HIV. [20] 92% of men using condoms or PrEP were still protected at the next visit. [20] Of men using no protection, about 58% still used none at the next visit. [20] Men who took PrEP only around sex were more likely to drop protection later. [20]

    Why it matters — The authors say the first method a man chooses tends to shape what he does next. [20] So they call for close advice when someone first starts a protection method. [20]

12. 13

    A gentler caesarean method tested in France

    A French caesarean method let mothers eat their first full meal about 7 hours sooner. [17] The method, called FAUCS, was compared with the usual caesarean in 200 women at one hospital. [17] Mothers got up and moved about 2 hours earlier after the new method. [17] 49% needed stronger painkillers, against 69% after the usual operation. [17] But they stayed in hospital almost a day longer, and the surgery took longer. [17] Babies did about equally well under both methods. [17]

    Why it matters — The team says larger trials in many hospitals are needed before it is called safe. [17]

13. 14

    A weak current changed how bodies were seen

    People usually remember sexualised images of women less well than those of men, studies show. [9] Psychologists link this to objectification: seeing a person as a body, not a whole person. [9] Upright, people recognise faces and bodies about 80% of the time, against 55% upside down. [9] In a new study, half of 76 students got a weak current to the forehead. [9] With the current, the gap between remembering women and men disappeared. [9] Ciro Civile, one of the researchers, reported the results in Social Neuroscience. [9]

    Why it matters — He says objectification looks less like fixed wiring and more like a habit of seeing. [9] He also says brain stimulation is no cure for sexism. [9]

14. 15

    Gerry Fischbach, who watched synapses form, dies

    Gerald Fischbach, a brain scientist who studied how nerves connect, died on 25 October, aged 87. [14] At the NIH, the US research agency, from 1966 he grew nerve and muscle cells together. [14] In 1970 he showed synapses, the joins where nerves signal to muscles, form there. [14] That let scientists watch connections form live for the first time. [14] In 2006 he became the first science director of the Simons Foundation's autism research project. [14]

    Why it matters — Colleagues say he brought geneticists and brain scientists together to study autism. [14]