Health - Wednesday, July 1, 2026

In moving to ban a potent synthetic version of kratom, the president’s team paved the way for more sales for makers of rival botanic supplements, who had aggressively lobbied for the change.

A massive national study found that nearly half of Americans with kidney failure who are referred for a transplant never even begin the evaluation process, and only 19% make it onto the transplant waitlist. Researchers discovered that factors such as where a person lives, whether they are married, their income level, language, age, and even which transplant center they use can dramatically affect their chances of moving forward.

A surprising discovery is overturning a long-held assumption about how the brain’s movement center works. Researchers found that two key cerebellar cell types—thought to be tightly linked—often don’t behave in predictable ways, even though one directly influences the other. The finding suggests scientists may have been relying on the wrong signals when studying disorders such as dystonia, ataxia, and tremor.

What if Sigmund Freud was onto something that modern neuroscience is only now beginning to explain? A new paper argues that today's leading theory of the brain—as a prediction machine constantly anticipating the world—closely mirrors ideas psychoanalysis has explored for more than a century.

Could something as simple as vitamin C help support a healthier aging brain? In a study of more than 2,000 older adults in Japan, researchers found that people with lower vitamin C levels in their blood also tended to have less gray matter and weaker connections in a key brain network involved in memory, attention, and other cognitive functions.

Scientists have solved a long-standing mystery by discovering the missing genetic ingredient that helps melanoma cells become effectively immortal. The breakthrough could open the door to new treatments aimed at disrupting one of cancer's most important survival strategies.