Cats are more social than they are often given credit for. Can you help yours access its inner dog?By Graham RoumieuThis article is part of our Pets special section on scientists’ growing interest in our animal companions.Over the last two decades, a flurry of scientific studies have demonstrated, over and over again, that dogs are social savants, highly attuned to human cues.But even as canine cognitive science flourished, few researchers bothered to probe the social skills of cats. After all, dogs were descended from the social gray wolf and had been intentionally engineered to perform specific roles alongside humans. Cats, on the other hand, were descended from the solitary African wildcat and had not been under the same selective pressure from people. They were viewed as antisocial and also, for good measure, uncooperative, making them unappealing research subjects.In recent years, however, a handful of undeterred scientists have produced a small body of research suggesting that we have underestimated cats’ social skills, and that interest is growing. “I see more and more papers each year,” said Kristyn Vitale, an animal behavior scientist at Unity Environmental University in Maine. “We’ve just got a lot of catching up to do.”Dr. Vitale, who has three cats of her own, often collaborates with Monique Udell, the director of the human-animal interaction lab at Oregon State University. Dr. Vitale spoke to The New York Times about their research — and about her dream study of cat cognition.The following has been edited and condensed for clarity.What do people tend to get wrong about cats?The biggest thing that I see is people stating that cats are not social creatures, or that social interaction isn’t important for cats. Cats are really flexible with their social behavior. So it’s highly individual, and based off the cat and their personal experiences.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Even though there is substantial variability in the contents and nutritional profiles of plant-based meat alternatives (PBMAs), the nutritional profiles tend to reflect a heart-healthy dietary pattern. A review article appearing in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, published by Elsevier, of the available studies directly comparing the impact of plant-based and animal-based meats consistently suggests that the plant-based alternatives improve cardiovascular risk factors.
PBMAs are highly processed plant-based food products that typically replace meat in the diet. In Canada, the growing demand for PBMAs coincides with public health recommendations to reduce ultra-processed food consumption, which prompts the need to investigate the long-term health implications of PBMAs.
Lead author Matthew Nagra, ND, Vancouver, BC, Canada, says, “While the plant-based meat market has experienced significant growth in recent years and more and more Canadians are enjoying plant-based burgers, surprisingly little is known about how these meat alternatives may impact health and in particular cardiovascular disease risk. Thus, we sought to review the available literature on the topic to identify what is currently known and to provide direction for future research.”
The authors of the article reviewed the research published from 1970 to 2023 on PBMAs, their contents, nutritional profiles, and impact on cardiovascular disease risk factors, such as cholesterol levels and blood pressure. Their analysis shows: There is substantial variability in the contents and nutritional profiles of PBMAs. On average, PBMAs tend to have a more heart-healthy nutritional profile than meat, although the high sodium content of some products may be of concern. PBMAs have been shown to improve some cardiovascular risk factors, including cholesterol levels, in several randomized controlled trials. PBMAs have not been shown to raise blood pressure, despite the high sodium content of some products. There is currently a lack of long-term research evaluating how these alternatives may affect the risk of developing a heart attack or stroke. There is currently little research on the healthfulness of some common components of PBMAs, such as vital wheat gluten (seitan).The authors of the review article were surprised to find that there is a near complete lack of research on vital wheat gluten, which is the primary protein source incorporated into many popular PBMAs, and cardiovascular risk factors.
Dr. Nagra continues, “Further, the lack of research on cardiovascular outcomes as of 2023 is shocking, given that there are randomized controlled trials evaluating risk factors dating back to 1990. More detailed research is needed in light of the increasing consumption of PBMAs and our lack of knowledge of how these products impact risk.”
In an accompanying editorial, J. David Spence, CM, MD, FRCPC, FAHA, Professor Emeritus of Neurology & Clinical Pharmacology, Western University, and Director, Stroke Prevention & Atherosclerosis Research Centre, Robarts Research Institute, London, ON, Canada, notes, “In an excellent review of PBMAs, Nagra et al. focus on reduction of cardiovascular risk factors, and the effects of various individual dietary factors on cardiovascular risk.”
However, Professor Spence points out that, “What really matters is not the effect of individual components of a diet, nor the effect of diet on cardiovascular risk factors; it is the effect of diet on the actual risk of cardiovascular events such as myocardial infarction and stroke. Most physicians markedly underestimate the cardiovascular benefit of diet and place far too little emphasis on diet in the management of patients at high risk of cardiovascular events.”
Senior author of the review article Ehud Ur, MB, FRCPC, Professor, Division of Endocrinology & Metabolism, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada, concludes, “For those looking to reduce their meat intake, especially if it’s red meat, replacing that with PBMAs is likely a heart-healthy choice. For those who already limit their meat intake, PBMAs can be incorporated into a healthy dietary pattern as an excellent protein source; however, it may be beneficial to choose options that are lower in saturated fat and sodium if consuming them regularly.”
Finally, Dr. Spence adds a note of caution regarding the dietary implications of egg consumption, saying, “Persons at risk of cardiovascular disease should limit meat intake and avoid egg yolk, so plant-based meat substitutes and egg substitutes are helpful to patients wishing to reduce their cardiovascular risk. Their effect on reducing actual cardiovascular risk is undoubtedly much greater than their effect on cardiovascular risk factors.”

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The excruciating mosquito-borne disease is surging in much of the world. Federal health officials urged physicians to watch for new cases in the United States.Federal health officials warned that the risk of contracting dengue in the United States has increased this year, a worrying sign as global cases of the mosquito-borne disease hit record numbers.In the first half of this year, countries in the Americas reported twice as many cases as were reported in all of 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday in an alert to health care providers.The region has seen nearly 10 million cases of the virus so far in 2024, most of which originated in outbreaks in South American countries like Brazil and Argentina.While the local transmission of the virus in the mainland United States has been limited, Puerto Rico, which is classified as having “frequent or continuous” dengue risk, declared a public health emergency in March and has reported nearly 1,500 cases.Cases of dengue fever, a mosquito-borne viral illness that can be fatal, are surging around the world. The increase is occurring both in places that have long struggled with the disease and in areas where its spread was unheard-of until the last year or two, including France, Italy and Chad, in Central Africa.There have even been a few hundred cases of local transmission in the United States. Florida health officials urged the public to take precautions — like wearing bug spray and dumping out standing water — after reporting a locally acquired case of dengue this month.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Chocolate-flavored pills for children who hate taking medicine.
Several drugs combined into one daily pill for seniors who have trouble remembering to take their medications.
Drugs printed at your local pharmacy at personalized dosages that best suit your health needs.
These are just a few potential advantages of 3D drug printing, a new system for manufacturing drugs and treatments on-site at pharmacies, health care facilities and other remote locations.
In 2015, the Food and Drug Administration approved the first 3D-printed drug, Spritam (levetiracetam), for epilepsy. Several other manufacturers and drug companies are developing their own ones.
But the widespread adoption of 3D drug printing will require stringent quality control measures to ensure that people get the right medication and dosage. Even a tiny mismeasurement of a drug’s ingredient during the printing process could endanger a patient’s health.
In a new research paper, NIST research scientist Thomas P. Forbes assesses various approaches to ensuring that 3D drug printers work as designed. The journal article applies a “quality by design” analysis to evaluate the best procedures and protocols to ensure that 3D printers produce drugs at the correct dosages and with the correct mix of chemicals.
Though various methods exist for remotely printing drugs, Forbes focused on one of the most common: inkjet printers and similar systems that can print personalized medication on demand.
Like inkjet printers in homes, though larger, the printer has nozzles that deposit the drug’s liquified materials, or inks, into tiny wells on a tray or directly into capsules. Through freeze-drying and other processes, the liquid can be turned into a tablet or powder poured into a capsule. It can also be evaporated onto a thin film that dissolves in the mouth.
Forbes’ paper does not make any recommendations. Instead, his research identifies and tests several possible methods and techniques for maintaining quality control in 3D drug printing.

In 2018, Arthur Ashkin won the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing optical tweezers: laser beams that can be used to manipulate microscopic particles. While useful for many biological applications, optical tweezers require extremely controlled, static conditions to work properly.
“Optical tweezers work by creating a light ‘hotspot’ to trap particles, like a ball falling into a hole. But if there are other objects in the vicinity, this hole is difficult to create and move around,” says Romain Fleury, head of the Laboratory of Wave Engineering in EPFL’s School of Engineering.
Fleury and postdoctoral researchers Bakhtiyar Orazbayev and Matthieu Malléjac have spent the last four years trying to move objects in uncontrolled, dynamic environments using soundwaves. In fact, the team’s method — wave momentum shaping — is entirely indifferent to an object’s environment or even its physical properties. All the information that’s required is the object’s position, and the soundwaves do the rest.
“In our experiments, instead of trapping objects, we gently pushed them around, as you might guide a puck with a hockey stick,” Fleury explains.
The unconventional method, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Spark program, has been published in Nature Physics in collaboration with researchers from the University of Bordeaux in France, Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan, and the Vienna University of Technology in Austria.
Very simple, very promising
If soundwaves are the hockey stick in Fleury’s analogy, then a floating object like a ping-pong ball is the puck. In the lab’s experiments, the ball was floating on the surface of a large tank of water, and its position was captured by an overhead camera. Audible soundwaves emitted from a speaker array at either end of the tank directed the ball along a pre-determined path, while a second array of microphones ‘listened’ to the feedback, called a scattering matrix, as it bounced off of the moving ball. This scattering matrix, combined with the camera’s positional data, allowed the researchers to calculate in real time the optimal momentum of the soundwaves as they nudged the ball along its path.

“The method is rooted in momentum conservation, which makes it extremely simple and general, and that’s why it’s so promising,” Fleury says.
He adds that wave momentum shaping is inspired by the optical technique of wavefront shaping, which is used to focus scattered light, but this is the first application of the concept to moving an object. What’s more, the team’s method is not limited to moving spherical objects along a path: they also used it to control rotations, and to move more complex floaters like an origami lotus.
Mimicking conditions inside the body
Once the scientists succeeded in guiding a ping-pong ball, they performed additional experiments with both stationary and moving obstacles designed to add inhomogeneity to the system. Successfully navigating the ball around these scattering objects demonstrated that wave momentum shaping could perform well even in dynamic, uncontrolled environments like a human body. Fleury adds that sound is a particularly promising tool for biomedical applications, as it is harmless and noninvasive.
“Some drug delivery methods already use soundwaves to release encapsulated drugs, so this technique is especially attractive for pushing a drug directly toward tumor cells, for example.”
The method could also be a game-changer for biological analysis or tissue engineering applications where manipulating cells by touching them would cause damage or contamination. Fleury also sees 3D printing applications for wave momentum shaping, for example to arrange microscopic particles before solidifying them into an object.
Ultimately, the researchers believe their method could also work using light, but their next goal is to take their sound-based experiments from the macro- to micro-scale. They have already received SNSF funding to do experiments under a microscope, using ultrasonic waves to move cells around.

new study by Penn researchers examined, forthe first time, the differences in lung transplant graft outcomes from organs recovered from the two types of deceased organ donor care facilities operating in the United States. The research, published today in JAMA Network Open, offers insights that could improve the organ donation and transplantation process for patients across the nation.
In the U.S., deceased organ donors are traditionally cared for in hospitals, which provide intensive care and testing needed to rehabilitate organs, identify transplant recipients, and perform organ recovery surgeries. Over the past two decades, some donors have been transferred from hospitals to donor care units (DCUs), which provide similar services but focus solely on deceased donors. Two types of DCUs currently operate in the US: independent — located outside of acute-care hospitals- and hospital-based.
Researchers analyzed lung donation rates and lung transplant survival outcomes from almost eleven thousand deceased donors who underwent organ recovery procedures between April 2017 and June 2022. The researchers hypothesized that lung transplant survival would not significantly differ between organs recovered from donors managed in these two types of units. However, the study showed that while independent donor centers generally saw higher donation rates, recipients of lungs from hospital-based DCUs had longer survival.
“These insights could drive improvements in organ donor management practices nationwide, ultimately enhancing the quality and availability of donated organs,” said Emily Vail, MD, MSc, an assistant professor of Anesthesiology and Critical Care in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, who led the study. The study underscores that the care system for deceased organ donors is evolving, with the potential to significantly improve organ quality and increase the number of available organs per donor.
Vail’s research is particularly crucial given the fragile nature of lung tissue and the stringent criteria for lung donation. Only about 20% of deceased donors are eligible to donate lungs, making efficient and effective donor management practices vital.
The Gift of Life Donor Care Center at Penn Medicine, established in late 2022, is one of at least 15 hospital-based DCUs currently operating in the United States. Gift of Life transplant coordinators work with a multidisciplinary team of critical care physicians, nurses, respiratory therapists and pharmacists to provide specialized care for deceased organ donors diagnosed with brain death and authorized to donate organs, while providing support to their families. The Gift of Life Donor Care Center serves hospitals and donor families across the eastern half of Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, and Delaware.
The research was funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research (5K12HS026372-05), the National Institutes of Health National Institutes of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Disease (R01-DK070869, K24AI146137), and the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (K24HL115353).

Every so often, a food product is recalled because of some sort of contamination. For consumers of such products, a recall can trigger doubt in the safety and reliability of what they eat and drink. In many cases, a recall will come too late to keep some people from getting ill.
In spite of the food industry’s efforts to fight pathogens, products are still contaminated and people still get sick. Much of the problem stems from the tools available to screen for harmful pathogens, which are often not effective enough at protecting the public.
In AIP Advances, by AIP Publishing, researchers from Guangdong University of Technology and Pudong New District People’s Hospital developed a new method for detecting foodborne pathogens that is faster, cheaper, and more effective than existing methods. The researchers hope their technique can improve screening processes and keep contaminated food out of the hands of consumers.
Even with the best detection method, finding contaminating pathogens is not an easy task.
“Detecting these pathogens is challenging, due to their diverse nature and the various environments in which they can thrive,” said author Silu Feng. “Additionally, low concentrations of pathogens in large food samples, the presence of similar non-pathogenic organisms, and the complex nature of different food types make accurate and rapid detection difficult.”
Existing detection methods do exist, such as cell culture and DNA sequencing, but are challenging to employ at large scales. Not every batch of food can be thoroughly tested, so some contaminants inevitably slip through.
“Overall, these methods face limitations such as lengthy result times, the need for specialized equipment and trained personnel, and challenges in detecting multiple pathogens simultaneously, highlighting the need for improved detection techniques,” said Feng.

The study’s authors decided to take a different approach, designing a microfluidic chip that uses light to detect multiple types of pathogens simultaneously. Their chip is created using 3D printing, making it easy to fabricate in large amounts and modify to target specific pathogens.
The chip is split into four sections, each of which is tailored to detect a specific pathogen. If that pathogen is present in the sample, it will bind to a detection surface and change its optical properties. This arrangement let the researchers detect several common bacteria, such as E. coli, salmonella, listeria, and S. aureus, quickly and at very low concentrations.
“This method can quickly and effectively detect multiple different pathogens, and the detection results are easy to interpret, significantly improving detection efficiency,” said Feng.
The team plans to continue developing their device to make it even more applicable for food screening.

Children who report being more empathetic are more likely to show signs of poorer health in the face of more interparental conflict than less empathetic children, according to a new study led by researchers in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development.
The study, led by Hannah Schreier, associate professor of biobehavioral health and co-funded faculty member in the Social Science Research Institute, was recently published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.
“For children this age, 7 to 9 years old, the family home and parents are important, so observing conflict between the parents can be stressful,” Schreier said. “And we now know that children may react negatively to perceived conflict from a physiological point of view.”
The researchers used survey- and blood sample-derived data from home visits with 106 children between 7 and 9 years old and their parents participating in Family Foundations, an initiative led by co-author Mark Feinberg, research professor in the Edna Bennett Pierce Prevention Research Center (PRC), that evaluates the effectiveness of a perinatal coparenting intervention for first-time parents. Prior research from that on-going study shows that parents who took Family Foundations classes had more positive family relationships and experienced less conflict across the family, as well as between parents or children.
The surveys assessed both the children’s perception of interparental conflict, including whether they felt threatened and whether they felt they were at fault when their parents fought. The children also self-reported on their empathy, including whether they felt sorry when other people were sad and whether they cared about the feelings of others. The parents provided ratings of overall child health on a scale from excellent to poor.
The researchers also analyzed C-reactive protein (CRP) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) levels in blood samples collected from the children. Increased levels of CRP and IL-6 indicate higher levels of chronic inflammation in the body.
Inflammation is a key aspect of the body’s immune response. Acute, or short-term, inflammation is an important response to a specific injury and can help the body to heal. Chronic inflammation does not have a specific source or injury causing it. This chronic, background inflammation, which isn’t necessarily concerning in the short-term, is related to long-term negative health effects when elevated over a long period of time. Prior research has linked chronic inflammation to cardiovascular disease risk, diabetes and certain types of cancer, among other things.

From these self-reported and biological measures, the researchers determined that children who reported being more empathetic had higher levels of CRP, which is suggestive of greater levels of chronic inflammation, and worse parent-reported overall health when perceiving more interparental conflict.
Critically, the researchers said more empathetic children did not report greater levels of conflict in the home. Additionally, children reported on regular, daily conflict that did not rise to the level of violence or domestic violence.
Schreier said it is particularly important to have these results for younger children, who had largely been omitted from previous research on possible physiological consequences of empathy and conflict. For this age group, the results also have implications that extend far beyond the household.
“These results raise interesting questions about children’s home and school environments,” she said. “Empathy is important, especially at this life stage, but it doesn’t make sense to push more empathy teaching toward all kids. Some kids might need help understanding when it is okay to set boundaries and how to find a balance between being aware of how others feel, but not taking on every little thing that happens.”
The result could impact future educational programs, as it highlights the importance of addressing individualized needs, Schreier said.
“The main message in our society is that empathy is good, and it’s beneficial to us to be surrounded by people who are more empathetic,” Schreier said. “But empathy can have positive and negative impacts. We don’t talk a lot about what it means for the person who is more empathetic and what it is like taking on everyone else’s emotions. Our work adds to a growing literature showing that being more empathetic may have adverse consequences on your health.”
Jennifer Graham-Engeland, professor of biobehavioral health; Damon Jones, associate research professor in the PRC; and Aishwarya Ganguli and Caitlin Givens, graduate students in the Department of Biobehavioral Health, also contributed to this research.
The National Institutes of Health funded this research.

Nutritionists generally advise everyone to eat more dietary fiber, but a new Cornell University study suggests that its effects on health can vary from person to person. The findings indicate that recommendations should be tailored to each individual’s gut microbiome.
The study, published in Gut Microbes, focused on resistant starch, a category of dietary fiber found in such foods as bread, cereals, green bananas, whole-grain pasta, brown rice and potatoes.
The researchers identified the gut microbe species that change in response to two different types of resistant starch. They found evidence that each individual may have a unique response to eating a resistant starch, with some people benefiting and others experiencing little or no effect. The reason appears tied to the level of diversity and composition of a person’s gut microbiome.
“Precision nutrition definitely has a use in determining what dietary fiber we should tell people to eat,” said Angela Poole, assistant professor of molecular nutrition and senior author of the study.
“This is critical because we’ve had public messaging advising people to eat more dietary fiber for decades,” Poole said. “At the same time, less than 10% of people eat the recommended intake. Since there are many different types of dietary fiber and carbohydrates, a better strategy would be to collect data on each person and tell them which dietary fiber they can eat to get the most bang for their buck.”
In the study, Poole and colleagues tested three dietary treatments on 59 participants over seven weeks.
The study was supported by the President’s Council of Cornell Women and the National Institutes of Health.