Before crisis strikes — smartwatch tracks triggers for opioid misuse
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 4-Apr-2026 13:15 ET (4-Apr-2026 17:15 GMT/UTC)
Opioid overdoses continue to take a devastating toll across the United States. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2023, the nation recorded roughly 105,000 drug overdose deaths overall, with nearly 80,000 deaths involving opioids. Worldwide, opioids are also responsible for the majority of drug-related deaths. A University of California San Diego study is working on a potentially life-saving measure that may be as simple as strapping on a smartwatch.
Formaldehyde is a common but unwelcome guest in many modern homes, leaking silently from furniture, flooring, and household products. While this colorless gas is a known respiratory irritant, cleaning it out of the air usually requires expensive or energy-heavy technology. Now, a research team from Vietnam National University has found a clever way to turn agricultural waste into a high-tech filter that breathes new life into indoor spaces.
Researchers at the University of Cincinnati developed a novel artificial intelligence to predict substance use defining behaviors with up to 83% accuracy and 84% accuracy to predict the severity of the addiction.
Researchers at Arizona State University and their international colleagues have developed a device that cuts sample consumption by as much as 97% while still producing high-quality structural data. The technology could accelerate drug discovery by showing how medicines interact with their protein targets in real time and help engineers design better enzymes for industry and biotechnology. It may also enable deeper insights into disease, enable the study of rare proteins that are difficult to produce, and unlock the full potential of next-generation X-ray laser facilities without excessive sample waste.
Babies are born with the ability to predict rhythm, according to a study published February 5th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Roberta Bianco from the Italian Institute of Technology, and colleagues.