Stanford, CA, USA. Women report more intense pain than men in virtually every disease category, according to investigators who mined a huge collection of electronic medical records to establish the broad gender difference to a high level of statistical significance.

Their study suggests that stronger efforts should be made to recruit women subjects in population and clinical studies in order to find out why this gender difference exists.

Republic of Singapore. A new way to create stronger and more efficient continuous wave T-rays hold promise for improved medical scanning gadgets.

The electromagnetic Terahertz (THz) waves or T-rays are the basis for technology used in full-body security scanners.

Cambridge, United Kingdom. We’re all slaves to time, and that’s no understatement. I’m in a handover meeting, about to begin a weekend on-call as a doctor. The team discusses all of the patients and what the plan is for the next 48–72 hours.

From previous experience, I know that things on the wards change quickly and so this information will be out of date in the next 24 hours. But that’s the job; patients get sick and you have to react fast to make sure that they are treated effectiv

Santa Cruz, CA, USA. Robotics experts have completed a set of seven advanced robotic surgery systems for use by major medical research laboratories throughout the United States.

Robotic surgery has the potential for new and less invasive procedures. For some, such as prostate surgery, robots are already standard practice. In addition, robotic telesurgery, operated by a surgeon from a remote location, offers the potential for better access to expert care in remote areas and the developing world.

Champaign, lL, USA. A new bandage stimulates and directs blood vessel growth on the surface of a wound. Called the microvascular stamp, it contains living cells that deliver growth factors to damaged tissues in a defined pattern.

After a week, the pattern of the stamp is written in blood vessels, the researchers report, a development with important implications for organ regeneration.