University of Texas Medical Branch researchers were part of an international team using data and artificial intelligence to identify current drugs that could be applied to treat new COVID-19 variants.

Jeff Temple, a licensed psychologist and University of Texas Medical Branch professor, told Parents that caregivers should be "be patient, non-judgmental, and open to conversation. You don't have to be an expert to know someone [your child] is struggling. You just must be a caring person who wants to help. This shows the person [child] that they can lean on you for support." It also helps to validate their feelings, reducing fear and helping your child feel less embarrassed, ashamed and alone.

Symphony conductor Trond Saverud also leads the Healing Arts Orchestra at nearby University of Texas Medical Branch, embedding itself in the community.

Adults 65 and older should receive either Fluzone HD or Fluad, explained Drs. Meagan Berman and Richard Rupp in Vaccine Smarts. If these options are not available, Flublok is the next best thing, and it is a good choice for adults 50 to 64 years of age. Still, if none of these three are available, a standard injected flu vaccine is much better than remaining unvaccinated.

Recently, a large study in Great Britain has examined how humans sleep. The researchers classified sleep patterns into five different clusters and 16 different types of sleep. It is so much more complex than most of us ever imagined, wrote Drs. Norbert Herzog and David Niesel in Medical Discovery News.

Dr. Samuel Mathis encourages women to get screened for breast cancer and schedule a mammogram.

Roughly 10.5 million children worldwide have a parent or caregiver who died from COVID-19, according to a modeling study, published Sept. 6 in JAMA Pediatrics. “I really appreciate this team’s effort to try to keep the issue of COVID-related orphans in front of the research and policy communities,” says Michael Goodman, an applied social epidemiologist at the University of Texas in Galveston. “We as a research community, as policy influencers — we as a society are not off the hook for these children.”

Gary Kobinger, an Ebola expert who was involved in the early development of the Merck vaccine, applauded the efforts to use this opportunity to try to add an Ebola Sudan vaccine to the world’s armamentarium against Ebola viruses. “It is great to see WHO leading efforts to have a clinical study evaluating a … vaccine to protect against this deadly pathogen,” said Kobinger, who directs the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch.

About 10 million Americans experience SAD, which is a form of depression that usually affects people from mid to late fall through the early days of spring. “The most common misconception is that it is ‘just’ winter blues and not that big of a deal,” said Dr. Jeff Temple, licensed psychologist and professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch. “On the contrary, it impacts millions of Americans with symptoms consistent with major depression.”

For licensed psychologist and trauma expert Jeff Temple, it’s no shock that Uvalde is top of mind during these situations. Temple is also the director of the Center for Violence Prevention at the University of Texas Medical Branch and vice dean of research for the School of Nursing. He spoke with the Texas Standard about trauma that sticks with us.