While many institutions in the U.S. showed a decrease in scientific output in the latest Nature Index, UTMB is one of the few institutions bucking the trend. In fact, UTMB is among the top 10 “fastest rising institutions in North America” according to Nature.

“I'm aware it doesn't look good, and I would get it treated if I got it," UTMB’s Dr. Harold Pine says. "But if I got a little bit of cauliflower ear, I absolutely would wear it as a badge of honor." Pine and Dr. Nicholas Rossi, a resident at UTMB, spoke to ESPN about cauliflower ear – a deformity of the ear that usually comes with wrestling, boxing and other martial arts.

UTMB’s Dr. Gregory Gray spoke to the New York Times about the unusual outbreak of bird flu among dairy cows. These infections represent the first time that a highly pathogenic bird flu virus, which is often fatal in birds, has been detected in U.S. cattle, the Times reported. The disease seems to be spreading from cow-to-cow, scientists speculate.

To prepare graduating medical students for residency, a new type of “bootcamp” has popped up across the country. UTMB’s Dr. Sidra Qureshi and Dr. Amy Gonzalez codirect a transition to residency course at UTMB and spoke to AAMC about some of the skills covered.

The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston received more than $3.5 million in grants and awards from The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT), along with six institutions in the Houston area.

While the marketing departments of big soda companies would like us to think diet soda is healthy, the research seems to indicate otherwise. Dr. Samuel Mathis reviews the health benefits and risks of drinking diet soda in this column.

In the mid-2000s, Dr. Suszanne Klimberg, currently Chief of Surgical Oncology at the University of Texas Medical Branch, noticed that many of her patients from rural areas came in with late-stage breast cancer. It turned out that they have had no access to breast screening, where they lived. This motivated Dr. Klimberg to search for a simple screening method to be used at primary care level to detect the disease at an early stage, and this is how the idea of development of an easily deployed lab test to screen for breast cancer was born.

Today, iodine is on the World Health Organization list of essential medicines. Iodine is still added to common table salt to prevent goiters. In this episode of Medical Discovery News, Dr. Norbert Herzog and Dr. David Niesel trace back the origins of iodine treatment, from a Civil War battlefield.

A three-year-old will ask many “why” questions about their surroundings. While the questions might be difficult such as why the sky is blue the answers can be as simple as “I’m not sure. Let’s look it up?” Dr. Sally Robinson discusses how to strengthen memory abilities with children in this week’s column.

University of Texas Medical Branch and Texas Southern University are partners in a national effort to increase diversity and inclusion of underserved communities in clinic trials. Equitable Breakthroughs in Medicine Development (EQBMED), led by Yale School of Medicine, Morehouse School of Medicine, the Research Centers in Minority Institutions Coordinating Center (RCMI) at Morehouse School of Medicine, and Vanderbilt University Medical Center, is a partnership bringing clinical trial sites closer to the community to further equity and access for diverse populations.