Each year the University of Iowa softball team gets together for a party, has a Secret Santa gift exchange, and celebrates the holiday season. But this year the party will be different. Rather than spending money on one another, the Hawkeyes decided to give back.

UI speech pathologist Laura Bohnenkamp offers suggestions of gifts for kids with special needs, including how to avoid the expense of adaptive toys by seeking tips in online forums about how to adapt standard toys on your own.

University of Iowa researchers have developed a new vaccine that protects against lethal pneumonia caused by Staphylococcus aureus (staph) bacteria, including drug-resistant strains like MRSA. The new vaccine, tested in animal models, works by targeting the toxins secreted by staph bacteria. Results appear in the Journal of Infectious Disease.

Jacob Priest, visiting assistant professor in the UI College of Education's Couple and Family Therapy Program, participated in a panel discussion about family dynamics at the holidays.

Volker Thomas, UI College of Education professor and chair of the couple and family therapy program, shares why the holiday season can be stressful and explains how to keep calm this year.

UI psychiatrist Jennifer McWilliams says telemedicine has increased psychiatric services in parts of the state that lack them, noting technology is helping address a shortage of doctors in rural areas and connecting specialists to those that need them immediately, including stroke patients.

In recommending new guidelines for blood pressure medication, doctors focused on people age 60 because they “are a unique population and we are concerned about the number of medications that may be required,” says Paul James, head of family medicine at the University of Iowa.

"Iowa Now," the University of Iowa's central news and storytelling platform, will publish on a lighter schedule Dec. 23-Jan. 3.

Eliot Shearer used advances in DNA sequencing to develop a single test to screen for all known deafness-causing genes, making diagnostic testing more cost-effective. Shearer is the 2013 Montgomery Dissertation Prize winner in biomedical and health sciences.

A new study by a University of Iowa researcher has found that the tone of a governor’s state of the state address has an immediate impact on the stock prices of firms based in that state, and in those firms' later investment behavior.

A nationally recognized expert panel on which a University of Iowa physician and researcher serves as co-chairman is releasing new guidelines for the management of high blood pressure that would raise the threshold for what is considered dangerous levels for people age 60 and older and could reduce the number of drugs some patients may have to take.

New guidelines, developed by a national committee co-chaired by the UI's Paul James, suggest that people over 60 can have a higher blood pressure than previously recommended before starting treatment to lower it.