More than half of the world’s population speaks more than one language—but there is no consistent method for defining “bilingual” or “multilingual.” This makes it difficult to accurately assess proficiency across multiple languages and to describe language backgrounds accurately.  A team of New York University researchers has now created a calculator that scores multilingualism, allowing users to see how multilingual they actually are and which language is their dominant one.  The work, which uses innovative ...

The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology has launched a randomized phase III clinical trial called RECIPROCAL (Alliance A032304) to explore whether doctors can optimize the timing of targeted radiation therapy to minimize side effects while preserving efficacy in men with advanced prostate cancer. “Our goal in this trial is to strategically improve both survival and quality of life for men living with advanced prostate cancer,” said Alliance study chair Thomas Hope, MD, a nuclear medicine physician and Professor in Residence at the University of California, San Francisco. “We hope to prove we can safely adjust the ...

Life begins with a single fertilized cell that gradually transforms into a multicellular organism. This process requires precise coordination; otherwise, the embryo could develop serious complications. Scientists at ISTA have now demonstrated that the zebrafish eggs, in particular their curvature, might be the instruction manual that keeps cell division on schedule and activates the appropriate genes in a patterned manner to direct correct cell fate acquisition. These insights, published in Nature Physics, could help improve the accuracy of embryo assessments in IVF. Nikhil Mishra ...

An international research team identified hundreds of genes essential for the development of brain cells, including one gene linked to a severe neurodevelopmental disorder not previously described. The study published in Nature Neuroscience offers a new approach to identifying genes involved in neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. [Hebrew University] Which genes are required for turning embryonic stem cells into brain cells, and what happens when this process goes wrong? In a new study published today in Nature Neuroscience, researchers led by Prof. Sagiv Shifman from The Institute ...

A drug mimicking the hormone progesterone has anti-cancer activity when used together with conventional anti-oestrogen treatment for women with breast cancer, a new Cambridge-led trial has found. A low dose of megestrol acetate (a synthetic version of progesterone) has already been proven as a treatment to help patients manage hot flushes associated with anti-oestrogen breast cancer therapies, and so could help them continue taking their treatment. The PIONEER trial has now shown that the addition of low dose megestrol to such treatment may ...

The new EU-funded SHASAI project (Secure Hardware and Software for AI systems) will tackle this challenge. Funded under the Horizon Europe programme, SHASAI aims to strengthen the security, resilience and trustworthiness of AI-based systems. The project will address cybersecurity risks from the initial design and development stages through to deployment and real-world operation.  “With SHASAI, we aim to move beyond fragmented security solutions and address AI cybersecurity as a lifecycle challenge. By combining secure hardware and software, risk-driven ...

Our sun rotates around its axis once every 28 days. From earth, therefore, active regions of the sun can only be observed for up to two weeks at a time. After this, they rotate beyond our field of view, remaining hidden from us for two weeks. “Fortunately, the Solar Orbiter mission, launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2020, has broadened our perspective,” says Ioannis Kontogiannis, solar physicist at ETH Zurich and the Istituto ricerche solari Aldo e Cele Daccò (IRSOL) in Locarno. The Solar Orbiter ...

Self-harming and self-sabotaging behaviours, from skin picking to ghosting people, all stem from evolutionary survival mechanisms, according to a compelling new psychological analysis. Clinical psychologist Dr Charlie Heriot-Maitland, in his new book Controlled Explosions in Mental Health, explores the biological necessities behind harmful behaviours. He argues that although these behaviours seem counterintuitive, the brain uses these small harms as a protective dose to prevent further harms. For example, someone may procrastinate starting a project, causing themselves harm, but trying to prevent a higher-stakes harm of failure ...

The meninges act as a key mechano-biological interface—dissipating external forces, supporting neuroimmune homeostasis, and dynamically regulating the brain microenvironment—yet they remain comparatively underexplored despite their importance. Within the three-layer meningeal system, the pia–arachnoid complex (PAC, i.e., leptomeninges) interfaces closely with the subarachnoid space that contains cerebrospinal fluid, vasculature, and immune cells, making it central to both mechanical safeguarding and broader physiological/immune functions. With the growing burden of traumatic brain injury (TBI), understanding force transmission across the brain–skull ...

Healthcare and therapy systems face a worsening workforce shortage, creating an urgent need for technologies that can support or augment human roles. However, much existing work emphasizes functional-task support while overlooking the emotional impact humans contribute—an omission that is especially critical in care contexts where empathy and emotional support are central to patient well-being. In rehabilitation, for example, robots can deliver highly repeatable, standardized training, yet still fall ...

The human brain is constantly processing information that unfolds at different speeds – from split-second reactions to sudden environmental changes to slower, more reflective processes such as understanding context or meaning.   A new study from Rutgers Health, published in Nature Communications, sheds light on how the brain integrates these fast and slow signals across its complex web of white matter connectivity pathways to support cognition and behavior.   Different regions of the brain are specialized ...

This year’s coveted Tao Li Award has gone to Jundong Li, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and computer science at the University of Virginia. Li, feeling “genuinely grateful and a bit overwhelmed,” accepted the award on Nov. 14 at the IEEE International Conference on Data Mining in Washington, D.C. “The ICDM Tao Li Award is deeply meaningful to me, and I have long admired the scholars who received it in prior years, all of whom are leaders in the data mining and machine learning community,” Li ...

Mircea Stan was already feeling good owing to the Thanksgiving holiday when an email arrived saying he is a newly elected fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. “The timing was great. It added to the natural happiness and gratitude I already felt at the time,” said Stan, the Virginia Microelectronics Consortium Professor and director of the computer engineering program in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Virginia. “The other obvious reaction was of course satisfaction that contributions I made over my entire career ...

LOGAN, UTAH, USA -- Algae is a ubiquitous feature in waterways throughout the globe, including western North America. Slippery, green epilithic algae is a familiar sight on river rocks. Toxic blue-green algae – cyanobacteria – is a visually interesting, yet worrisome phenomenon. Increasingly prevalent filamentous algae, with its long, voluminous green strands joins the picture, and is presenting new questions for scientists, recreationalists and land managers. “In recent years, people have noted very large filamentous algae blooms ...

Highlights: A new study has found circadian rhythm, the body’s internal clock, may affect a person’s risk of dementia. More than 2,000 people wore monitors for an average of 12 days to track their rest and activity rhythms. Researchers found people with weaker or more irregular body clocks had a higher risk of developing dementia. Being most active later in the day, instead of earlier, was linked to a 45% increased risk of dementia. Future studies of circadian rhythm interventions, such as light therapy or lifestyle changes, could help determine if they can lower a person’s ...

In recent decades, scientists have debated whether a seven-million-year-old fossil was bipedal—a trait that would make it the oldest human ancestor. A new analysis by a team of anthropologists offers powerful evidence that Sahelanthropus tchadensis—a species discovered in the early 2000s—was indeed bipedal by uncovering a feature found only in bipedal hominins. Using 3D technology and other methods, the team identified Sahelanthropus’s femoral tubercle, which is the point of attachment for the largest and most powerful ligament in the human body—the iliofemoral ligament—and ...

Every day, millions of people use thermal paper without thinking about it. Receipts, shipping labels, tickets, and medical records all rely on heat‑sensitive coatings to make text appear. More specifically, heat triggers a reaction between a colorless dye and a “developer,” producing dark text where the paper is warmed. Thermal paper is a small object with a large footprint. It is produced at scale, handled daily, and often recycled, which allows its chemicals to spread into water and soil. For decades, the most common developers have been bisphenol A (BPA) and, more recently, bisphenol S (BPS). Both can affect living organisms by disrupting hormone signaling, ...

Angiosperms, also known as flowering plants, represent the most diverse group of seed plants, and their origin and evolution have long been a central question in plant evolutionary biology. Whole-genome duplication (WGD), or polyploidization, is widely recognized as a key driver of the origin and trait evolution of both seed plants and angiosperms. Detecting these ancient WGD events, however, is technically challenging, as their genomic signatures are often obscured by subsequent gene loss, chromosomal rearrangements, and synonymous substitution ...

For the first time, scientists have reconstructed ancient genomes of Human betaherpesvirus 6A and 6B (HHV-6A/B) from archaeological human remains more than two millennia old. The study, led by the University of Vienna and University of Tartu (Estonia) and published in Science Advances, confirms that these viruses have been evolving with and within humans since at least the Iron Age. The findings trace the long history of HHV-6 integration into human chromosomes and suggest that HHV-6A lost this ability early on. HHV-6B infects about 90 percent of children by the age of two and is best known as the cause of roseola infantum – or "sixth disease" – the leading cause ...

New study reveals that bacteria can survive antibiotic treatment through two fundamentally different “shutdown modes,” not just the classic idea of dormancy. The researchers show that some cells enter a regulated, protective growth arrest, a controlled dormant state that shields them from antibiotics, while others survive in a disrupted, dysregulated growth arrest, a malfunctioning state marked by vulnerabilities, especially impaired cell membrane stability. This distinction is important because antibiotic persistence is a major cause of treatment failure ...

Placenta accreta spectrum (PAS) used to be a rare pregnancy condition, but it now affects roughly 14,000 pregnancies annually, posing a major cause of maternal death. Yet why it happens is still not well understood. Placenta accreta occurs when the placenta grows too deeply into the uterine wall, and doesn’t detach after birth, often resulting in life-threatening bleeding and a need for a hysterectomy. The strongest and most common risk factor is a previous cesarean delivery, as scarring from prior cesarean births can change how the placenta attaches in future pregnancies. New research led by UCLA Health suggests that how this scar tissue heals could be the key to better understand ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – January 02, 2026) Scientists and physicians can better assess precision genome editing technology using a new method made public today by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Significant amounts of time and resources spent improving CRISPR gene editing technology focus on identifying small off-target sites that pose a safety risk, which is also technically challenging. St. Jude researchers addressed the problem by creating Circularization for High-throughput Analysis of Nuclease Genome-wide Effects by Sequencing Base Editors (CHANGE-seq-BE), an unbiased, sensitive ...

Reston, VA (January 2, 2026)—New research has been published ahead-of-print by The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM). JNM is published by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, an international scientific and medical organization dedicated to advancing nuclear medicine, molecular imaging, and theranostics—precision medicine that allows diagnosis and treatment to be tailored to individual patients in order to achieve the best possible outcomes. Summaries of the newly published research ...

About The Study: In this cohort study of children with regular access to care, most received their measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine on time, but the proportion not receiving the MMR vaccine by 2 years of age has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. Children who did not receive their 2- and 4-month vaccines on time were significantly more likely to not receive any MMR vaccine by 2 years, highlighting opportunities for intervention. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Nina B. Masters, PhD, MPH, email ninam@truveta.com. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.51814) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In this population-based cross-sectional study, household income disparities in preterm birth widened over time. Black race moderated the association between income and preterm birth, underscoring the need to examine the role of racism in preterm birth disparities. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Erika G. Cordova-Ramos, MD, email gabriela.cordovaramos@bmc.org. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.50664) Editor’s ...