Matías Gómez-Corrales, a recent biological sciences Ph.D. graduate from the University of Rhode Island, and his advisor, Associate Professor Carlos Prada, have published a paper in Nature Communications, revealing key mechanisms in speciation in corals and proposing a new hypothesis on the origin of species in the ocean.  Their new study examines how coral species form and contributes to long-standing questions in evolutionary biology about how marine biodiversity originates. The work builds on decades of ecological, reproductive, ...

A team of materials scientists has developed a new bio based carbon material that can store thermal energy more efficiently while preventing one of the most persistent problems in phase change materials leakage during melting. The study demonstrates how carbon derived from chitin, a natural polymer found in crustacean shells and fungi, can stabilize heat storing compounds and improve their performance for energy applications. Phase change materials store and release heat as they melt and solidify, making them attractive for applications such as building temperature regulation, solar energy storage, and electronic thermal management. However, many organic phase change materials suffer ...

Nitrate pollution has become one of the most widespread water quality challenges in intensively farmed regions around the world, threatening drinking water safety, aquatic ecosystems, and downstream lakes. A new study published in Nitrogen Cycling reveals how human activities in rural urban transition zones are reshaping the nitrogen cycle, allowing nitrate to move through rivers and groundwater and ultimately reach large freshwater lakes. The research focuses on the rural urban ecotone of the Yangtze River Delta in eastern China, an area where agriculture, ...

Plastic pollution does more than litter landscapes and oceans. According to a new perspective article published in Biocontaminant, viruses living on plastic surfaces may play an underrecognized role in spreading antibiotic resistance, raising concerns for environmental and public health worldwide. When plastics enter natural environments, they quickly become coated with microbial biofilms known as the plastisphere. These plastic associated communities are already known hotspots for antibiotic resistance ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio – Three pediatric faculty members and leaders from University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s (UH Rainbow) have been elected to membership in the American Pediatric Society (APS), one of the nation’s most distinguished academic pediatric organizations. The newly elected APS members include: Michael S. Dell, MD, Vice Chair for Education, UH Rainbow, Professor of Pediatrics, Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) School of Medicine, and Morris S. Dixon, Jr., MD Chair in Global Child Health, UH Rainbow Ross E. Myers, MD, Director of the Pediatric Residency Program, UH Rainbow and UH Cleveland Medical Center, Professor of Pediatrics, CWRU ...

A new study published in Engineering presents novel resilience models for assessing and quantifying the recovery of tunnels after earthquakes. The research, conducted by a team from Tongji University, Brunel University of London, and University College London, offers a probabilistic approach to predict tunnel recovery, providing valuable insights for infrastructure operators and city planners.   Tunnels are critical components of urban infrastructure, continuously exposed to various hazards, ...

The integration of satellite communication systems with terrestrial networks is emerging as a crucial solution to achieve seamless global connectivity in the evolving landscape of 5G and future 6G networks. A recent article published in Engineering titled “Evolution of Satellite Communication Systems Toward 5G/6G for 2030 and Beyond” provides a comprehensive overview of the advancements, challenges, and future directions in this domain.   According to the article, terrestrial networks (TNs) have ...

In the rapidly evolving landscape of satellite technologies, a novel concept known as space computing power networks (Space-CPN) is emerging as a potential solution to address the growing demands for efficient data processing and transmission in space-based applications. A recent article published in Engineering titled “Space Computing Power Networks: Fundamentals and Techniques” delves into the intricacies and potential of Space-CPN, highlighting its ability to integrate communication and computation capabilities across various types of satellites.   Over the past few decades, satellite technologies ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say results of a new National Institutes of Health-funded study are advancing efforts to exploit a new target for Alzheimer’s disease: a protein that manufactures an important gas in the brain. Experiments conducted in genetically engineered mice reinforce that the protein, Cystathionine γ-lyase, or CSE — ordinarily known for producing hydrogen sulfide gas responsible for the foul smell of rotten eggs — is critical for memory formation, says Bindu Paul, M.S., Ph.D., associate professor of pharmacology, ...

The rise of private equity firms investing in health care facilities across the United States has been exploding in the last decade. Because of that rapid growth, researchers have been digging into what this could mean for health care and patients in the long term. In recent years, private equity firms have become more active in the fertility space, where many patients seek care for reproductive issues and pursue in vitro fertilization, or IVF, which costs thousands of dollars, and usually isn’t covered by insurance. James ...

Current Molecular Pharmacology (CMP), a peer-reviewed international journal dedicated to publishing cutting-edge advances in cellular and molecular pharmacology, is proud to announce a major achievement: its 2025 real-time CiteScore has advanced to an outstanding 7.2. This milestone reflects the journal's growing impact and commitment to excellence in the field. CMP focuses on critical areas of modern pharmacology, including the mechanisms of action of novel drugs, advancements in pharmacological technologies (such as high-throughput screening, AI-driven drug discovery, and nanotechnology), and the application of genomics, proteomics, ...

“This study introduces the skeletal muscle epigenetic clocks in an Asian population using postmortem skeletal muscle tissue.” BUFFALO, NY — December 30, 2025 — A new research paper was published in Volume 17, Issue 11 of Aging-US on November 26, 2025, titled “Epigenetic aging signatures and age prediction in human skeletal muscle.” In this study, first author Soo-Bin Yang and corresponding author Hwan Young Lee from Seoul National University College of Medicine investigated ...

Social media posts about unemployment can predict official jobless claims up to two weeks before government data is released, according to a study. Unemployment can be tough, and people often post about it online. Sam Fraiberger and colleagues developed an artificial intelligence model that identifies unemployment disclosures on social media. Data from 31.5 million Twitter users posting between 2020 and 2022 was used to train a transformer-based classifier called JoblessBERT to detect unemployment-related posts, even those that featured slang or misspellings, ...

A popular vision of life after climate action looks like vegetarians riding bikes, city centers without cars, and people foregoing air travel. But a paper published in Nature Sustainability finds that climate policies targeting lifestyle changes (say, urban car bans) actually may weaken people’s green values, thereby undermining support for other needed environmental policies. “Policies don’t just spur a target behavior. We find that they can change people’s underlying values: leading to unintended negative effects, but also possibly cultivating green values,” says SFI Complexity Postdoctoral ...

SINGAPORE — Children exposed to high levels of screen time before age two showed changes in brain development that were linked to slower decision-making and increased anxiety by their teenage years, according to new research by Asst Prof Tan Ai Peng and her team from A*STAR Institute for Human Development and Potential (A*STAR IHDP) and National University of Singapore (NUS) Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, using data from the Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes (GUSTO) cohort. Published in eBioMedicine, the study tracked the same children over more than a decade, with brain imaging ...

NEW YORK, New York, USA, 31 December 2025 — An obituary published today in Genomic Psychiatry pays tribute to Professor Dan Joseph Stein, the internationally acclaimed psychiatrist and neuroscientist who died on 6 December 2025 at age 63 after a brief illness. Professor Stein served as Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health at the University of Cape Town, Director of the South African Medical Research Council Unit on Risk & Resilience in Mental Disorders, and Scientific Director of the UCT Neuroscience Institute. His death ...

Palladium (Pd) is widely used in various industries and everyday products, including smartphones, semiconductor manufacturing processes, and hydrogen fuel cells. Palladium is an essential metal that acts as an excellent catalyst even in minute quantities, reducing pollutants and enhancing energy efficiency. However, palladium production is concentrated in a few countries, leading to unstable supply. While South Korea generates significant amounts of spent catalysts and electronic waste annually, a lack of eco-friendly and efficient recovery technologies means much is discarded or relies ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 29 December 2025    Follow @Annalsofim on X, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and LinkedIn         Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their ...

More than seven million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, and two-thirds of them are women, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. The O’Banion Lab at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester has long been studying this disease and is looking more closely at the differences between male and female brains. “It is well documented that males and females are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at different rates,” said M. Kerry O’Banion, MD, PhD, professor of Neuroscience and Neurology. “But we still do ...

PITTSBURGH, Dec. 29, 2025 – For the first time, clinicians have access to a clear, evidence-based roadmap for adjusting antiseizure medication doses during pregnancy and after childbirth.   The strategies, practiced by a group of leading women’s neurology experts in the nationwide landmark Maternal Outcomes and Neurodevelopmental Effects of Antiepileptic Drugs (MONEAD) study, were published today in Neurology. They are expected to inform clinical ...

Spruce bark is rich in phenolic compounds that protect trees from pathogenic fungi. A research team at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena investigated how these plant defenses function within the food web, particularly in spruce bark beetles (Ips typographus), which ingest the compounds through their diet. Could the beetles use substances from the spruce's defenses to protect themselves against pathogenic fungi? Beetles convert plant defenses into even more toxic forms Using state-of-the-art analytical methods such ...

At a glance:   Study uncovers key insights about how a new class of antiviral drugs works. Cryo-EM images showed the drugs bound to herpes simplex virus (HSV) protein at nearly atomic detail, while optical tweezers experiments showed how the drug-bound protein behaved in real time. Findings could open doors to additional drugs for herpesviruses and other DNA viruses.   Harvard Medical School researchers have uncovered crucial insights into how an emerging class of antiviral drugs works. The discovery sheds light on an important tool for fighting drug-resistant strains of herpes simplex virus, or HSV, and points to new pathways for treating herpesviruses ...

The fungal species Candida auris is spreading across the globe, and gaining in virulence, according to a new review by a Hackensack Meridian Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) scientist and colleagues.    But there are strategies available and underway to combat the invasive and drug resistant germ, according to the new review in the American Society of Microbiology journal Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews.    The paper summarizes and analyzes the latest developments - and needs - in mycology in 2025. Neeraj Chauhan, Ph.D., of ...

Following stroke, some people experience a language disorder that hinders their ability to process speech sounds. How do their brains change from stroke? Researchers led by Laura Gwilliams, faculty scholar at the Wu Tsai Neuroscience Institute and Stanford Data Science and assistant professor at the Stanford School of Humanities and Sciences, and Maaike Vandermosten, associate professor at the Department of Neurosciences at KU Leuven, compared the brains of 39 patients following stroke and ...

Immune cells called B cells make antibodies that fight off invading bacteria, viruses and other foreign substances. During their preparation for this battle, B cells transiently revert to a more flexible, or plastic, stem-cell-like state in the lymph nodes, according to a new preclinical study from Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. The results could help explain how many lymphomas develop from mature B cells rather than from stem cells, as many other cancers do, and guide researchers in developing better treatments. The study, published Dec. 29 in Nature Cell Biology, reveals a paradox: as mature B cells get prepped to make antibodies, a highly specialized ...