Researchers from Helmholtz Munich and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) have developed “fast-RSOM”, a new imaging technology that can capture detailed images of the smallest blood vessels directly through the skin – without the need for invasive procedures. By revealing early signs of cardiovascular risk, this technology could help doctors intervene sooner, guide personalized therapies, and improve long-term heart health. A New Window Into Microvascular Health One of the earliest warning signs of cardiovascular disease ...

By resurrecting a 3.2-billion-year-old enzyme and studying it inside living microbes, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have created a new way to improve our understanding of the origins of life on Earth and possibly recognize signs of life elsewhere. Recently published in Nature Communications, the NASA-funded study uses synthetic biology to reverse-engineer modern enzymes and rebuild their possible ancestors. Betül Kaçar, a professor of bacteriology, and Holly Rucker, a PhD candidate in Kaçar’s lab, focused on an enzyme called nitrogenase, which is critical to the process that converts atmospheric nitrogen into a form usable by living ...

WASHINGTON—People with obesity and high blood pressure may face a higher risk of dementia, according to a new study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Dementia is a growing global public health challenge, with no cure currently available. People with dementia experience a severe decline in mental abilities, like memory, thinking and reasoning. The most common forms of dementia are Alzheimer's disease, vascular dementia and mixed dementia. Dementia is a progressive brain ...

New “AI GYM for Science” dramatically boosts the biological and chemical intelligence of any causal or frontier LLM, delivering up to 10x performance gains on key drug discovery benchmarks and advancing the company’s vision of Pharmaceutical Superintelligence (PSI). CAMBRIDGE, Mass., January 22, 2026 – Insilico Medicine (“Insilico”, HKEX: 3696), a leading global AI-driven biotech company, today announced the launch of Science MMAI Gym, also branded as Insilico Medicine’s AI GYM for Science, a domain-specific training environment designed to transform ...

DALLAS, Jan. 22, 2026 — The American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association has expanded it’s International Stroke Conference with multiple pre-conference symposiums in 2026. The meeting is in New Orleans, Feb. 4-6, 2026, and is a world premier global event dedicated to advancing stroke and brain health science. The following is a list of all the pre-conference symposiums: State-of-the-Science Stroke Nursing Symposium Pre-Conference Symposium - Feb. 3, 2026; 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. CT This forum provides updates on nursing topics related to stroke care, including prevention, management, ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Artificial intelligence (AI) is said to be a “black box,” with its logic obscured from human understanding — but how much does the average user actually care to know how AI works? It depends on the extent to which a system meets users’ expectations, according to a new study by a team that includes Penn State researchers. Using a fabricated algorithm-driven dating website, the team found that whether the system met, exceeded or fell short of user expectations directly corresponded to how ...

Background and Aims Bacterial infections (BIs) are common and severe complications in patients with liver cirrhosis, but global data are limited. Here, we aimed to evaluate the global prevalence, temporal changes, and associated mortality risk of BIs in liver cirrhosis. Methods We systematically searched PubMed, Embase, Web of Science, and the Cochrane Library for eligible studies published without language restrictions until 11 August 2025. A random-effects model was used for meta-analyses, meta-regression by study year, and pooling adjusted hazard ratios. Results Fifty-nine studies, including 1,191,421 patients with cirrhosis, were analyzed. The pooled prevalence of BIs (33 studies) ...

Predicting the duration of a Central Pacific El Niño event has long frustrated climate scientists and forecasters. Now, a new study reveals that Central Pacific El Niños follow two fundamentally different life cycles—and the difference is determined months before they peak. The research group, led by Prof. Xin Wang from the South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, shows that strong Central Pacific El Niño events essentially self-destruct by triggering negative feedbacks from the distant Indian and Atlantic Oceans. Weaker events, however, survive by forming a lasting partnership with a regional North Pacific climate ...

Electric vehicles (EVs) are gaining unprecedented popularity across the globe, with their number reaching 26 million in 2022 and expected to grow eightfold by the end of the decade. While EVs represent the next-generation technology for transport decarbonization, they are expected to lead to the issue of retired battery management. Notably, EV batteries are utilized only until their capacity reduces to 70-80%, meaning an average lifespan of 8-to-10 years. Therefore, the volume of retired batteries is going to rise rapidly by 2030. To mitigate this problem, scientists have ingeniously come up with ...

Researchers from the Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences, Tongji University, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University, Fudan University, and the University of Sydney synthesize years of proprioception research with frontier bionic evidence such as osseointegrated neural prosthetics, to propose a disruptive framework of the reconceptualization of proprioception. Their findings were made available online in the Journal of Sport and Health Science on January 01, 2026. Led by Professor Jia Han from the Shanghai University of Medicine & Health Sciences, Tongji University, ...

Africa confronts escalating internal migration and displacement crises fueled by intensifying climate hazards—particularly prolonged droughts—and persistent armed conflicts, which compound vulnerabilities across the continent. Previous research clearly links these stressors to heightened population movements, but limited empirical work examines climate adaptation's role, especially agriculture's influence, in moderating these effects at grid and country levels. On this premise, a study led by Professor Hyun Kim, Associate Professor in the School of Public Administration at Chungnam National ...

A research team led by Professor Yuan Li at Nanjing Medical University published a research paper entitled "A Cigarette Compound-Induced Tumor Microenvironment Promotes Sorafenib Resistance in Hepatocellular Carcinoma via the 14-3-3η-Modified Tumor-Associated Proteome" in the Chinese Medical Journal. This work provides valuable insights into the role of smoking in HCC progression and drug resistance, offering potential therapeutic targets for overcoming sorafenib resistance. The study began with an analysis of clinical follow-up data from HCC patients, revealing that smokers exhibited significantly poorer ...

Neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) affect millions of people worldwide, yet treatments remain largely limited to symptom management. A defining feature shared by these conditions is the buildup of misfolded proteins that damage neurons over time. Cells normally rely on a protein quality-control system to prevent this damage. At the center of this system are molecular chaperones or heat shock proteins, which help proteins fold correctly or direct misfolded proteins to degradation and helps maintain proteostasis. Among them, the Hsp70 family has attracted growing attention for ...

The vision of a fully connected world is rapidly becoming a reality through the Internet of Things (IoT)—a growing network of physical devices that collect and share data over the Internet, including everything from small sensors to autonomous vehicles and industrial equipment. To ensure this data is secure and not tampered with, engineers are increasingly turning to blockchain as a promising solution. While often associated with cryptocurrencies, blockchain is essentially a decentralized digital ledger; instead of one company controlling the data, it is shared and maintained collectively across a network of computers. Unfortunately, ...

Chemotherapy commonly damages the intestinal lining, a well-known side effect. But this injury does not remain confined to the gut. It reshapes nutrient availability for intestinal bacteria, forcing the microbiota to adapt. The researchers report that chemotherapy-induced damage to the intestinal lining alters nutrient availability for gut bacteria, reshaping the microbiota and increasing the production of indole-3-propionic acid (IPA), a tryptophan-derived microbial metabolite. Rather than acting locally, IPA functions as a systemic messenger. It travels from the gut to the ...

Microorganisms live in biofilms - the equivalent of microbial “cities”- everywhere on Earth. These city-like structures protect and house microbial communities and play essential roles in enabling human and plant health on our planet. Now, a new Perspective article published in npj Biofilms and Microbiomes sets out a path to uncover the role of biofilms in health during long-duration spaceflight, and how spaceflight research can reshape our understanding of these microbial communities on Earth. Led by researchers at the University of Glasgow in Scotland and Maynooth University and University College Dublin (UCD) in Ireland working within the GeneLab Microbes Analysis ...

Organic matter carried in rivers to the Russian part of the Arctic Ocean may be creating more clouds and keeping the region cooler, a new study has found.   In a new paper published in Communications Earth & Environment, an international team of researchers, including atmospheric specialists from the University of Birmingham, examined an understudied region of the Arctic Circle which includes the Siberian region of Russia, to understand how aerosol formation, which is essential for cloud formation, was influenced by conditions in the region.   The researchers investigated the origins of Arctic clouds, finding that organic ...

This preclinical study explains the mechanism underlying CDK2 and CDK4/6 combination therapy, providing a blueprint for future clinical use These findings are notable because several CDK2 inhibitor candidates are currently making their way to clinical trials This combination treatment targets two types of breast cancer that currently have limited treatment options HOUSTON, JANUARY 22, 2026 ― A new preclinical study from researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, published today in Nature Communications, ...

Living walls – structures housing flowers and plants fitted to the outside of new and old buildings – can significantly enhance the biodiversity within urban environments, a new study has shown. The research monitored activity involving pollinating insects, spiders, soil invertebrates, birds and bats at three locations spread across the city centre and outskirts of Plymouth. Over three survey periods, hundreds of creatures were observed including 12 different types of bees, hoverflies and other pollinators as well 19 types of soil invertebrates and 12 species of spiders. There were also 32 bird species recorded across the locations, with three ...

Enzymes with specific functions are becoming increasingly important in industry, medicine and environmental protection. For example, they make it possible to synthesise chemicals in a more environmentally friendly way, produce active ingredients in a targeted manner or break down environmentally harmful substances. Researchers from Gustav Oberdorfer’s working group at the Institute of Biochemistry at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz), together with colleagues from the University of Graz, ...

Smartwatches with both PPG and ECG functionality improve the detection of atrial fibrillation in comparison with standard care. Researchers from Amsterdam UMC analysed the data from 437 patients and detected heart arrythmia four times more often in those who wore an Apple Watch. These results are published today in JACC (Journal of the American College of Cardiology).   "Traditionally, monitoring takes place with other ECG devices, but patients can find them a bit irritating, and most of them can only monitor for two weeks at a time,” says Michiel Winter, ...

A single enzyme that can generate all four nucleotide triphosphates, the building blocks of ribonucleic acid (RNA), was identified by researchers at the Institute of Science Tokyo. By using polyphosphate as a phosphate donor, the enzyme efficiently converts inexpensive nucleotide precursors into the active forms required for RNA synthesis. Overall, the method dramatically simplifies the process of nucleotide production—offering a low-cost, efficient option for the in vitro synthesis of RNA.   All living systems depend on specific biomolecules that form the basic units of life. ...

The distinct foot odor that comes with the skin disorder Nagashima-type palmoplantar keratosis (NPPK) is caused by the overgrowth of a specific bacterial strain. The Kobe University result also shows that topical application of benzoyl peroxide restores balance in the bacterial skin flora, reducing the odor. Affecting some 10,000 individuals in Japan and several hundreds of thousands more across East Asia, Nagashima-type palmoplantar keratosis (NPPK) is a condition that causes several symptoms, including redness on the palms and soles of ...

Piezofluorochromism, the phenomenon of materials reversibly changing their fluorescent color when pressure is applied, is used to create the pressure sensors used in automotive and medical industries. By monitoring color changes, researchers can visually recognize phenomena, such as chemical changes, that actually take place. However, as devices get increasingly complicated, there is an increasing demand for ways to produce more sensitive sensors. A research group led by Project Assistant Professor ...

Researchers from the University of Cape Town (UCT), working with international collaborators, have shown that people in northern Mozambique use regionally distinct “dialects” when communicating with honeyguide birds, revealing a striking parallel to the way human languages diversify. Published in People and Nature, the study shows for the first time that human-to-wildlife communication can vary within a region in much the same way that human languages develop local dialects. These dialects allow communities to coordinate cooperation with greater honeyguides (Indicator indicator), wild birds that lead people to honeybees’ nests in exchange for ...