New research by engineers at the University of Colorado Boulder aims to get to the bottom of why, as the saying goes, you get a “skip in your step” when you’re happy.  The study highlights the central role that dopamine, a brain chemical associated with reward, seems to play in making people move faster when they want something. The findings could one day help scientists understand and even diagnose a range of human medical conditions, including Parkinson’s disease and depression.  “Anecdotally, we just feel that this is true,” said senior author Alaa Ahmed, professor in the Paul M. Rady Department of Mechanical Engineering at CU Boulder. ...

Irvine, Calif., Feb. 27, 2026 — Scientists at the University of California, Irvine’s School of Pharmacy & Pharmaceutical Sciences have discovered how muscle stem cells “flip a switch” to rebuild damaged muscle – a finding that could help address muscle loss linked to aging, injury and widely used weight-loss medications. The study, published this week in Nature Metabolism, shows that muscle recovery is not just about protein or exercise. It depends on timing and how muscle cells use fuel. Researchers learned that immediately after ...

HOUSTON – (Feb. 27, 2026) – Gene therapy has been successfully used to treat a number of diseases, including immune deficiencies, hereditary blindness, hemophilia and, recently, Huntington’s disease, a fatal neurological disorder. An advance reported in the journal Neuron adds to the technique’s growing track record of evidence supporting the view that it could unlock powerful, personalized therapies: Rice University bioengineer Jerzy Szablowski and collaborators in Vincent Costa’s lab at Emory University found that released markers of activity (RMAs) ⎯ engineered proteins designed to cross the blood-brain barrier and persist in the blood for ...

The Cascadia Subduction Zone is unusually quiet for a megathrust fault. Spanning more than 600 miles from Canada to California, the fault marks the convergence of the Juan de Fuca and North American plates. While other subduction zones produce sporadic rumblings as the plates scrape past each other, Cascadia shows very little seismic activity, fueling assumptions that the plates are locked together by friction.  The subduction zone — miles offshore and deep underwater — is difficult to observe. Most data collection ...

Wildfires in the northern boreal forests of Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia and Russia may be more damaging to the climate than previously thought, a new UC Berkeley-led study suggests. That’s because these fires don’t just burn through trees; they can also penetrate deep into the carbon-rich layers of soil underneath many boreal forests, releasing carbon that has been accumulating for hundreds or even thousands of years. These carbon-rich soils, also known as peat, are primarily found in the far north, where the cold, wet climate prevents vegetation from fully decomposing ...

Fox Chase Cancer Center researchers reported positive results from the trial, known as RETAIN-2, demonstrating that a response-adapted bladder-preservation approach involving neoadjuvant chemoimmunotherapy can be considered in select patients. The ctDNA blood test predicts metastatic risk, but not local recurrence, after bladder-sparing cancer treatment. Researchers said ctDNA could be used to help select patients likely to benefit from a bladder-sparing treatment approach. A combination of chemotherapy and immunotherapy allowed some patients to preserve ...

The National Academy of Inventors has selected Kennesaw State University Associate Professor of Information Technology Vijay Anand as a 2026 NAI Senior Member, in recognition of his innovative work in the cybersecurity field. NAI Senior Members are distinguished faculty, scientists, and administrators who have demonstrated success in patents, licensing, and commercialization. They develop technologies that have made, or have the potential to make, meaningful impacts on society. “Kennesaw State is proud of Dr. Anand’s selection to the NAI class of 2026 Senior Members,” Executive Vice President for Research Karin Scarpinato said. “This recognition ...

New research from the University of St Andrews published today (27 February) in Current Biology, has shown that the role of age in male humpback whale reproduction has changed as populations recover from centuries of exploitation.    Whaling drove many large whale populations to the brink of extinction. But its legacy runs deeper than a drastic decline in numbers. Decades after commercial whaling ended, its impacts continue to shape whale populations, influencing not just how many whales there are, but which males get to reproduce.    The study assessed nearly two decades of data ...

When the immune system detects a harmful or foreign agent it triggers an inflammatory response small proteins called chemokines direct immune cells to the site of the injury or infection, resulting in the invader being inactivated. More commonly known as a parasite, ticks are able to attach and draw blood off us, or our pets, without triggering an immune reaction, because they produce proteins called evasins, which attach to these chemokines preventing them from warning the immune system that it is under attack. These chemokines can also “turn bad” overstimulating the immune system ...

Toronto, ON, February 27, 2026 — Refugee and immigrant children are less likely to visit the emergency department (ED) for minor illnesses (e.g., respiratory infections) compared to children born in Ontario, according to a new study from ICES and The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids).  The study followed 458,597 children (113,098 refugee and immigrant children for the first four years after arrival to Canada and 345,499 Ontarian-born within the same period). The researchers found that refugee and immigrant children had more primary care visits for minor illnesses ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study of former American football players, prior American football participation was associated with worse later-life cognitive and neuropsychiatric function. These findings support a dose-response association with years and level of play, providing context to help clinicians and researchers assess the risk of symptoms among former players.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Michael L. Alosco, PhD, email malosco@bu.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit ...

Every year, over 100 billion nitrile rubber gloves are produced. They are made from synthetic polymers—a material chemically related to plastic and derived from crude oil. The vast majority is used in the healthcare sector, and most are discarded after single use. This creates a massive amount of material waste globally. However, Simon Kildahl, a postdoc at the Department of Chemistry at Aarhus University, has moved a step closer to a way of recycling these gloves. In a new study published in the scientific journal CHEM, he and his colleagues demonstrate how they can transform ...

Hantaviruses, transmitted from rodents to people, have a death rate approaching 40%. They’re found around the world, and because there are no approved vaccines or treatments, they’re among the pathogens of highest concern for future pandemics. They made news in the United States last year when Betsy Arakawa, the wife of actor Gene Hackman, died from a hantavirus infection in New Mexico in March. New findings published in the journal Cell about the Andes virus, a hantavirus endemic to the southwestern U.S. and other parts of North and South America, ...

In Year 8, there are large gender differences related to motivation and compassion, which are in turn linked to how psychologically resilient the pupils are. At least when the pupils assess themselves. “Several factors influence motivation. We wanted to find out how lower-secondary pupils feel they are doing when it comes to these factors,” said PhD Student Vegard Renolen Litlabø at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU’s) Department of Psychology. A total of 7260 Year 8 pupils took the questionnaire, with slightly more girls than boys participating. Multiple ...

“IL6 and IL6R appear to be biologically opposing causal regulators of human survival: IL6 increases, while IL6R reduces mortality through cardiovascular mechanisms.” BUFFALO, NY — February 27, 2026 — A new research paper was published in  Volume 18 of Aging-US on February 6, 2026, titled “Causal effects of inflammation on long-term mortality: a Mendelian randomization study.” Led by Eliano P. Navarese from Department of Life and Health Sciences, Link Campus University and SIRIO MEDICINE Research ...

An AI can accurately diagnose a rare endocrinological condition just by analyzing pictures of the back of the hand and the clenched fist. The privacy-conscious achievement by Kobe University holds promise for establishing more efficient referral systems and reducing healthcare disparities across communities. Acromegaly is a rare, intractable disease usually setting in in middle age that causes the hands and feet to grow bigger, changes the facial appearance and also has effects on bone and organ growth throughout the body. The condition, which is caused by overproduction of growth ...

Recent decades have witnessed rapid advancements in high-intensity laser technology. The combination of laser irradiation and novel materials is opening exciting avenues for the design of functional materials and devices. Semiconductors are ideal platforms for generating laser-driven functionalities because they can exhibit novel features such as ultrafast optical transparency. This effect arises from electronic occupation redistribution driven by ultrafast excitation, which manifests as a phenomenon called transient Pauli blocking. In a new development, a team ...

In recent years, studies and media reports have blamed growing partisan hostility in the U.S. for shattered marriages, broken families, ruined holiday dinners and increased stress. New CU Boulder research suggests it may have an even broader impact, hindering democracies’ capacity to address climate change around the world. “There has been a lot of research on the effects of political polarization at the interpersonal level, but ours is the first study to look at how it impacts the ability of democracies to mitigate climate change,” said senior author Don Grant, professor of sociology and fellow with the ...

Regular perovskite solar cells (PSCs)—which place the electron-transport layer beneath the perovskite absorber and the hole-transport layer on top—have limitations with respect to large-scale manufacturing and stability. In contrast, inverted PSCs—which reverse the positions of the electron- and hole-transport layers—boast high power conversion potential and good compatibility with scalable solution processing techniques, making them a promising photovoltaic technology. Unfortunately, the performance and long-term stability of inverted ...

Osaka, Japan – The long-term stasis of blood in the liver, known as chronic liver congestion, can lead to a range of diseases – some of which are fatal. However, identifying how liver congestion causes these diseases has remained unclear, causing difficulty in proposing the best treatment pathway. In a study recently published in Gastroenterology, Japanese researchers have identified a molecular pathway connecting liver congestion to liver fibrosis, portal hypertension, and liver tumorigenesis. This finding has important implications for potential therapies. Chronic liver congestion is also ...

A new study suggests that pancreatic cancer may start preparing to “hide” from the immune system long before the disease becomes full-blown cancer. Researchers found that very early, precancerous cells in the pancreas don’t spread randomly, they gather into specific clusters and create small “neighborhoods” inside the tissue. These early cell groups also seem to communicate directly with nearby immune cells in ways that may weaken the body’s ability to fight them. Using advanced tools that characterize cells at the molecular level in tissue section of the pancreas, the team discovered that immune-suppressing signals appear at these ...

Researchers have taken inspiration from nature to create a robotic wing that can sense and adapt to changes in water to deliver unparalleled stability.   Drawing on the adaptive movements of birds and fish, the wing senses disturbances in the flow of water and automatically changes its shape to adjust to these. The team, led by the University of Southampton, hope the soft robotics and e-skin they’ve pioneered could help close the gap in manoeuvrability and efficiency between robots and animals.   In ...

Congenital aniridia is a rare disease caused, in most cases, by mutations in the PAX6 gene, which is essential for the development of ocular structures. Although the most visible feature is the total or partial absence of the iris, its effects go far beyond this, as those affected often experience focusing problems, photophobia, and various complications that may worsen over time. Now, a clinical study led by the Ocular Neurobiology Group at the Institute for Neurosciences (IN), a joint center of Miguel Hernández University ...

Tiny insects trapped in amber could tell us a great deal about their roles in past ecosystems: pollinators, parasites, predators, and prey. But how many of the insects preserved alongside each other reflect interactions during life, and how many are just unlucky coincidences? Scientists in Spain scrutinized six key samples which preserve now-extinct insects unusually well, to try to learn more about the ants that lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. “Amber inclusions are representative of possible interactions between different organisms shaping the environment,” explained Dr Jose de la Fuente of the Institute for Game and Wildlife Research, Spain, lead author ...

Japan is an archipelago with diverse climate zones and complex topography that is prone to heavy rain and flooding. Add the growing effects of global warming, these disaster risks are heightened with an increased frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events. Thus, predicting when and where these events might strike is crucial for future-proofing vulnerable infrastructure, especially in ...