Liverwort uses hair-like rhizoids to collect phosphorus from its surroundings and deliver it to where it is needed. This Kobe University discovery sheds light on the evolution of one of the most essential features of land plants: roots for nutrient acquisition. For plants to survive on land, they need a mechanism to absorb water and nutrients from their surroundings. While many land plants have evolved structures such as roots and vascular tissue to fill this role, simple land plants like mosses and liverwort, collectively known as bryophytes, are able to grow and reproduce ...

Daily aspirin use does not offer a quick or reliable way to prevent bowel cancer in the general population and carries immediate risks of serious bleeding, a new Cochrane review finds. Bowel cancer, also known as colorectal cancer, is one of the most common types of cancer worldwide. Prevention typically involves following a healthy lifestyle and periodically undergoing routine screening tests. In recent years, researchers have also explored the role of off-the-shelf medications, such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), in reducing the incidence of bowel cancer. NSAIDs, which include ibuprofen and aspirin, ...

Human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination is associated with a significantly reduced risk of invasive cervical cancer, with no indication of waning protection up to 18 years after vaccination, finds a study from Sweden published by The BMJ today. HPV is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections and many countries offer vaccination to protect girls against cervical cancer, and other related cancers, in later life. But evidence on the long term durability ...

Many post-authorisation studies registered with the European Medicines Agency (EMA) fail to comply with legal requirements and recommendations to make their findings public, finds a study published by The BMJ today. Post-authorisation studies (PAS) are carried out after a medicine is approved to collect further “real-world” data about its safety and effectiveness. The results show that only 6 of every 10 finalised and ongoing post-authorisation studies had uploaded a protocol and less than 7 of every 10 finalised post-authorisation studies had uploaded results to the EMA’s database. Making post-authorisation study protocols and ...

Embargoed for release: Wednesday, February 25, 2026, 6:30 PM ET Key points: In a study of heart health among adults living with type 2 diabetes (T2D), the use of GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1 RAs) in combination with adherence to healthy lifestyle habits was linked with reduced risk of a major adverse cardiovascular event (MACE), including heart attack, stroke, or cardiovascular disease death. Those who used a GLP-1 RA and adhered to six to eight healthy habits had a 43% lower risk compared to those who did not use a GLP-1 RA and adhered to three or fewer healthy habits. The study also found that GLP-1 RA usage and healthy habits independently benefited heart health, though ...

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 00:00 GMT THURSDAY 26 FEBRUARY (19:00 ET WEDNESDAY 25 FEBRUARY) 2026 Researchers from the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, have resolved a long-standing debate about the strength of the Moon’s magnetic field. For decades, scientists have argued whether the Moon had a strong or weak magnetic field during its early history (3.5 - 4 billion years ago). Now a new analysis – published today (26 February) in Nature Geoscience – shows that both sides of the debate are effectively ...

The University of Birmingham has secured £18 million of funding to create a cutting-edge national computing centre that will help accelerate research and innovation across the UK.  Hosted at the University, the Baskerville National Compute Resource (NCR) will benefit researchers in every discipline - from climate science and healthcare to engineering, social sciences, and the arts.   Funded by ...

Play nicely: Children who are not friends connect better through play when given a goal Getting children to play together cooperatively depends less on their personal social skills and more on what they are doing – especially if they are not friends – a study shows. “Play nicely, children,” has been a familiar plea of stressed-out parents and teachers since time immemorial. Now, new research suggests that getting children to play together cooperatively may depend less on their social skills than the type of play involved – and who they are playing with. In a new study, researchers at the Universities ...

People spend 90% of their lives in buildings, which act as a protective ‘third skin’ from the elements, but climates are becoming more extreme and so the design of places we live and work in must be radically overhauled to keep people at safe temperatures indoors. Many homes and workplaces are not designed to withstand the extreme weather fluctuations we will increasingly experience in a hotter future. The good news is that a new generation of architects and engineers are now creating the climate-ready buildings that can keep occupants thermally safe and comfortable ...

An important new study has found that the wild can be a “death trap” for animals that are released from captivity after previously being rescued. The research, published in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation, involved Anglia Ruskin University primatologist Professor Anna Nekaris OBE and colleagues from the NGO Plumploris e.V. and the University of Western Australia, who studied the outcome of Bengal slow lorises (Nycticebus bengalensis) released in Bangladesh. Slow lorises, with their large eyes and “cute” appearance, are one of the world’s ...

Key takeaways     A new randomised, double-blind crossover study of 74 healthy participants shows that a single night of road traffic noise can have measurable impacts on health. Participants exposed to nighttime traffic noise, typical of those living in a city, experienced impaired blood vessel function, raised heart rate, and blood protein changes linked to inflammation and stress responses.  The findings, published in the journal Cardiovascular Research, could help explain why people exposed to long-term traffic noise have higher rates of high blood pressure and heart disease. The findings support calls for stricter noise regulation to improve cardiovascular ...

DENVER, Wednesday 25 February 2026) Contrary to existing evidence from observational studies, the meningococcal B vaccine (4CMenB) has no effect on preventing the acquisition of gonorrhoea, according to the results of the world’s largest randomised control trial (RCT) into possible efficacy, conducted by Griffith University’s Institute for Biomedicine and Glycomics and the Kirby Institute at UNSW Sydney. The results were presented today by Professor Kate Seib from Griffith University at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Denver, Colorado. Gonorrhoea is a considerable public health challenge, with particular concern around the rise in antibiotic-resistant ...

The American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery Foundation (AAO-HNSF) has been selected by the Council of Medical Specialty Societies (CMSS), with support from The John A. Hartford Foundation, to receive a grant through the Expanding Age-Friendly Approaches to Specialty Ambulatory Care program. The AAO-HNSF is one of a select group of specialty societies awarded funding to develop, implement, and evaluate age-friendly care practices tailored for older adults in outpatient specialty settings. The 18-month ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Newsweek has named Mayo Clinic the No. 1 hospital in the world for the eighth straight year in its 2026 World’s Best Hospitals list.   "This recognition is a result of the extraordinary expertise, compassion and commitment of our staff, all working together to transform healthcare and find more cures for the benefit of people everywhere," says Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., president and CEO of Mayo Clinic. "Over the past year, we accelerated that transformation by responsibly integrating data, technology ...

A team of environmental chemists has developed a new catalyst made from discarded coffee grounds that can efficiently remove hydrogen sulfide, a highly toxic industrial gas, from waste streams while producing useful elemental sulfur. The research demonstrates how agricultural waste can be transformed into high-value materials for pollution control and sustainable industry. Hydrogen sulfide is widely generated in petroleum refining, wastewater treatment, and metal processing. Even at very low concentrations it can harm human health and corrode industrial equipment, while higher levels can ...

A new study reveals how specially modified biochar can significantly improve the ability of willow trees to remove toxic cadmium from contaminated soils, offering a promising strategy for restoring polluted land in a sustainable way. Cadmium is a persistent heavy metal that threatens crop safety, ecosystems, and human health. One environmentally friendly solution is phytoremediation, a process in which plants absorb pollutants from soil. However, plant growth and metal uptake often decline in highly contaminated environments, ...

Scientists are refining a promising climate-smart material that could help clean polluted soils, protect water resources, and support more sustainable agriculture. A new review highlights how engineering biochar with magnetic and mineral modifications may significantly expand its environmental applications while overcoming key practical limitations. Biochar is a carbon-rich material produced by heating agricultural and organic waste in low-oxygen conditions. Because of its porous structure, chemical stability, and ability to bind ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn., Farmington, Conn. – February 25, 2026) Young infants hospitalized with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) often become much sicker compared to those infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. In a study published today in Science Translational Medicine, scientists from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) report that the two respiratory viruses trigger different immune responses. Those differences might explain why these two diseases have different clinical outcomes and require different treatment strategies.   During the COVID-19 pandemic, physicians observed that infants admitted with RSV infection ...

We already know that climate change brings extreme weather, but new research reveals it is also rewriting human demography. According to a massive new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), exposure to extreme heat during pregnancy significantly alters the human sex ratio at birth, resulting in fewer baby boys. By analyzing high-resolution temperature data alongside 5 million live births in 33 sub-Saharan African countries and India, an international team of researchers — including Portland State University demographer Joshua Wilde — discovered ...

Despite advances in the field of organ transplantation, long-term organ rejection that can become apparent a decade or more after a heart or lung transplant remains a common problem for patients. This chronic organ failure has long been attributed exclusively to the recipient’s immune system attacking the foreign organ over time. Now, a study led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that chronic organ rejection may instead be triggered by the disruption of lymphatic vessels — an important drainage system throughout the body — ...

A ketogenic diet — one that is high in fat and extremely low in carbohydrates — has been known for decades to reduce seizures in some epilepsy patients. But how the highly restrictive diet achieves these effects has not previously been understood. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have now shown in mice that the diet causes physical changes in brain cells affecting how they send information to one another, dampening the strength of the signals between them. This quieter neural landscape might explain how the diet calms the overactive ...

Contact: Kate McAlpine, 734-647-7087, kmca@umich.edu  ANN ARBOR—A thousand times faster than conventional testing, an ion beam approach to qualifying materials for use in the cores of advanced nuclear reactors is advancing through stages of approval by the industry standards organization ASTM.  The methodology, developed with leadership by University of Michigan Engineering, will be presented at a special event hosted by the Electric Power Research Institute, March 10-11 in Charlotte, North ...

February 25, 2026 – SEATTLE, Wash. –  Over two decades, medical care improvements increased health spans in the U.S. by 1.3 years and medical spending by $234,000 per person over their lifetime – or about $182,000 per additional healthy year of life gained – when measured from birth. These are among the key findings in a new in-depth national study published today in Value in Health. Researchers examined how improvements in medical care changed health-adjusted life expectancy (HALE) and lifetime health care spending by evaluating changes in 132 causes of disease across all ages between ...

The 2026 SPIE Advanced Lithography + Patterning conference highlighted AI, both as a challenge and a solution. A case in point was the opening plenary session, which featured presentations on high performance memory and diversified manufacturing. The challenge of AI played a large role in the first talk. The existence of ultra large AI models with trillions of parameters, up from billions a few years ago, is improving AI capabilities. Those enormous models, though, pose a problem because they demand higher performing chips. At one time, the limitation was processing power, but that’s no longer the case. “The ...

The Care Bears taught a generation of kids that sharing is caring, but few carried this principle into adulthood. Researchers at Michigan State University have found a new angle to promote cooperation — artificial intelligence (AI). The results of this study are published in npj Complexity. “Cooperation is everywhere in nature,” said Christoph Adami, professor at Michigan State University and senior author on the study. “But the mathematics of how cooperation can persist is not easy to understand.” The project revolves around the concept of the “tragedy of the commons” ...