Science
press releases.

Science30 Jul 2025

Positive ethnic identity fosters STEM career aspirations

When Black and Latino youth aspire toward careers in science and technology, their confidence in exploring career possibilities and how they think society views their ethnic-racial group can play a crucial role in whether their dreams take root. Such is a finding of a study by UC Riverside associate professor of psychology Aerika Brittian Loyd, UCR doctoral candidate Tate LeBlanc, and co-authors published in the Journal for STEM Education Research. Middle and high school students who voiced higher expectations of success in exploring different career paths — along with perceptions that their racial ...

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Science30 Jul 2025

From the lab to the hand: nanodevice brings personalized genomics closer to reality

Osaka, Japan – DNA holds the instructions that make us who we are. If we want to read those instructions, say to understand our predisposition to genetic disorders, we need to carefully ‘unzip’ DNA’s iconic double-helix structure. This is neither easy nor fast, and the process involves intense heating and chemicals that can damage the DNA. Now, in a new study published in ACS Nano, a research team led by The University of Osaka has developed a novel technology for making the unzipping process much easier. Their invention uses a miniature heater to precisely and gently unzip the DNA double helix. The device uses a nano-sized platinum coil. As the DNA strand reaches ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

Kavraki elected to European Academy of Sciences

Lydia Kavraki, a pioneering researcher in robotics, computational biomedicine and artificial intelligence (AI) at Rice University, has been elected to the European Academy of Sciences. This prestigious organization recognizes excellence in scientific advancement and innovation. The honor will be conferred in Geneva in December, placing Kavraki among an elite group of scientists whose work drives progress in both academia and applied technology. Kavraki, the Kenneth and Audrey Kennedy Professor of Computing, holds multiple appointments across engineering ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

UK teens who currently vape as likely to start smoking as their peers in the 1970s

UK teens who currently vape are as likely to take up smoking as their peers in the 1970s, despite a substantial fall in the prevalence of teenage smoking over the past 50 years, suggests a long term intergenerational study published online in the journal Tobacco Control. The likelihood of starting to smoke among teens who don’t vape was around 1.5%, but 33% among those who do, the findings indicate. It’s not entirely clear if the rise in popularity of e-cigarettes (vapes) among teens threatens the steady decline in the prevalence of cigarette smoking in this age group, say the researchers, as the ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

Can African countries meet 2030 childhood immunization goals?

In the last two decades, childhood immunization coverage improved significantly across most African countries. However, at least 12 countries are unlikely to achieve global targets for full immunization by 2030, according to a new study publishing July 29th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Phuong The Nguyen of Hitotsubashi University, Japan, and colleagues. Vaccines are one of the most effective ways to protect children from deadly diseases, yet immunization coverage is still suboptimal in many African countries. Monitoring and progress in childhood immunizations at the national and local level is essential for refining health programs and achieving ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

A fast daily walk could extend your life: Study

Walking fast for just 15 minutes per day reduced the risk of death in a large study group of mostly low-income participants. The research findings, published July 29 in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, support promoting brisk walking as a strategy for improving health outcomes in all communities. Although the health benefits of walking are widely recognized, there has been limited research on the effect of factors such as walking pace on mortality, particularly in low-income and Black populations, said the study’s senior author, ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

U-M study: E-cigarettes could unravel decades of tobacco control

Teens who regularly use e-cigarettes are equally as likely as their peers from the 1970s to take up cigarette smoking, despite a substantial reduction in the prevalence of teenage cigarette use over the last 50 years, according to a study co-led by the University of Michigan. U-M researchers, in collaboration with Penn State University and Purdue University, concluded that teenagers who had never used e-cigarettes had an approximately less than 1 in 50 chance of weekly cigarette use, whereas those who had previously used e-cigarettes had more than a 1 in 10 chance. More importantly, teenagers who ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

On track to produce better lab-grown burgers

Beef is growing in the Petri dishes of ETH professor Ori Bar-Nur, an expert in regenerative and muscle biology. However, he hasn’t yet tasted the cultivated meat because human consumption requires official approval in Switzerland. However, Bar-Nur has colleagues who have participated in approved tastings of lab-grown beef. They describe the taste and consistency as being similar to that of real meat. After all, it is beef, the only difference being that no cow needs to be slaughtered in order to obtain it. Bar-Nur and his team produce the meat in cell culture from bovine cells. They use precursor cells, known as myoblasts, that form muscle ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

Groundbreaking research to identify early signs of multiple sclerosis

In a major step towards early detection, University of South Australia researchers are investigating the biology behind multiple sclerosis (MS) to help predict people’s genetic risk of developing the disease, long before any symptoms appear. Funded by an MS Australia Incubator Grant announced today, the Australian-first study will use a powerful new research method known as ‘recall by genotype’ to explore genetic causes of MS. Specifically, the study will explore links between MS and the Epstein-Barr virus – a common ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

A twangy timbre cuts through the noise

WASHINGTON, July 29, 2025 — Twangy voices are a hallmark of country music and many regional accents. However, this speech type, often described as “brassy” and “bright,” can also be used to get a message across in a noisy environment. In JASA Express Letters, published on behalf of the Acoustical Society of America by AIP Publishing, researchers from Indiana University found that it was easier to understand twangy female voices compared to neutral voices when surrounded by noise. Found in accents in American cities such as Chicago, Boston, New York, ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

SwRI expands antenna testing capabilities with spherical near-field range

SAN ANTONIO — July 29, 2025 — Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is expanding its antenna measurement capabilities with a state-of-the-art spherical near-field antenna range. The 1,260-square-foot indoor range, lined with radio frequency and microwave foam absorbers, is equipped to accurately sample the near field of an antenna. Near-field measurements can be mathematically transformed into far-field data. “Near field” refers to the complex electromagnetic fields close to the antenna, while the “far field” encompasses the predictable ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

Licensed to live

The DNA packed inside every human cell contains instructions for life, written in billions of letters of genetic code. Every time a cell divides, the complete code, divided among 46 chromosomes, must be faithfully copied. This staggering task happens over and over with extraordinary precision. Decades of research have revealed how dozens of proteins work together to copy chromosomes reliably. Now, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) President Bruce Stillman and colleagues have compiled these findings into a comprehensive view of the very first step: a “licensing” ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

Researchers create ‘virtual scientists’ to solve complex biological problems

There may be a new artificial intelligence-driven tool to turbocharge scientific discovery: virtual labs. Modeled after a well-established Stanford School of Medicine research group, the virtual lab is complete with an AI principal investigator and seasoned scientists. “Good science happens when we have deep, interdisciplinary collaborations where people from different backgrounds work together, and often that’s one of the main bottlenecks and challenging parts of research,” said James Zou, PhD, associate professor of biomedical data science who led a study detailing the development of the virtual lab. “In parallel, we’ve ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

World’s largest tropical peatlands revealed to be more than 40,000 years old

University of Leeds news Embargoed until 0700 BST, 29 July 2025 *With images* World’s largest tropical peatlands revealed to be more than 40,000 years old A peatland complex in the Congo Basin which is known to be a globally important carbon store is twice as old as previously thought, according to a new scientific study. An international team of researchers has shown that the tropical peatland complex, which is the world’s largest, began forming about ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

Pick up the pace of your daily walk to boost longevity, experts say

Ann Arbor, July 29, 2025 - Regular walking is widely recognized for its significant benefits to overall health and well-being. Previous research has primarily focused on middle-to-high-income White populations. Now, a novel analysis using data from the Southern Community Cohort Study, involving 79,856 predominantly low-income and Black individuals across 12 southeastern US states, confirms the benefits of regular walking, especially at a faster pace, within a crucial, underrepresented group. The new study appearing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, underscores the importance ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

Normal hormone levels trigger severe depression in some women; researcher discovers mechanism

CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina, USA, 29 July 2025 – In a wide-ranging Genomic Press Interview published today in Brain Medicine, Dr. David R. Rubinow recounts the serendipitous path that led him to overturn decades of medical assumptions about hormone-related mood disorders in women. The interview reveals how a chance phone call accepting a fellowship position he had initially rejected set Dr. Rubinow on a trajectory that would fundamentally change how medicine understands and treats reproductive mood disorders. His discovery that women with conditions like premenstrual dysphoric disorder ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

How much time did our ancestors spend up trees? Studying these chimpanzees might help us find out

It’s hard to tell when — and why — our ancestors got down from trees and started walking on two legs. Many early hominins capable of bipedal walking were also well-adapted for climbing, and we lack fossil evidence from a key period when climate change turned forests into open, dry woodland called savannah-mosaic, which might have pushed hominins onto the ground. Now a study on modern chimpanzees could help fill in the gaps. Scientists observing chimpanzees in the Issa Valley, Tanzania have shown that despite living in ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

New discovery reveals the spinal cord’s role in bladder control

Urinary incontinence is a devastating condition affecting over 33 million Americans, according to the National Association for Continence, leading to significant adverse impacts on patients’ mental health and quality of life. Disorders of urination are also a key feature of all neurological disorders. A USC research team has now made major progress in understanding how the human spinal cord triggers the bladder emptying process. The discovery could lead to exciting new therapies to help patients regain control of ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

Kākāpō decline reveals threat of parasite coextinction

Researchers from the University of Adelaide, New Zealand’s Manaaki Whenua-Landcare Research and University of Auckland have discovered that more than 80 per cent of parasites detected in kākāpō poo prior to the 1990s are no longer present in contemporary populations. The project used ancient DNA and microscopic techniques to sample faeces dating back more than 1500 years, with nine of 16 original parasite taxa disappearing prior to the 1990s, when the endangered parrot came under full-population management, and an additional four recorded as lost in the period ...

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Science29 Jul 2025

Astrocytes identified as hidden culprit behind PTSD

Did you know that patients with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) often struggle to forget traumatic memories, even long after the danger has passed? This failure to extinguish fear memories has long puzzled scientists and posed a major hurdle for treatment, especially since current medications targeting serotonin receptors offer limited relief for only a subset of patients. In a new discovery, scientists at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) and Ewha Womans University have uncovered a new brain mechanism driving PTSD — and a promising drug that may counteract its effects. Led by Dr. C. Justin ...

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Science28 Jul 2025

Body fat percentage beats BMI in predicting 15-year mortality risk among U.S. adults ages 20 to 49

Background and Goal: Although body mass index (BMI) is widely used in clinics as the standard measure of body composition, it can potentially misclassify muscular individuals as overweight and miss cases of "normal-weight obesity," masking serious metabolic and heart disease risks. This study examined BMI vs body fat percentage for 15-year mortality risk among adults aged 20-49 years. Study Approach: Researchers from the University of Florida analyzed data from 4,252 participants in the 1999-2004 National Health and Nutrition ...

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Science28 Jul 2025

HEAL protocol addresses human trafficking in Brazilian primary care

Primary care is often the first or only contact point for human trafficking survivors. In the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, professionals from the health, social services, and justice sectors collaborated to adapt and translate the U.S.-based HEAL Trafficking Protocol Toolkit to the Brazilian context. The toolkit equips health care professionals with the knowledge and tools to identify, and respond to, potential victims of human trafficking in a trauma-informed and patient-centered manner. Since September 2023, the Brazilian Protocol Toolkit page on the HEAL website has received ...

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Science28 Jul 2025

Study identifies gene clusters in rhizobia linked to robust legume growth

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — In a new study, scientists used nearly every tool in their toolkit — genomics, transcriptomics, greenhouse experiments and advanced statistical methods — to gain new insight into the complex chemical interactions that take place in underground root nodules, where legumes like soybeans exchange vital nutrients with soil microbes called rhizobia. Reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, their study identified clusters of rhizobial genes that appear to move rapidly through bacterial populations and drive greater plant biomass ...

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Science28 Jul 2025

Remapping the evolutionary tree of butterflies

Embargo 28 July 2025 20:00 UK / 15:00 US Eastern Times Peer-reviewed / Experimental / Insects REMAPPING THE EVOLUTIONARY TREE OF BUTTERFLIES Some butterflies can smell others of the same species, allowing them to identify each other in areas where multiple species all look the same, new research finds. A large international team has genetically mapped glasswing butterflies found across Central and South America, rewriting the evolutionary tree and highlighting six new species. The ...

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Science28 Jul 2025

Employees who spot problems help the bottom line, so why do leaders give more power to bootlickers?

Two new studies find that leaders are less likely to empower followers who raise concerns about workplace decisions, even though these “challenging voice” employees play a critical role in highlighting problems and identifying solutions. The studies also outline what drives these decisions. “We know that employee performance improves and employee turnover declines when employees are empowered – that’s good,” says Bradley Kirkman, co-author of a paper on the two studies. “We also know that having employees who use challenging voice are also beneficial to the bottom line – because ...

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