Science
press releases.

Science10 Jul 2025

Condo-style living helps keep the peace inside these ant plants

Odd plants from a remote Pacific island reveal new insights into an important ecological question: how unrelated and antagonistic partners can form long-term mutualistic relationships with the same host. Scientists studying ant plants in Fiji have discovered one way that a host plant can keep the peace among residents that might otherwise kill each other. By providing separate chambers inside a gradually enlarging tuber -- each chamber with an entry hole from the outside but no connection to any adjacent chamber -- the Squamellaria plant prevents conflicts between the multiple ant species that ...

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Science10 Jul 2025

New discovery reveals dopamine operates with surgical precision, not as a broad signal

AURORA, Colo. (July 10, 2025) – A new study from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus has upended decades of neuroscience dogma, revealing that dopamine, a neurotransmitter critical for movement, motivation, learning and mood, communicates in the brain with extraordinary precision, not broad diffusion as previously believed. This groundbreaking research offers fresh hope for millions of people living with dopamine-related disorders, marking a significant advance in the quest for precision-based neuroscience and medicine. For years, scientists thought of ...

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Science10 Jul 2025

Rheumatoid arthritis and muscle wasting: New review points to overlooked complications

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic autoimmune disease that affects individuals across all ages and genders. While its most visible impact is on the joints, RA also contributes to accelerated musculoskeletal ageing, often leading to progressive muscle degeneration and reduced muscle function. Emerging research has identified a specific form of muscle loss in RA—known as myopenia—which differs significantly from other disease-related muscle-wasting conditions such as cancer cachexia or heart failure. Unlike those conditions, myopenia is characterized by a decline in muscle mass without concurrent fat loss and can manifest across all age groups. Despite ...

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Science10 Jul 2025

Overcoming intrinsic dispersion locking by misaligned bilayer metagratings

Wavelength and propagation direction (angle) are two fundamental properties of light. The ability to selectively control both a specific wavelength and a specific angle forms the physical foundation for many advanced optical applications. However, due to the intrinsic dispersion in periodic systems, there exists an intrinsic locking relationship between angle and wavelength in the resonant spectrum. As a result, it has been widely accepted that changing the angle of incidence inevitably shifts the filtering wavelength of optical devices. This relationship between angle and wavelength in resonant spectra makes their independent ...

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Science10 Jul 2025

Genomic study reveals deep roots of human survival and adaptation in Himalayas

A new genomic study reveals how human populations adapted, survived, and diversified in the Himalayas, one of the most extreme and challenging environments on Earth. The research, a collaboration between the University of Birmingham and international partners from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, analysed whole-genome sequences from diverse Himalayan ethnic groups, many of which had never been genetically studied before at this level. Published today (10 July) in Current Biology, the study shows that population structure in the Himalayas began over 10,000 years ago, thousands of years before archaeological evidence of permanent settlement at high altitudes. This early divergence ...

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Science10 Jul 2025

Cumulative anticholinergic exposure and change in gait speed and grip strength in older adults

About The Study: In this cohort study, higher anticholinergic exposure was associated with accelerated decline in physical performance, consistent with clinically meaningful decline. These findings suggest that minimizing anticholinergic medications is important for healthy aging. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Shelly L. Gray, PharmD, MS, email slgray@uw.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.19819) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions ...

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Science10 Jul 2025

Study suggests lemurs age differently than humans

What can lemurs tell us about inflammation and aging, aka “inflammaging” in humans? That’s the question Elaine Guevara, a biological anthropologist who studies the evolution of life history and aging in primates, set out to understand. In newly published research on age-related inflammation in ring-tailed and sifaka lemurs, Guevara discovered that perhaps we should rethink the inevitability of inflammaging in humans. Although similar in many ways, ring-tailed and sifaka lemurs show differences in life pacing ...

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Science10 Jul 2025

Content or form? The two possible paths of our memories

If memories are the black box of our past, they can also shed light on the present by giving meaning to new situations. But how does memory retrieve either surface matches (based on same places, same people) or deeper, more conceptual ones (based on similar intentions or actions)? A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has shed light on this question, showing that memory tends to favour the substance of a situation —its concept or underlying problem — when it can be linked to familiar mental ...

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Science10 Jul 2025

Research team produces low-loss spin waveguide network

The rapid rise in AI applications has placed increasingly heavy demands on our energy infrastructure. All the more reason to find energy-saving solutions for AI hardware. One promising idea is the use of so-called spin waves to process information. A team from the Universities of Münster and Heidelberg (Germany) led by physicist Prof. Rudolf Bratschitsch (Münster) has now developed a new way to produce waveguides in which the spin waves can propagate particularly far. They have thus created the largest spin waveguide network to date. Furthermore, the group succeeded in specifically controlling the ...

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Science10 Jul 2025

Premature babies should have early skin-to-skin contact with their mother

More premature babies who had early skin-to-skin contact with their mother were being breastfed at the time of discharge from hospital and for up to one year afterwards. However, this is far from the only benefit. A team from St. Olavs Hospital and the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) have looked at this issue in a number of articles. They now hope that more hospitals will change their practice so that premature babies are not separated from their mother during the first few hours after birth. “The first few ...

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Science10 Jul 2025

Hot weather causes children to sweat at the same rate as adults, study shows

Findings contradict previous health advice that children are more susceptible than adults to dehydration and hyperthermia in extreme temperatures But children are still at increased clinical risk due to being more physically active and less aware of the need to drink fluids New research from the University of Sydney has found that children are at a similar risk of dehydration and hyperthermia in extreme heat as adults, contradicting previous advice that children are more susceptible to heat-related illnesses. The study, published in the British ...

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Science10 Jul 2025

New electroenzymatic strategy enables non-natural oxidation reactions

A research team led by Prof. Xiaoqiang Huang from Nanjing University has achieved a major breakthrough in the field of asymmetric electroenzymatic catalysis, developing a novel non-natural dynamic kinetic oxidation system by integrating ferrocene methanol-mediated anodic oxidation with thiamine diphosphate (ThDP)-dependent enzyme catalysis. The work, supported by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements at the Steady-State Strong Magnetic Field Facility, the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has been published in Nature. Electrochemistry is undergoing a resurgence in synthetic chemistry due to its ...

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Science9 Jul 2025

Thirty years of research shows increased resistance in fungi

Fungi are increasingly resistant to antifungals, and the variation in resistance has significantly increased. This is evident from the analysis of more than 12,000 lung samples collected over thirty years in Dutch hospitals. In addition, a resistant infection in a patient almost always consists of different fungal strains, making treatment more challenging. This study by Radboud university medical center and public health institute RIVM has been published in The Lancet Microbe. When consultant microbiologist Paul Verweij and his team began collecting Aspergillus fumigatus isolates from patients’ lungs in 1994, they did not ...

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Science9 Jul 2025

Junk food ‘avoids advertising regulation’ with top level UK sports sponsorship

Junk food firms have more than 90 current sponsorship deals within top UK sports amid growing concerns over their impact on public health, finds an investigation published by The BMJ today. Brands including Cadbury, Pepsi, KP Snacks, Walkers, Kellogg’s, Red Bull, and Monster are among those with ongoing partnerships with sporting stars, top flight teams, or official governing bodies. They include deals with top men’s and women’s football stars Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka, Leah Williamson, and Lauren James, England Cricket captain ...

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Science9 Jul 2025

Psilocybin delays aging, extends lifespan, Emory study suggests

As revenues from the anti-aging market-- riddled with hope and thousands of supplements–– surged past $500 million last year, Emory University researchers identified a compound that actively delays aging in cells and organisms. A newly published study in Nature Partner Journals’ Aging demonstrates that psilocin, a byproduct of consuming psilocybin, the active ingredient in psychedelic mushrooms, extended the cellular lifespan of human skin and lung cells by more than 50%. In parallel, researchers also conducted the first long-term in vivo study evaluating the systemic effects of psilocybin in aged mice ...

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Science9 Jul 2025

Orange is the new aphrodisiac—for guppies

It turns out colour isn’t just fashionable for guppies: According to a new UBC study, the more orange a male, the more virile it is. The research published in Nature Ecology & Evolution shines light on an enduring evolutionary mystery: why male guppies have such vibrant and varied colours and patterns. Virile me up Zoologists Drs. Wouter van der Bijl and Judith Mank used deep learning, genetic studies and bred three generations of increasingly orange guppies to investigate. They found the more colourful males were up to two times more sexually active, performing for females at a greater rate and for longer periods of time, and attempting to sneakily copulate ...

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Science9 Jul 2025

Ad blockers may be showing users more problematic ads, NYU Tandon study finds

Ad blockers, the digital shields that nearly one billion internet users deploy to protect themselves from intrusive advertising, may be inadvertently exposing their users to more problematic content, according to a new study from NYU Tandon School of Engineering. The study, which analyzed over 1,200 advertisements across the United States and Germany, found that users of Adblock Plus's "Acceptable Ads" feature encountered 13.6% more problematic advertisements compared to users browsing ...

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Science9 Jul 2025

Verbal response time reveals hidden sleepiness in older adults

A new study led by UCLA investigators shows that Verbal Reaction Time (VRT), the amount of time it takes a person to respond verbally, can be a marker of sleepiness in older adults. The study, which measured participants’ voice data through standardized cognitive assessments, show how VRT can passively detect excessive sleepiness, especially among older individuals using sedative medications. Why it matters Sleepiness is a major contributor to safety risks in daily life, but is often underreported or unnoticed, especially among older ...

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Science9 Jul 2025

Molecular simulations show graphite ‘hijacks’ diamond formation through unexpected crystallization pathways

The graphite found in your favorite pencil could have instead been the diamond your mother always wears. What made the difference? Researchers are finding out. How molten carbon crystallizes into either graphite or diamond is relevant to planetary science, materials manufacturing and nuclear fusion research. However, this moment of crystallization is difficult to study experimentally because it happens very rapidly and under extreme conditions. In a new study published July 9 in Nature Communications, researchers from the University of California, Davis and George Washington ...

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Science9 Jul 2025

Somali women’s perspectives on female genital mutilation and its abandonment

Somali women describe a complex and shifting tradition of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) in Somalia, according to a study published July 9, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS Global Public Health by Zamzam I.A. Ali from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK and the Mayo Clinic, US, and colleagues. Female genital mutilation/cutting, which increases the risks of immediate and long-term psychological, obstetric, genitourinary and sexual and reproductive health complications, has no health benefits. It continues to be a human rights issue globally, with the UN and the Human Rights Council calling for a complete end to the practice. ...

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Science9 Jul 2025

Prenatal and childhood lead exposure linked to faster memory decay in children

New York, NY — July 9, 2025 — A study led by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai shows that exposure to lead during pregnancy and early childhood may accelerate the rate at which children forget information—a critical marker of memory impairment that may have implications for learning and development. Using delayed matching-to-sample task (DMTS)—a cognitive task that can be used to evaluate underlying neurobehavioral functions, such as attention and working memory, and has been demonstrated to be sensitive to metal neurotoxicants—the study examined how both prenatal ...

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Science9 Jul 2025

Koalas spend only 1% of their life on the ground – but it’s killing them

Koalas are a nationally endangered and iconic species in Australia, yet their populations are rapidly declining due to habitat loss, fragmentation, and disease, and very little is known about the fine-scale movements of koalas – especially when they’re on the ground. New research reveals that koalas only spend around 10 minutes per day on the ground, but this ground-time is associated with two-thirds of recorded koala deaths. “Koalas are mostly tree-dwelling, but due to extensive land clearing, they’re increasingly forced to travel on the ground, which puts them at serious risk of injury and death,” ...

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Science9 Jul 2025

IPK research team unlocks potential of barley’s closest wild relative, Hordeum bulbosum

Wild relatives of cultivated plants are a vital source of genetic diversity for improving crops and provide a valuable reservoir of resistance against biotic and abiotic stressors. Although their value has been recognised for decades, technological obstacles have long hindered their exploration. Thanks to advances in high-throughput genomic research, the same tools can now be used in crops and their wild relatives. An international research team led by the IPK Leibniz Institute studied structural genome evolution in barley (Hordeum vulgare) and Hordeum bulbosum. For this study, Dr. Frank Blattner collected H. bulbosum ...

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Science9 Jul 2025

Study reveals the hidden benefits of weight loss on fat tissue

Scientists have produced the first detailed characterisation of the changes that weight loss causes in human fat tissue by analysing hundreds of thousands of cells. They found a range of positive effects, including clearing out of damaged, ageing cells, and increased metabolism of harmful fats. The researchers say the findings help to better understand how weight loss leads to health improvements at a molecular level, which in the future could help to inform the development of therapies for diseases such as type 2 diabetes. The study, published in the journal Nature, compared samples ...

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Science9 Jul 2025

Charité study analyzes 400 million years of enzyme evolution

Enzymes catalyze chemical reactions in organisms - without which life would not be possible. Leveraging AlphaFold2 artificial intelligence, researchers at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin have now succeeded in analyzing the laws of their evolution on a large scale. In the journal Nature*, they describe the parts of enzymes that change comparatively quickly and the parts that remain practically unchanged over time. These findings are relevant to the development of new antibiotics, for example. Enzymes resemble ...

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