Science
press releases.

Science7 Jul 2025

Following the pigeon's gaze

There's something magnetic about a group of people looking in the same direction – others will follow their gazes to see what has caught their attention. But is the same true for animals like pigeons – and, if so, does it make a difference, if just one pigeon or a large group of them looks at something? A team of animal behaviour researchers around Fumihiro Kano (team leader) and Mathilde Delacoux from the University of Konstanz examined the gaze following behaviour in groups of pigeons. A story about why it is important to know where pigeons are looking. Following the gaze Gaze following ...

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Science7 Jul 2025

New insights into divergent nitrogen fixation in subtropical forests

Nitrogen fixation is a critical ecological process that converts atmospheric nitrogen into bioavailable forms, essential for plant growth and carbon sequestration. This study, published in Forest Ecosystems, focused on two primary forms of biological nitrogen fixation (BNF): symbiotic nitrogen fixation (SNF), which occurs within the root nodules of nitrogen-fixing plants, and asymbiotic nitrogen fixation (ANF), which is carried out by free-living microorganisms in soil and litter. Understanding the environmental controls on these processes is crucial for predicting ...

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Science7 Jul 2025

Voracious honey bees threaten the food supply of native pollinators

The majority of the earth’s plant species, including our crop plants, rely on the services of animal pollinators in order to reproduce. Honey bees and other pollinating insects annually contribute billions of dollars to the U.S. economy, and are responsible for nearly a third of the food that ends up on our tables. Our modern agricultural industry is so reliant on honey bees that humans have introduced them worldwide, and in many cases, they have escaped human management and risen to prominence in natural ecosystems as non-native, ...

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Science7 Jul 2025

Where the feral buffalo roam in Hong Kong

Most people associate Hong Kong with skyscrapers and shopping malls, but a small population of feral water buffalo calls the marshlands of South Lantau Island home. And they’re sparking a mix of curiosity, concern, and connection among locals. A new study published in People and Nature in July 2025 led by City University of Hong Kong (CityUHK) examines how Hong Kong residents feel about their unusual neighbours. These findings suggest opinions are about as diverse as the city itself. The article is titled “Public attitudes and values regarding a ...

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Science5 Jul 2025

Fig trees convert atmospheric CO2 to stone

Some species of fig trees store calcium carbonate in their trunks – essentially turning themselves (partially) into stone, new research has found. The team of Kenyan, U.S., Austrian, and Swiss scientists found that the trees could draw carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and store it as calcium carbonate ‘rocks’ in the surrounding soil. The research is being presented this week at the Goldschmidt conference in Prague. The trees – native to Kenya – are one of the first fruit trees shown to have this ability, known as the oxalate carbonate pathway. All trees use photosynthesis to turn CO2 into organic carbon, which forms their trunk, ...

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Science4 Jul 2025

Study reveals beneficial microbes that can sustain yields in unfertilized fields

Despite rice being the staple food for more than half of the world’s population, its cultivation remains highly resource-intensive, requiring large amounts of water and chemical fertilizers. Even as environmental concerns pertaining to global food security and climate change continue to mount, there is a growing interest in finding more sustainable ways to grow this essential crop. Microbes in plant roots are known to play a vital role in helping plants survive. It’s known that plants can survive in poor soils by recruiting helpful microbes and forming symbiotic relationships, but we still don’t ...

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Science4 Jul 2025

Some like it cold: Cryorhodopsins

Imagine the magnificent glaciers of Greenland, the eternal snow of the Tibetan high mountains, and the permanently ice-cold groundwater in Finland. As cold and beautiful these are, for the structural biologist Kirill Kovalev, they are more importantly home to unusual molecules that could control brain cells’ activity. Kovalev, EIPOD Postdoctoral Fellow at EMBL Hamburg’s Schneider Group and EMBL-EBI’s Bateman Group, is a physicist passionate about solving biological problems. He is particularly hooked by rhodopsins, a group of colourful proteins that enable aquatic microorganisms to harness ...

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Science4 Jul 2025

New genetic finding uncovers hidden cause of arsenic resistance in acute promyelocytic leukemia

Researchers at Zhejiang University School of Medicine have identified a single point mutation in the normal PML gene that can block the effect of arsenic trioxide, a frontline drug for acute promyelocytic leukemia. This discovery uncovers a hidden cause of treatment failure and suggests a new target for genetic screening in relapsed patients. This work addresses the urgent issue of why some patients relapse despite a therapy that otherwise greatly improves survival. Mutation Explains Why a Small Portion of Leukemia Patients Relapse on Arsenic Therapy Arsenic trioxide cures most acute promyelocytic leukemia patients, but some patients relapse without an ...

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Science4 Jul 2025

Native habitats hold the key to the much-loved smashed avocado’s future

The future of smashed avocado might depend on patches of native vegetation preserved alongside farmland, as new Curtin research reveals the hidden role of these habitats in supporting the insects that keep crops - and brunch menus - thriving. The research, published this week, found that insect communities in avocado orchards adjacent to native remnant vegetation foraged on more than twice as many plant species at times when crop flowering was limited, compared to those in orchards bordered by pasture. Insects with more diverse food sources are more likely to survive and pollinate crops so this finding offers a potential clue to safeguarding ...

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Science3 Jul 2025

Gantangqing site in southwest China yields 300,000-year-old wooden tools

New discoveries from the Pleistocene-age Gantangqing site in southwestern China reveal a diverse collection of wooden tools dated from ~361,000 to 250,000 years ago, marking the earliest known evidence of complex wooden tool technology in East Asia. The findings reveal that the Middle Pleistocene humans who used these tools crafted the wooden implements not for hunting, but for digging and processing plants. Although early humans have worked with wood for over a million years, wooden artifacts are quite rare in the archaeological ...

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Science3 Jul 2025

Sturgeon reintroduction initiative yields promising first-year survival rate

Ecologists celebrated the release of thousands of palm-sized lake sturgeon into northwest Ohio's Maumee River in 2018, kicking off an ambitious two-decade plan to re-establish the ancient species in the waters it once called home. More than five years later, it’s still too soon to declare success. But early signs are promising, according to recent research led by The University of Toledo and published in the peer-reviewed North American Journal of Fisheries Management. The research tracked the first-year survival rates for cohorts released in 2018, 2019 and 2021, with results suggesting that the initiative is on track to achieve its goal of a self-sustaining ...

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Science3 Jul 2025

Research teases apart competing transcription organization models

Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital have reconciled two closely related but contentious mechanisms underlying transcription, the process of converting genetic information in DNA into messenger RNA. Phase separation has been proposed as a driving force in transcription due to its ability to selectively concentrate proteins and DNA in discrete droplets. However, scientists have been unclear about what really matters for transcription: the phase-separated droplets or the molecular interactions that contribute to phase separation by forming networks. To address ...

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Science3 Jul 2025

More people need to know how to prevent SIDS

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is the unexpected, unexplained, sudden death of a child younger than one year old. Although the number of babies born in the United States who die from SIDS annually has declined in recent decades, it is the most common cause of death among infants between one month and one year old, and some 2,300 babies die of it each year, according to Boston Children’s Hospital. Yet new health survey data from the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania finds that ...

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Science3 Jul 2025

Many people choose unemployment benefits over poorly paid jobs

You have probably heard people say that “it should be worth our time to work”. This is true even in Norway, where generous social welfare programs help take care of people who have ended up outside the workforce, whether involuntarily or not. “This is what we call the ‘work incentive principle’. Basically, there should always be a financial advantage to working instead of receiving unemployment benefits,” said Roberto Iacono, an associate professor at the Norwegian Univeristy of Science and Technology ...

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Science3 Jul 2025

Certain young people more prone to anxiety and depression

It has long been known that loneliness is a risk factor in the development of anxiety and depression. However, the association itself has been less well studied. This is especially true during the transition from adolescence to adulthood. “Our research team investigated how loneliness in adolescence, both in isolation and in interaction with low resilience, affects anxiety and depression in young adulthood,” said Nayan Deepak Parlikar. She is a PhD candidate at the Norwegian University ...

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Science3 Jul 2025

Review article highlights urgent need for aflatoxin control strategies in Pakistan’s feed supply chain

Scientists who have written in the CABI One Health journal say there is an urgent need for aflatoxin control strategies in Pakistan’s feed supply chain to improve animal health, productivity, food safety and exports of animal-based products. The researchers argue that aflatoxins – toxic metabolites produced by certain fungi – are frequently found in animal feed due to poor storage and handling practices. Their presence, they say, not only compromises animal health but also leads to transfer through contaminated milk, meat and eggs, posing serious risks to public health. A review article ...

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Science3 Jul 2025

Researchers reveal key differences in STING inhibition between humans and mice

Researchers have long focused on the STING (Stimulator of Interferon Genes) pathway as a way to harness the immune system’s natural defenses against cancer. This pathway, which plays a key role in helping the body defend against potential pathogens, can be leveraged to trigger an innate immune response that targets cancer cells. However, a study published July 3 in the journal Nature Chemical Biology, led by biochemist Lingyin Li (Bluesky: @lingyinli.bsky.social), is spearheading a new school of thought. Historically, research on STING has overwhelmingly focused on activating the pathway ...

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Science3 Jul 2025

Old aerial photos give scientists a new tool to predict sea level rise

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen have gained unique insight into the mechanisms behind the collapse of Antarctic ice shelves, which are crucial for sea level rise in the Northern Hemisphere. The discovery of old aerial photos has provided an unparalleled dataset that can improve predictions of sea level rise and how we should prioritise coastal protection and other forms of climate adaptation. On 28 November 1966, an American aeroplane flies over the Antarctic Peninsula just south of the southernmost tip of Chile. On board is a photographer, probably from the US Navy, whose job is to map the Antarctic landscape. But it turns out that the photographer is also documenting ...

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Science3 Jul 2025

20 million for courageous research at ISTA

The private Swiss NOMIS Foundation is investing €20 million to support research at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) in Klosterneuburg—a partnership that focuses on daring science. Starting in 2026, projects will be funded for five years that break new ground and therefore have the potential to deliver substantial leaps in our knowledge. “We are thrilled to take our long-standing, successful collaboration with the NOMIS Foundation to a new level,” says ISTA President Martin Hetzer. “With this joint program, ...

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Science3 Jul 2025

Teens report spending 21% of each driving trip looking at their phone

A new study offers a stark reminder of how pervasive cell phone use while driving is for young people, as findings demonstrate teen drivers spend an average of 21.1% of each trip viewing their mobile behind the wheel. In a questionnaire completed by more than 1,100 teen drivers across the US, the young motorists estimated that 26.5% of these glances were for two seconds or longer, a duration which dramatically increases their risk for a crash. Results, published in the peer-reviewed journal Traffic Injury Prevention, show the most common reason for the distraction was entertainment (65%), followed by texting (40%) and navigation (30%). “Distracted ...

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Science3 Jul 2025

Diver-operated microscope brings hidden coral biology into focus

The intricate, hidden processes that sustain coral life are being revealed through a new microscope developed by scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography. The diver-operated microscope — called the Benthic Underwater Microscope imaging PAM, or BUMP — incorporates pulse amplitude modulated (PAM) light techniques to offer an unprecedented look at coral photosynthesis on micro-scales. In a new study, researchers describe how the BUMP imaging system makes it possible to study the health and physiology of coral reefs in their natural habitat, ...

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Science3 Jul 2025

Vaccination support program reduces pneumonia-related mortality by 25 percent among the elderly

A research team has evaluated the real-world impact of a community-based pneumococcal vaccination support program for older adults conducted in Sera Town, Hiroshima Prefecture, Japan. Their work is published in the Journal of Epidemiology on May 5, 2025. Pneumonia is one of the leading causes of death in Japan. Each year about 74,000 people die from pneumonia with 98 percent of these deaths occurring in people aged 65 and older. The bacteria Streptococcus pneumoniae is the primary cause of pneumonia. In October 2014, Japan began a nationwide routine vaccination program for the elderly under ...

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Science2 Jul 2025

Billions voted in 2024, but major new report exposes cracks in global democracy

A new report from the University of East Anglia has raised concerns about the state of democracy around the world during 2024’s ‘Super Cycle’ of elections. Described by Time Magazine as the ‘Year of Elections’, 2024 saw 1.6 billion people head to the polls across 74 national elections in 62 countries - an unprecedented concentration of democratic activity in a single year. But a global report from the Electoral Integrity Project, released today, paints a mixed and often troubling picture of how those ...

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Science2 Jul 2025

For effective science communication, ‘just the facts’ isn’t good enough

In a new communications landscape that feasts on polarization, the science community needs to rethink how it engages society in scientific discovery, controversy and policy. The authors of a report in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academies of Science (PNAS) argue that the standard communication model of disseminating the facts and assuming “the truth will prevail” is increasingly falling on deaf ears. Instead, the science community needs to create a “collaboration model” that invites more public conversations, incorporates personal morals and values, creates a level playing field for input, and embraces uncertainty. Report ...

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Science2 Jul 2025

This might be America's first campus tree inventory

Ask anyone what comes to mind when they think of Northern Arizona University and they’ll probably say something about the trees. NAU's Flagstaff mountain campus is home to an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 trees—most of them ponderosa pines. This precious resource is worth protecting. That’s why, this summer, students, faculty and staff at NAU are working together to take stock of the campus tree collection. Slowly but surely, a team of forestry and environmental scientists will collect information about the health, ...

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