Science
press releases.

Science13 Jun 2025

Pangolins in Africa hunted for food rather than illicit scales trade – with meat ranked as ‘tastiest’

Study suggests that appetite for bushmeat – rather than black market for scales to use in traditional Chinese medicine – may be driving West Africa’s illegal hunting of one of the world’s most threatened mammals. Interviews with hundreds of hunters show pangolins overwhelmingly caught for food, with majority of scales thrown away. Survey work shows pangolin is considered the most palatable meat in the region. The vast majority of pangolin hunting in African ...

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Science13 Jun 2025

Swarm intelligence directs longhorn crazy ants to clear the road ahead for sisters carrying bulky food

Among the tens of thousands of ant species, incredible ‘intelligent’ behaviors like crop culture, animal husbandry, surgery, ‘piracy’, social distancing, and complex architecture have evolved. Yet at first sight, the brain of an ant seems hardly capable of such feats: it is about the size of a poppy seed, with only 0.25m to 1m neurons, compared to 86bn for humans. Now, researchers from Israel and Switzerland have shown how ‘swarm intelligence’ resembling advance planning can nevertheless emerge from the concerted operation of many of ...

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Science13 Jun 2025

What’s driving the rise of NLM wines?

New research from Adelaide Business School at the University of Adelaide provides a framework for understanding the growing consumer interest in no, low and mid (NLM) alcohol wines. Dr Hannah Ford’s comprehensive scoping review, published in Journal of Marketing Management , suggests that consumer adoption of NLM wines is influenced by a range of factors, while wine businesses themselves play a pivotal role. “The global wine industry is evolving rapidly in response to growing health-conscious and moderation-driven drinking trends,” Dr Ford explains. “The review proposes that appeal to NLM wines is influenced ...

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Science13 Jun 2025

Koalas set to benefit from new genetic screening tool

A University of Queensland-led project has developed a tool to standardise genetic testing of koala populations, providing a significant boost to conservation and recovery efforts. Dr Lyndal Hulse from UQ’s School of the Environment said the standardised koala genetic marker panel provides a consistent method for researchers nationwide to capture and share koala genetic variation, enabling improved collaboration and data integration across studies. “Koalas in the wild are under increasing pressure ...

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Science13 Jun 2025

Scientists discover the ‘ticking’ mechanism driving nature’s simplest circadian clock

Aichi, Japan--Researchers from the Institute for Molecular Science (IMS)/SOKENDAI and Kyushu University have uncovered the molecular mechanism that drives the "ticking" of the circadian clock in cyanobacteria. Their study reveals how a clock protein called KaiC controls chemical reactions with remarkable precision, acting like the hand of a clock that waits, then moves at just the right moment. The findings were published in PNAS Nexus on April 28, 2025. To adapt to Earth's daily rotation, most living organisms, from simple, single-celled bacteria to complex, multicellular ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

Doctors urge FIFA to end deal with Coca-Cola ahead of Club World Cup

Football’s governing body FIFA should drop Coca-Cola as sponsors of the 2025 Club World Cup which begins this week, urge doctors in The BMJ today. Dr Chris van Tulleken at University College London and Professor Carlos Monteiro at the University of São Paulo, say Coca-Cola and other sugary drinks companies have exploited the world's most popular sport for commercial gain - profiting off players and fans while contributing to a global health crisis. FIFA now has an opportunity to lead by example and send a powerful message - that health supersedes corporate sponsorship, they write. As FIFA’s official sponsor since 1978, Coca-Cola has leveraged its massive platform ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

Earned sick leave alone is not enough for uninsured workers

Earned sick leave—short-term, paid time off for employees who are sick or injured or must care for sick or injured family members—has been found to reduce the spread of infectious diseases in the workplace and increase employee access to preventive care. Since 2019, seven states have implemented laws requiring employers to offer earned sick leave, bringing the total to 18 (plus Washington, D.C.). Despite this growth, however, little has been known until now about the policy’s effects on worker well-being across various industries. “This ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

Symmetrical crystals can absorb light asymmetrically

Just when scientists thought they knew everything about crystals, a Northwestern University and University of Wisconsin-Madison collaboration has uncovered a hidden secret. Centrosymmetric crystals are a special type of material that is fully symmetrical in every direction from a central point. Previously, scientists thought only non-centrosymmetric materials could exhibit chiral behavior — a property in which an object acts differently from its mirror reflection. But, for the first time, researchers ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

Platform rapidly designs organ-scale vasculature trees for 3D bioprinting

Zachary Sexton and colleagues have developed a design platform that can rapidly generate vasculature trees that can then be bioprinted and used to successfully perfuse living tissue constructs. The platform improves the design and production of complex vascular networks that will be needed for manufacturing human tissues and organs in the future. As the researchers note, the manufacture of tissues with multiple cell types has improved recently. But like a city needs a full complement of main highways, side streets, and alleyways to carry traffic its furthest reaches, ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

Inland, coastal regions have an overlooked role in nitrogen fixation

A new evaluation of biological nitrogen fixation for inland and coastal waters concludes that these habitats are an overlooked but important source of fixation globally. Robinson Fulweiler and colleagues found that despite accounting for less than 10% of the globe’s surface area, inland and coastal aquatic systems create about 15% of the nitrogen fixed on land and in the open ocean. Biological nitrogen fixation is the microbial process that makes inert nitrogen gas available to organisms, fueling primary production and enhancing carbon ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

Scientists discover smart ‘switch’ in plants that allows them to redirect roots to find water

Scientists have discovered a rapid molecular switch in plant roots that allows them to detect dry soils and redirect root growth to find water. This discovery could help in developing drought-resilient crops and addressing future food security challenges. Roots typically branch out in response to moisture in the soil, foraging for water and nutrients. However, when the growing root loses contact with moist soil, it temporarily halts the formation of lateral branches. This smart response helps plants redirect their root growth toward areas with higher water availability. In ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

Study highlights role of jaundice-associated pigment in protecting against malaria

**EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL THURSDAY, JUNE 12, AT 2 P.M. ET** KEY TAKEAWAYS: Scientists say they have new experimental evidence of a novel role for bilirubin, a natural yellow pigment found in the body, in protecting humans from the worst effects of malaria and potentially other infectious diseases. Findings could advance the search for drugs that mimic the pigment bilirubin, or deliver it to the body to help protect people from severe forms of some infections. Bilirubin is also thought to play an important role in protecting the brain from neurodegenerative disease. New research suggests that a pigment that causes ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

New safety data for JAK inhibitors

Now, the work presented at the 2025 annual EULAR congress in Barcelona adds two important pieces to the puzzle. First, a large-scale real-world study reporting no significantly higher risk of cancer in RA patients treated with JAKi compared to bDMARDs, and second an abstract looking at whether the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RA) which are causing waves in many fields including diabetes and obesity might offer cardiovascular protection in RA. Romain Aymon and colleagues set out to assess the cancer incidence in RA patients treated with JAKi compared to biologic ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

Sleep apnea more common than previously known in female athletes

According to a new study, presented at the American College of Cardiology (ACC) Care of the Athletic Heart 2025 conference, sleep apnea may be more prevalent in younger female athletes than previously believed, especially among female athletes with higher levels of training. While obstructive sleep apnea has been observed in younger male athletes, the prevalence in female athletes and the association with cardiovascular risk is largely unknown. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is the most common sleep-related breathing disorder, impacting about 18 million Americans, and is prevalent in both men and women. It occurs when the throat muscles relax and ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

Study: Eating more fruits and veggies could help you sleep better

From counting sheep to white noise and weighted blankets, people have tried innumerable ways to get a good night’s sleep. Sleep disruptions can have far-reaching negative consequences, impacting cardiovascular and metabolic health, memory, learning, productivity, mood regulation, interpersonal relationships and more. It turns out that an important tool for improving sleep quality may have been hiding in plain sight…in the produce aisle. A new study led by researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine and Columbia University found that eating more fruits and vegetables during the day was associated with sleeping more soundly later that same ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

Long-term effectiveness associated with fecal immunochemical testing for early-age screening

About The Study: This study found that initiating fecal immunochemical test screening at age 40 to 49 was associated with further reduction in colorectal cancer (CRC) mortality and incidence compared with starting screening at age 50. These results provide strong empirical support for lowering the CRC screening age, with substantial public health implications. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Tony Hsiu-Hsi Chen, PhD, email chenlin@ntu.edu.tw. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2025.1433) Editor’s ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

An explanation for out-of-body experiences

Out-of-body experiences – where people feel like spirits disconnected from their physical form – may be a coping mechanism triggered by trauma or other overwhelming stress, new University of Virginia School of Medicine research suggests. That idea challenges the common assumption that out-of-body experiences, or OBEs, are solely a symptom of mental illness. Based on data from more than 500 people, the researchers, including UVA Health’s Marina Weiler, PhD, instead argue for a more nuanced perspective: that OBEs may represent an underlying issue that could be a better treatment target than the out-of-body experiences ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

Virginia Tech fog harp gets an upgrade

A third of the world’s population struggles with water scarcity. In many of these areas, fog holds water that could provide a lifeline — if only it could be captured. Harvesting that water more efficiently has become the work of researchers from two colleges at Virginia Tech, who recently improved on their original fog harp design with a model that more closely resembles another musical instrument: a guitar. Their latest findings have been published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Harvesting water from resources such as fog is not a new idea. Archaeologists have found evidence of ancient ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

MIT Press adds Goldsmiths Press books to Direct to Open platform

The MIT Press is proud to announce that it will be adding Goldsmiths Press books to its open access platform, Direct to Open (D2O), starting in 2026. The partnership expands the offerings freely available through D2O, and furthers both press’ missions in building a more open and accessible future for academic publishing. Launched in 2021, D2O is the MIT Press’s bold, innovative framework for open access monographs that shifts publishing from a solely market-based purchase model where individuals and libraries buy single ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

Depression linked to a less diverse oral microbiome

A rich and varied mix of microbes in the mouth, particularly bacteria, is not only important for our oral health, but may hold clues for other conditions. A new study led by researchers at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing finds that a lower diversity of microbes in the mouth is associated with depression. The mouth is home to between 500 billion and 1 trillion bacteria—the second-largest community of microorganisms in our bodies, after the gut. A growing number of studies point to the connection between the oral microbiome and our overall health, from diabetes to dementia, a relationship thought to be driven by inflammation and disruptions to the immune system. A recent ...

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Science12 Jun 2025

Molecular hopscotch boosts light upconversion

A new molecule that lets energy hop around quickly within its structure makes the upcycling of light more efficient and tunable. The Kobe University development lays out a design strategy for better solar power harnessing as well as medical and sensor applications. While low-energy light is abundant and harmless, many technical applications from solar power generation to medical treatments rely on high-energy light. To increase the efficiency of light harvesting and to avoid high-energy light as much ...

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Science11 Jun 2025

Doctors raise concern over rise in recreational ketamine use

The rise in non-prescribed ketamine use across the UK in recent years is a cause for concern, say doctors in The BMJ today. Irene Guerrini at South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and colleagues warn that its low cost has made it popular among young people, and the number of people starting treatment for ketamine addiction in 2023-2024 reached 3609, more than eight times higher than in 2014-2015. They say public awareness of the risks and long term harms associated with ketamine remains insufficient, and they call for better diagnostic criteria, a ...

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Science11 Jun 2025

Among new dads, 64% take less than two weeks of leave after baby is born

Only 36% of dads reported taking more than two weeks of paternal family leave Findings support U.S. lagging ‘behind the rest of the world in availability of paid family leave’ ‘If there was paid family leave, fathers would have fewer barriers, and they’d take it’ CHICAGO --- When it comes to family leave, American fathers are left behind. In a survey of new fathers led by scientists at Northwestern University and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, 64% of fathers reported taking less than two weeks of leave or no leave after the birth of their child. Only 36% of ...

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Science11 Jun 2025

Decades-old mystery of AlCl dipole moment resolved

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- In a study that closes a long-standing knowledge gap in fundamental science, researchers Boerge Hemmerling and Stephen Kane at the University of California, Riverside, have successfully measured the electric dipole moment of aluminum monochloride (AlCl), a simple yet scientifically crucial diatomic molecule. Their results, published in Physical Review A, have implications for quantum technologies, astrophysics, and planetary science. Until now, the ...

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Science11 Jun 2025

Is your gut microbiome a calorie ‘super harvester’?

In the jungle of microbes living in your gut, there’s one oddball that makes methane. This little-known methane-maker might play a role in how many calories you absorb from your food, according to a new study from Arizona State University. The entire ecosystem of microbes is called the microbiome. Some people’s gut microbiomes produce a lot of methane, while others produce hardly any. The study found that people whose gut microbiomes produce a lot of methane are especially good at unlocking extra energy from a high-fiber diet. This may help explain why different individuals ...

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