Science
press releases.

Science30 May 2025

Mass General Brigham researchers present key findings at ASCO

Researchers from Mass General Brigham will present research discoveries and outcomes from clinical trials in cancer at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, held May 30-June 3, in Chicago. ASCO brings together leading experts in clinical oncology to share the latest breakthroughs in cancer research, science and medicine. Presentations from Mass General Brigham investigators include an update on the INCIPIENT trial (using CAR-T in patients with glioblastoma), advances in skin cancer and gynecologic cancer treatment, a new way to radiate multiple brain metastases at the same time, and an app created to help caregivers ...

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Science30 May 2025

New study reveals how tiny insects detect force

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — A newly published study in the Journal of Neurophysiology reveals how blow flies (Calliphora vicina)—despite their minimal body weight—reliably detect forces through specialized sensory organs in their legs. The research offers new insights into insect biomechanics and presents promising applications for the design of next-generation walking robots. Researchers at Marshall University and West Virginia University examined the behavior of campaniform sensilla—strain-detecting ...

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Science30 May 2025

New book with a global view of men’s experiences with partner violence

More than two decades ago, Denise Hines began investigating a topic most researchers wouldn’t touch: men as victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). She and collaborator Emily Douglas were the first in the U.S. to earn federal funding for this line of research, publishing studies that challenged entrenched gender assumptions and provoked debate in the field. Their new book, The Routledge Handbook of Men’s Victimization in Intimate Relationships, offers the most thorough international synthesis ...

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Science30 May 2025

Predicting underwater landslides before they strike

Below ocean wind farms, oil rigs and other offshore installations are mammoth networks of underwater structures, including pipelines, anchors, risers and cables, that are essential to harness the energy source. But much like terrestrial structures, these subsea constructions are also vulnerable to natural events, like submarine landslides, that can hamper the productivity of installations below the sea. Researchers at Texas A&M may now be able to accurately predict the occurrence of marine landslides using underwater site characterization data. “One ...

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Science30 May 2025

What will it take to reduce primary care doctor burnout?

America’s primary care doctors are burning out, cutting back their hours, and leaving their practices early, driven in part by the demands of handling the flood of digital messages from their patients. But a trio of new University of Michigan studies offer hope for easing this crisis, and improving both the care that patients get and the work lives of those who provide it. The studies could help primary care clinics nationwide take steps to keep the bedrock of American health care from crumbling further. All three papers, published in the Journal of ...

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Science30 May 2025

Projected outcomes of removing fluoride from U.S. public water systems

About The Study: This cost-effectiveness analysis found that cessation of public water fluoridation would increase tooth decay and health system costs in the U.S. Despite concerns regarding toxic effects associated with high levels of fluoride, this model demonstrates the substantial ongoing benefits of water fluoridation at safe levels currently recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Toxicity Program, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Lisa Simon, MD, DMD, email lsimon@bwh.harvard.edu. To ...

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Science30 May 2025

Ragon Institute study uncovers how certain antibodies help fight tuberculosis

Researchers at the Ragon Institute have made a significant discovery about how antibodies can directly enhance the body’s ability to fight Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb), the bacteria responsible for tuberculosis (TB). Despite decades of research, TB remains one of the deadliest infectious diseases worldwide, with about 10 million new cases and 1.6 million deaths annually. Currently, there is no highly effective vaccine, highlighting the urgent need for new insights and treatments. In a study published today in Immunity, Ragon faculty member Galit ...

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Science30 May 2025

Detecting invisible wounds: New study could change how wound closure is defined

In patients with diabetic foot ulcers that looked healed and met the current definition of a closed wound, closed ulcers with functionally defective skin that lost more body water were likely to re-open, according to a new National Institutes of Health (NIH) Diabetic Foot Consortium study, led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and published today in Diabetes Care. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently defines a closed wound as one where the surface is completely covered by new skin and ...

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Science30 May 2025

NYU researchers devise method to identify ‘311’ underreporting of heat and hot water shortages

Complaint lines such as New York City’s 311 let people report quality-of-life problems in their building or neighborhood, from excessive noise to illegal parking. But resident-generated data typically suffer from reporting bias, with some neighborhoods and addresses calling attention to problems at lower rates than others. A team of New York University researchers has developed an automated modeling tool to help the New York City government estimate 311 under-reporting by building, neighborhood, and subpopulation. In a new study, published today [May 30] in Annals of Applied Statistics, the researchers describe a method that, using machine learning, can estimate the potential ...

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Science30 May 2025

New plant leaf aging factor found

Resistance to disease should mean a longer life, but researchers have found that a mutant protein that helps a plant fight mildew might make it age sooner. The Osaka Metropolitan University research team of Graduate School of Agriculture student Tomoko Matsumoto and Professor Noriko Inada and Graduate School of Science Professor Koichi Kobayashi discovered that thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) plants with the mutant Actin Depolymerizing Factor protein turn yellow sooner over time and in dark conditions compared to wild-type thale cress. “ADFs are involved not only in leaf aging ...

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Science29 May 2025

US general military service may lower, rather than heighten, depression risk

Journals from BMJ Group Press Release: Embargoed 23:30 hours UK (BST) time Thursday 29 May 2025 Please click on links for full articles and contact authors direct for further comment - details can be found under Notes for Editors. Please remember to credit the relevant journal - this assures your audience it is from a reputable source. Headlines: US general military service may lower, rather than heighten, depression risk Around 1 in 7 US adults who smoke may have some degree of disability BMJ MILITARY HEALTH Externally ...

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Science29 May 2025

Around 1 in 7 US adults who smoke may have some degree of disability

Around 1 in 7 of US adults who currently smoke may have some degree of disability, suggests the first study of its kind published online in the journal Tobacco Control. And the prevalence of disability and/or some degree of functional difficulty is twice as high among those who continue to puff away as it is among those who have never smoked, the data analysis indicates. All in all, the figures suggest that 40% of the estimated 25 million adults who currently smoke experience some level of functional difficulty, ...

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Science29 May 2025

Gaming seals reveal how cloudy water provides sense of direction

Open water swimming can be strangely claustrophobic. Immerse your face in cloudy water and your view might dwindle to a few centimetres. Yet, harbour seals (Phoca vitulina) manage to negotiate the turbid coastal waters in which they reside with ease, detecting their surroundings through various senses, including their dextrous whiskers. But Frederike Hanke from University of Rostock, Germany, wondered whether the resourceful creatures may also to use their vision to determine which direction they are manoeuvring in, despite the opaque view. ‘We wanted to know whether harbour seals can determine their heading from ...

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Science29 May 2025

ASCO 2025 STUDY: New standard of care emerges for multiple myeloma

VIDEO AVAILABLE HERE MIAMI, FLORIDA (MAY 29, 2025) – A new four-drug combination is highly effective and safe in patients with newly diagnosed multiple myeloma, according to data presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, held May 30 through June 3 in Chicago. The data emerged from the ADVANCE clinical trial led by Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. The randomized, multi-center trial tests the effects of adding the targeted drug daratumumab to the standard three-part therapy regimen, called KRd (carfilzomib, lenalidomide and dexamethasone). “This ...

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Science29 May 2025

The Career Optimism Special Report™ Series: Moms in the Sandwich Generation, reveals critical insights on the career cost of dual caregiving and the imperative for increased employer support to serve

Today, University of Phoenix Career Institute® and Motherly released the latest installment in The Career Optimism Special Report™ Series: Moms in the Sandwich Generation, revealing that 51% of sandwich generation moms have left a job due to caregiving responsibilities. This alarming statistic underscores the career-limiting pressure that anyone faces when caring for both children and aging loved ones—as men are also increasingly finding themselves in this role. What’s more, challenges dual-caregivers face are ...

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Science29 May 2025

New Mayo Venture Partner (MVP) program announced to accelerate innovation

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic’s Business Development team, consistently recognized as one of the top commercialization operations among academic medical centers, is expanding its capabilities through a new initiative: the Mayo Venture Partner (MVP) program. In response to the dynamic and evolving healthcare landscape, Mayo Clinic is enlisting industry veterans to create groundbreaking technologies, co-invest in aligned companies and build new ventures from the ground up. The ...

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Science29 May 2025

Save twice the ice by limiting global warming

In brief: Even if the rise in global temperatures were to stabilise at its current level, it is projected that the world would lose around 40 per cent of its glaciers. If global warming can be limited to +1.5 °C, it may be possible to preserve twice as much glacier ice as in a scenario where temperatures rise by +2.7 °C. This conclusion was reached by a research team with participation of ETH Zurich researchers, based on a new, multi-centennial analysis of global glacier evolution. The findings, published today in the prestigious journal, Science, are striking. Even ...

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Science29 May 2025

Revelations on the history of leprosy in the Americas

Long considered a disease brought to the Americas by European colonizers, leprosy may actually have a much older history on the American continent. Scientists from the Institut Pasteur, the CNRS, and the University of Colorado (USA), in collaboration with various institutions in America and Europe, reveal that a recently identified second species of bacteria responsible for leprosy, Mycobacterium lepromatosis, has been infecting humans in the Americas for at least 1,000 years, several centuries before the Europeans arrived. These findings will be published in the journal Science on May 29, 2025. Leprosy is a neglected disease, ...

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Science29 May 2025

Leprosy in the Americas predates European contact, new study finds

Leprosy has been present in the Americas for more than 1,000 years, long before the arrival of European settlers, according to a groundbreaking new finding published this week in the journal Science. The major international study was co-led by scientists at Colorado State University and the Institut Pasteur in France, in collaboration with Indigenous communities and more than 40 scientists from institutions across the Americas and Europe. The study reframes the history of leprosy in the Americas and has implications for better understanding how infectious diseases spread, persist and evolve in human and animal populations over time. “This ...

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Science29 May 2025

Biomimetic two-stage micro@nanomotor with weak acid-triggered release of nanomotors

Organisms in nature have developed distinctive morphologies, structures, components, behaviors, and functions to thrive in intricate natural environments. This inspiration from nature has influenced the design concepts, fabrication techniques, and applications of various artificial systems. Generally, nature-inspired design can be divided into five categories: morphology, structure, behavior, function, and their combination. Smart biomimetic design is very helpful and significant to explore new propulsion modes, superior functions and novel mechanisms for the smart construction of artificial micro/nanomotors with intelligence. The unique characteristics enable the nature-inspired ...

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Science29 May 2025

Resetting the fight-or-flight response

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Being cut off in traffic, giving a presentation or missing a meal can all trigger a suite of physiological changes that allows the body to react swiftly to stress or starvation. Critical to this “fight-or-flight” or stress response is a molecular cycle that results in the activation of Protein Kinase A (PKA), a protein involved in everything from metabolism to memory formation. Now, a study by researchers at Penn State has revealed how this cycle resets between stressful events so the body is prepared ...

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Science29 May 2025

City-dwelling monarch butterflies stay put

Monarch butterflies are famous for their annual migrations, but not all migrate. In recent years, more and more monarchs have been living and breeding year-round in California’s Bay Area, thanks in part to the growing presence of non-native milkweeds in urban gardens. In a new study published in Ecosphere, University of California, Davis, researchers show that these resident butterflies are not connected to the larger population of monarchs known for their late-autumn coastal migrations. Their work suggests that resident monarchs and the non-native milkweeds that sustain them are ...

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Science29 May 2025

HIV discovery could open door to long-sought cure

University of Virginia School of Medicine scientists have uncovered a key reason why HIV remains so difficult to cure: Their research shows that small changes in the virus affect how quickly or slowly it replicates, and how easily or stubbornly it can reawaken from hiding. These insights bring researchers closer to finding ways to flush out the dormant virus and eliminate it for good. Thanks to remarkable progress in HIV treatment, the virus can often be suppressed to undetectable levels in the blood, eliminating most disease symptoms, and preventing transmission to others. But HIV never truly ...

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Science29 May 2025

The purrfect gene

Kyoto, Japan -- Whether you are lucky enough to have a cat companion or must merely live this experience vicariously through cat videos, Felis catus is a familiar and comforting presence in our daily lives. Unlike most other feline species, cats exhibit sociality, can live in groups, and communicate both with other cats and humans, which is why they have been humans' trusted accomplices for millennia. Despite this intimacy, there is still much that we don't know about our feline friends. Numerous behavioral studies have been conducted on other mammal species, but relatively few on cats. In part to fill this gap, a team of researchers at ...

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Science29 May 2025

Mixed-valence Cu-based metal-organic framework enables highly efficient CO2 electroreduction to C1 liquid fuels

Rising atmospheric CO2 levels from fossil fuel dependence have intensified climate threats, driving demand for technologies that convert CO2 into value-added chemicals. Electrocatalytic CO2 reduction (CO2RR) holds promise but faces challenges such as high energy costs, low product selectivity, and competition from hydrogen evolution reactions (HER). A breakthrough by researchers at Tongji University, China, introduces a new catalyst design that overcomes these limitations, paving the way for green chemistry solutions. The ...

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