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Science10 May 2025

Scientists create ‘mini-ovaries’ that may shed light on sex determination and infertility

A new model of tiny human ovary organoids, or ovaroids, has been developed from stem cells, according to research presented at the first Joint Congress between the European Society of Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) and the European Society of Endocrinology (ESE). This achievement may help to understand and develop treatments for conditions in which these organs do not develop or function properly, including differences in sex development and infertility. During human embryo development, sex determination occurs at a very early stage, making the process difficult to study and understand. Typically, gonads begin to form at about four weeks, and the decision to become testes ...

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Science9 May 2025

Swedish study explores differences in how the sexes break down fat

The research focused on lipolysis, the process through which triglycerides – lipids stored in fat cells – are broken down to produce free fatty acids and glycerol, which can be used as energy, during exercise or between meals. “The breakdown of lipids through lipolysis is essential for energy balance and it is believed that doing it effectively may prevent type 2 diabetes and other metabolic complications of overweight and obesity,” says Professor Peter Arner, of the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, ...

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Science9 May 2025

Real-world evidence links long-term use of oral and inhaled steroids to adrenal insufficiency

Individuals taking steroid tablets for more than 3 months are over 6 times more likely to be diagnosed with adrenal insufficiency than those treated with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, according to research presented at the first Joint Congress between the European Society of Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) and the European Society of Endocrinology (ESE). In addition, they have a greater risk of being hospitalised for adrenal insufficiency, while long-term users of inhaled steroids have an increased risk of developing adrenal insufficiency but without any increase in the number of hospitalisations. The findings ...

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Science9 May 2025

Phthalates may impact key genital measurement in 3-year-olds

Three-year-old boys are more likely to have a shorter anogenital distance when their mothers have high levels of phthalates in their urine, according to research presented at the first Joint Congress between the European Society of Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) and the European Society of Endocrinology (ESE). In girls, the direct exposure to phthalates was associated with a shorter anogenital distance. The findings highlight how exposure to environmental pollutants can cause alterations in genital measurements during the first three years of life, which may affect sexual development and fertility later in life. Phthalates ...

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Science9 May 2025

Early-life growth proved important for height in puberty and adulthood

Growth patterns during the first two years of a child’s life may shape pubertal growth and adult height, but have little effect on pubertal timing, according to research presented at the first Joint Congress between the European Society of Paediatric Endocrinology (ESPE) and the European Society of Endocrinology (ESE). The findings highlight the importance of early-life growth, which could be used as a marker to predict future growth, development and health. It is well established that the early-life growth period — from conception to approximately two years of age — is crucial ...

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Science9 May 2025

Call for abstracts: GSA Connects 2025 invites geoscientists to share groundbreaking research

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 9 May 2025 The Geological Society of America Release No. 25-06 Contact: Katie Busser +1-303-357-1044 kbusser@geosociety.org Boulder, Colo., USA: The Geological Society of America (GSA) invites scientists, researchers, and professionals from across the globe to submit abstracts for its annual meeting, GSA Connects 2025, taking place 19–22 October 2025 in San Antonio, Texas, USA. Held annually, GSA Connects is one of the premier international gatherings in the geoscience community, offering a dynamic platform for sharing cutting-edge research and fostering interdisciplinary dialogue. This year’s meeting ...

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Science9 May 2025

Four organizations receive funds to combat food insecurity

DALLAS, May 7, 2025 — One in eight U.S. households struggles to access enough food, and that number is on the rise.[1] The American Heart Association is building on its 100 years of lifesaving service to fund social enterprises to sustainably improve this driver of health and change the future of health for all. To that end, the Bernard J. Tyson Impact Fund, part of American Heart Association Ventures’ Social Impact Funds, is distributing $900,000 to four organizations: Attane Health, based in Kansas City, Missouri, provides access to personalized, nutritious groceries and educational resources for those living with chronic health conditions; Farm Generations Cooperative, ...

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Science9 May 2025

Skia: Shedding light on shadow branches

What happens when trailblazing engineers and industry professionals team up? The answer may transform the future of computing efficiency for modern data centers. Data centers house and use large computers to run massive amounts of data. Oftentimes, the processors can’t keep up with this workload because it’s taxing to predict and prepare instructions to carry out. This slows the flow of data. Thus, when you type a question into a search engine, the answer generates more slowly or doesn’t provide the information you need. To remedy this issue, researchers at Texas ...

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Science9 May 2025

The origins of language

To the point Chimpanzees are capable of complex communication: The human capacity for language may not be as unique as previously thought. Chimpanzees have a complex communication system that allows them to combine calls to create new meanings, similar to human language. Combining calls creatively: Chimpanzees use four ways to change meaning when combining single calls into two-call combinations, including compositional and non-compositional combinations, and they use a large variety of call combinations in a wide range of contexts. Origins of language: The discovery of a complex communication system in chimpanzees has important ...

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Science9 May 2025

New gene linked to severe cases of Fanconi anemia

Fanconi anemia is an aggressive, life-threatening disorder. Most individuals living with this rare genetic condition, characterized by bone marrow failure and cancer predisposition, survive into adulthood only with bone marrow transplantation and regular cancer screening. But a new study demonstrates that mutations in one particular gene in the Fanconi anemia pathway result in an even more severe form of the disorder—and that many fetuses with this mutation do not survive to birth. The sobering findings, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, ...

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Science9 May 2025

Switch to two-point rating scales to reduce racism in performance reviews, research suggests

Toronto - The plumber has just left after fixing that leaky basement pipe. Ping – a phone alert asks you to rate their service. Hmm -- if it wasn’t an outright terrible job, do you give them three, four or five stars? New research from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management shows that a multi-point system like that is prone to subtle, often unconscious, racial bias -- yet with significant financial consequences for non-white workers. Using data from a real-life online home maintenance matching service, researchers showed white workers ...

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Science9 May 2025

Chimpanzee groups drum with distinct rhythms

New research from a team of cognitive scientists and evolutionary biologists finds that chimpanzees drum rhythmically, using regular spacing between drum hits. Their results, publishing in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on May 9, show that eastern and western chimpanzees—two distinct subspecies—drum with distinguishable rhythms. The researchers say these findings suggest that the building blocks of human musicality arose in a common ancestor of chimpanzees and humans. “Based on our previous work, we expected that western chimpanzees would use more hits and drum more ...

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Science9 May 2025

Wasp mums use remarkable memory when feeding offspring

Wasp mothers have stunning brainpower when it comes to feeding their young, new research shows. Digger wasps make a short burrow for each egg, stocking it with food and returning a few days later to provide more. The study reveals that mother wasps can remember the locations of up to nine separate nests at once, rarely making mistakes despite the fact nests are dug in bare sand containing hundreds belonging to other females. Mothers feed their young in age order, adjusting the order if one dies, and they can even delay feeding offspring that had ...

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Science9 May 2025

Americans’ use of illicit opioids is higher than previously reported

More Americans use illicit opioids such as fentanyl than previously estimated, highlighting the need for better methods to understand the depths of the opioid crisis, according to a new study. A survey of American adults found that 11% reported illicit opioid use within the past 12 months and 7.5% reported use of illicitly produced fentanyl during the same period, rates that are more than 20 times higher than estimates from a large federal study that annually asks Americans about their use of illicit drugs. Researchers say the findings add to the evidence that government counts may significantly underestimate illicit drug use and suggest ...

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Science9 May 2025

Estimates of illicit opioid use in the U.S.

About The Study: In this national survey of 1,515 adults conducted in June 2024, 166 respondents (11.0%) reported illicit opioid use and 114 (7.5%) reported illicitly manufactured fentanyl use within the past 12 months. These rates are much higher than previously reported estimates. The findings highlight the need for more timely and accurate data to inform policy and intervention strategies. Enhanced data collection efforts are essential for understanding and mitigating the opioid crisis. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, David Powell, PhD, email dpowell@rand.org. To ...

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Science9 May 2025

Mass General Brigham researchers share tool to improve newborn genetic screening

More than a decade ago, researchers launched the BabySeq Project, a pilot program to return newborn genomic sequencing results to parents and measure the effects on newborn care. Today, over 30 international initiatives are exploring the expansion of newborn screening using genomic sequencing (NBSeq), but a new study by researchers from Mass General Brigham highlights the substantial variability in gene selection among those programs. In a paper published in Genetics in Medicine, an official journal ...

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Science9 May 2025

Can frisky flies save human lives?

When fruit flies are infected with the Wolbachia bacteria, their sex lives — and ability to reproduce — change dramatically. Arizona State University scientist Timothy Karr decided to find out why. What he discovered could help curb mosquito-borne diseases and manage crop pests. And that’s just the “tip of the iceberg,” he says. Promiscuous flies Wolbachia is a parasitic bacteria that lives inside insect cells. It infects at least two out of every five insect species. Since insects outnumber all other life on Earth, understanding how this bacteria affects them could have wide-ranging impacts. “Insects rule this planet. Malaria, ...

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Science9 May 2025

American Society of Plant Biologists names 2025 award recipients

The American Society of Plant Biologists (ASPB) is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2025 awards, which honor distinction in service, outreach, education, and research. Adolph E. Gude Jr. Award Brian Larkins, University of Arizona, Tucson ASPB Innovation Prize for Agricultural Technology Marc Albertsen, Manjit Singh, Mark Williams, Corteva Agriscience, Johnston, Iowa Charles Albert Shull Award Patrick Shih, University of California, Berkeley Charles Reid Barnes Life Membership Award Sarah (Sally) Assmann, Pennsylvania State University, University Park Mary Lou Guerinot, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire Enid MacRobbie Corresponding ...

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Science9 May 2025

Protecting Iceland’s towns from lava flows – with dirt

It had been dormant for 800 years, but in March 2021, the Fagradalsfjall volcano in Iceland came to life. While the eruption was ongoing, large-scale field experiments were conducted to build defensive earthen barriers aimed at slowing down the molten lava flow. Building defensive barriers to slow down the lava flowing from craters and fissures in the Earth’s crust is something of a race against time. The excavator and bulldozer operators had to work around the clock, shovelling dirt and rocks to build dams and barriers as the glowing hot lava from the eruption crept ever closer. Delayed lava flow for 16 days The speed of lava flows is determined by the viscosity of the lava and ...

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Science9 May 2025

A smarter way to make sulfones: Using molecular oxygen and a functional catalyst

Sulfones, a class of sulfur-containing compounds, are chemically derived from the selective oxidation of sulfides. While these compounds form the core of the pharmaceuticals, solvents and polymer industries, their chemical synthesis is often hindered by high reaction temperatures and extreme reaction conditions. Additionally, these also require costly additives and harsh solvents for production. Against this backdrop, a team of researchers from Japan introduced a new catalyst design, capable of overcoming the limitations of conventional synthesis, offering higher selectivity and a better yield for sulfones. The research team, led by Professor ...

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Science9 May 2025

Self-assembly of a large metal-peptide capsid nanostructure through geometric control

Controlling the topology and structure of entangled molecular strands is a key challenge in molecular engineering, particularly when attempting to create large nanostructures that mimic biological systems. Examples found in nature, such as virus capsids and cargo proteins, demonstrate the remarkable potential of such architectures. However, methods for constructing large hollow nanostructures with precise geometric control have remained elusive—until now. In a recent study, a research team led by Associate ...

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Science9 May 2025

Fatty liver in pregnancy may increase risk of preterm birth

Pregnant women with metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) have an increased risk of giving birth prematurely and the risk increase cannot be explained by obesity, according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in the journal eClinicalMedicine. It is estimated that one in five people in Sweden has MASLD, previously called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and globally it may be as many as three out of ten. Common risk factors are metabolic disorders such as type 2 diabetes and overweight or obesity. The disease has become increasingly common, including among women of reproductive age. Researchers have now ...

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Science9 May 2025

Researchers map 7,000-year-old genetic mutation that protects against HIV

What do a millennia-old human from the Black Sea region and modern HIV medicine have in common? Quite a lot, it turns out, according to new research from the University of Copenhagen. 18-25 percent of the Danish population carries a genetic mutation that can make them resistant or even immune to HIV. This knowledge is used to develop modern treatments for the virus. Until now, it was unknown where, when, or why the mutation occurred. But by using advanced DNA technology, researchers have now solved this genetic mystery. “It turns out that the variant arose in one ...

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Science8 May 2025

Women non-smokers still around 50% more likely than men to develop COPD

Women’ are around 50% more likely than men to develop COPD, the umbrella term for chronic lung conditions, such as emphysema and bronchitis, even if they have never smoked or smoked much less than their male counterparts, suggests observational research, published in the open access journal BMJ Open Respiratory Research. The findings challenge the widely held belief that women’s increased vulnerability to cigarette smoke likely explains this disparity, conclude the researchers. Smoking is the principal cause of COPD. But despite significant falls in cigarette smoking over the past 50 years, it remains a leading cause of death in the USA, with the ...

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Science8 May 2025

Mercury levels in the atmosphere have decreased throughout the 21st century

Mercury is released by environmental and human-driven processes. And some forms, specifically methylmercury, are toxic to humans. Therefore, policies and regulations to limit mercury emissions have been implemented across the globe. And, according to research published in ACS ES&T Air, those efforts may be working. Researchers found that atmospheric mercury levels have decreased by almost 70% in the last 20 years, mainly because human-caused emissions have been reduced. “By tracking mercury pollution over four decades at the top of the world, we show that global efforts to reduce pollution ...

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