Science
press releases.

Science8 Apr 2025

Researchers watch a single catalytic grain do work in real time

PULLMAN, Wash. – A new way to watch catalytic reactions happen at the molecular level in real time could lead to better fundamental understanding and planning of the important reactions used in countless manufacturing processes every day. A team of researchers from Washington State University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) used a new probing technique to look at the surface of iron as it was exposed to oxygen to find out what makes one catalyst work better than another. The work is reported in the journal, Angewandte Chemie. It could eventually help engineers tune reactions better and develop new catalysts ...

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Science8 Apr 2025

Flex appeal: ‘Trade-off’ between armor and efficiency in sea turtle shells

When we picture sea turtles in the wild, it’s easy to envision them as armored warriors – their hard, resilient shells serving as near-impenetrable shields against oceanic threats like sharks. These sleek, streamlined shells aren’t just defensive – they’re engineered for speed, efficiency and survival. Designed to minimize drag, they allow sea turtles to glide effortlessly through the water, dive to astonishing depths, and handle the immense pressure shifts as they surface. A sea turtle’s ...

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Science8 Apr 2025

In Guatemala, painted altar found at Tikal adds new context to mysterious Maya history

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Just steps from the center of Tikal, a 2,400-year-old Maya city in the heart of modern-day Guatemala, a global team of researchers including scholars from Brown University have unearthed a buried altar that could unlock the secrets of a mysterious time of upheaval in the ancient world. The altar, built around the late 300s A.D., is decorated with four painted panels of red, black and yellow depicting a person wearing a feathered headdress and flanked by shields ...

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Science8 Apr 2025

Urinals without splashback

A urinal designed to avoid urine splashback on the user and the floor will improve sanitation, bathroom cleanliness, and user experience. Urinal designs have not materially changed in over a century. The style of urinal that was elevated to the status of artistic landmark by Marcel Duchamp in his 1917 dada art piece “La Fontaine” would not look out of place in today’s public restrooms. Use of a typical public urinal often results in splatter of urine outside the confines of the device—onto the floor and, most unpleasantly, onto the user, a situation that creates costly messes to clean and risks transmitting disease. Zhao Pan, Kaveeshan ...

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Science8 Apr 2025

Even under stress, male-female pairs had each other’s backs

When faced with a potential threat, mice often freeze in place. Moreover, when two animals are together, they typically freeze at the same time, matching each other’s periods of immobility. In a new study, researchers found that coordination during fear looks different in males and females — and changes when stress is involved. Male-female mouse pairs consistently stayed in sync during stressful situations, even when the animals were strangers. Same-sex pairs were more likely to fall out of step. The findings, published in Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science, suggest that opposite-sex pairs may rely on a more flexible or complex coordination ...

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Science8 Apr 2025

Trees could be spying on illegal gold mining operations in the Amazon rainforest

For hundreds of years, the Amazon has been exploited for its gold. Today, the precious metal is just as sought after, but the remaining tiny gold particles are much harder to find. Mining often happens in artisanal and small-scale mining operations that release mercury (Hg) into the air, polluting the environment and harming human health. An international team of researchers has now examined tree rings of species native to the Peruvian Amazon to determine if trees could be used to show approximately where and when atmospheric mercury was released. “We show that Ficus insipda tree cores can be used as a biomonitor for characterizing ...

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Science8 Apr 2025

Even after a thousand bends, performance remains uncompromised!

The research team led by Dr. Jongwon Yoon, Dr. Jeongdae Kwon, and Dr. Yonghoon Kim from the Energy & Environmental Materials Research Division at the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), has successfully developed the world’s first ammonia (NH₃) gas sensor based on a copper bromide (CuBr) film that can be fabricated through a simple solution process at low temperatures. This breakthrough technology not only enables sensor flexibility, ultra-sensitivity, and high selectivity but also significantly reduces manufacturing costs. Ammonia gas sensors detect airborne ammonia and are utilized in indoor and outdoor ...

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Science7 Apr 2025

One in 3,000 people at risk of punctured lung from faulty gene – almost 100 times higher than previous estimate

As many as one in 3,000 people could be carrying a faulty gene that significantly increases their risk of a punctured lung, according to new estimates from Cambridge researchers. Previous estimates had put this risk closer to one in 200,000 people. The gene in question, FLCN, is linked to a condition known as Birt-Hogg-Dubé syndrome, symptoms of which include benign skin tumours, lung cysts, and an increased risk of kidney cancer. In a study published today in the journal Thorax, a team from the University of Cambridge examined data from UK Biobank, the 100,000 Genomes Project, and East London Genes & Health – three large genomic datasets encompassing more than ...

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Science7 Apr 2025

Fees can help the FDA ensure food safety

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) collects user fees from drug and medical device companies to fund its work ensuring the safety of these products. Creating a similar program that collects fees from food companies could generate much-needed resources to strengthen the FDA’s oversight of foods, according to a new legal and policy analysis published in the journal Health Affairs. “The FDA is persistently understaffed and underfunded, hampering its ability to ensure the safety of our country’s food supply,” said Jennifer Pomeranz, associate professor of public health policy and management at NYU ...

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Science7 Apr 2025

Sarah Sjöström, MSN, RN, ACNP-BC, named chief nursing officer at Hebrew SeniorLife

Sarah Sjöström, MSN, RN, ACNP-BC, has been promoted to chief nursing officer at Hebrew SeniorLife. Sjöström joined Hebrew SeniorLife in 2010 as a staff nurse, later became director of nursing in the Medical Acute Care Unit, was promoted to associate chief nursing officer in 2017, and gained the vice president of ancillary services responsibilities in 2023. She is co-chair of Hebrew SeniorLife’s Age-Friendly Committee and, through that work and as associate chief nursing officer, has championed quality of care and age-friendly practices across the organization. In 2021, she received a John A. Hartford Foundation scholarship to participate in the ...

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Science7 Apr 2025

Stephen Hauser wins breakthrough prize for role in redefining MS

Stephen Hauser Wins Breakthrough Prize for Role in Redefining MS UCSF luminary played a pivotal part in identifying cause of multiple sclerosis, leading to a new generation of game-changing therapies. Neuro-immunologist Stephen Hauser, MD, whose maverick thinking transformed the treatment landscape for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), has received the 2025 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences. Hauser, a UCSF professor of neurology and director of the Weill Institute for Neurosciences, was recognized April 5 for overturning ...

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Science7 Apr 2025

Exploring how people interact with virtual avatars

The growing prevalence of human interactions with artificial intelligence has increased the need for a better understanding of how the brain processes virtual reality. Because how others behave and move can influence how people understand social scenes and even themselves, exploring whether avatar appearance influences virtual interactions is important. To provide insight on this, Vanessa Era and colleagues from Sapienza University of Rome assessed interactions between human participants and avatars with human-like or inhuman bodies. Participants in this eNeuro paper observed avatars on a screen ...

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Science7 Apr 2025

Two-thirds of U.S. adolescent minors are impacted by state abortion restrictions

More than 7 million American adolescent girls ages 13 to 17 live in states with abortion bans, restrictive gestational limits or parental involvement requirements, according to Rutgers Health researchers. Their study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, is the first to examine in detail the experiences of adolescent girls after states enacted restrictions on abortion access following the 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization Supreme Court decision. “As a result of Dobbs, two-thirds of girls ages 13 to 17 now live in states that ban or severely restrict their abortion ...

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Science7 Apr 2025

Home care cooperatives may be key to addressing the critical shortage of caregivers for the elderly

Home care cooperatives may be the key to alleviating the shortage of paid caregivers for older Americans, a new study suggests. The research, to be published in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA Network Open, found that participants in cooperatives experienced more respect, control, job support, and compensation than their counterparts in traditional care services. These factors may explain how cooperatives have achieved half the turnover rates of traditional agencies, which are plagued with high turnover and employee dissatisfaction. Millions of older adults will lack the support they need to safely age at home unless new strategies are developed and policies are ...

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Science7 Apr 2025

Researchers have a proven prescription for reducing suicide rates

DETROIT (April 7, 025)— Nearly every person who dies by suicide visits a doctor’s office within a year of their death. A new body of research suggests that by adopting a specific protocol, health systems can reduce suicide rates among those patients by 25%. Researchers say the findings support comprehensive widespread adoption of a method audaciously named The Zero Suicide (ZS) Model, as suicide remains among the leading causes of death in the U.S. In 2022, 49,000 people died by suicide in the U.S. Suicide was the second ...

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Science7 Apr 2025

What if we find nothing in our search for life beyond Earth?

April 7, 2025, Mountain View, CA -- What if we spend decades building advanced telescopes to search for life on other planets and come up emptyhanded? A recent study led by ETH Zurich researchers including corresponding author and SETI Institute affiliate, Dr. Daniel Angerhausen, tackled this question, exploring what we can learn about life in the universe—even if we don’t detect signs of life or habitability. Using advanced statistical modeling, the research team sought to explore how many exoplanets scientists should observe and understand ...

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Science7 Apr 2025

‘Ugh, not that song!’ Background music impacts employees

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Have you ever gone to a store or a restaurant where the music was so annoying that you walked right out? Now imagine what it must be like for the employees. In a new study, researchers found that when background music at a workplace is out of sync with what workers need to do their jobs, it can affect their energy, mood – and even performance. “Music that doesn’t fit what an employee needs to feel energized, manage emotions, and focus on task can have a real negative impact,” said Kathleen Keeler, co-lead author of the study and assistant ...

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Science7 Apr 2025

Study finds global downturn in bias against stigmatized groups

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — In a study that tracked explicit and implicit bias against stigmatized groups in 33 countries between 2009 and 2019, researchers found substantial reductions in explicit, self-reported bias against all categories of stigma they examined: age, race, body weight, skin tone and sexual orientation. The picture for implicit bias, which is sometimes described as “hidden” or “automatically revealed” bias, was more varied, however. The new findings are reported in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. “We used data from Project Implicit, a website established in the early 2000s that serves both as a venue to educate people ...

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Science7 Apr 2025

Cross-ideological acceptance of illiberal narratives and pro-China propaganda in Japan

Illiberal pro-China narratives have gained traction in democratic countries like Japan, raising questions about how such narratives spread across political ideologies. Social media has become a key tool in this process, blurring the lines between traditional propagandists and their audiences. Ordinary citizens and astroturfing agents[1] within the target countries are now actively engaged in interpreting and disseminating propaganda, making participatory propaganda increasingly relevant in today’s information landscape. Although ...

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Science7 Apr 2025

The new season of The Last of Us has a spore-ting chance at realism

The Last of Us is back on April 13 and this season is more realistic than ever. The trailer for the hit HBO series appears to show the “zombie fungus” cordyceps infecting humans by releasing air-borne spores, instead of through tentacles—closer to scientific reality. Spread the love (and spores) “Fungi love to make spores,” says Dr. Jim Kronstad, a professor and microbiologist at UBC’s Michael Smith Laboratories. Real-life cordyceps colonizes ant brains, causing the insect to climb to a high branch. The fungus then ...

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Science7 Apr 2025

Scientists link a phytoplankton bloom to starving dolphins in Florida

In 2013, 8% of the bottlenose dolphins living in Florida’s Indian River Lagoon died. Investigations have now revealed that the dolphins may have starved because key habitats for nutritious prey were destroyed by a phytoplankton bloom. This bloom was driven by the accumulation in the lagoon of fertilizer, effluent from septic tanks, and other by-products of human activity that are rich in nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus. “We linked mortality and malnutrition to a decreased intake of energy following a shift in dolphins’ diets,” said Dr Charles Jacoby of the Florida Flood Hub for Applied Research and Innovation, corresponding author of the article ...

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Science6 Apr 2025

Research to tackle Prymnesium algal blooms which affect fish populations

A scientific initiative to combat harmful Prymnesium algal blooms in the Broads is gaining fresh momentum, thanks to a renewed collaboration between the University of East Anglia (UEA), the Environment Agency, the Broads Authority, and the Norfolk pike angling community. Prymnesium algal blooms can occur on the Broads and produce toxins that threaten fish stocks, local biodiversity, and East Anglia’s thriving angling industry, which contributes more than £100 million annually to the local economy. The golden algae Prymnesium parvum is therefore of significant research interest to ...

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Science4 Apr 2025

Mechanistic understanding could enable better fast-charging batteries

MADISON — Fast-charging lithium-ion batteries are ubiquitous, powering everything from cellphones and laptops to electric vehicles. They’re also notorious for overheating or catching fire. Now, with an innovative computational model, a University of Wisconsin–Madison mechanical engineer has gained new understanding of a phenomenon that causes lithium-ion batteries to fail. Developed by Weiyu Li, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at UW–Madison, the model explains lithium plating, in which fast charging triggers metallic lithium to build up on the surface of a battery’s anode, causing the battery to ...

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Science4 Apr 2025

UMaine research examines best methods for growing Atlantic sea scallops

A new study from the University of Maine’s Aquaculture Research Institute (ARI) and Darling Marine Center is helping to refine best practices for growing Atlantic sea scallops (Placopecten magellanicus), a species of increasing interest to Maine’s aquaculture sector. Published in the academic journal Aquaculture, the research compares two scallop farming methods, ear-hanging and lantern net culture, over a complete grow-out cycle to determine which approach yields the best results for commercial growers. The study, led by UMaine ...

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Science4 Apr 2025

Study assesses U.S. image amid weakening of democracy

The erosion of democracy in the U.S. has been a topic of concern in recent years, especially after protesters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to block the certification of Joe Biden's election as president. Most of the academic studies on democratic backsliding, however, have focused on public opinion within the U.S. and have not looked at global public opinion. How favorably others view the U.S. is part of the country's "soft power"—a term coined by Joseph Nye at Harvard University in the 1980s. It refers to a country's ability to influence other countries’ policy ...

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