Science
press releases.

Science1 Apr 2025

Intersectional Racial and Sex Disparities in Unintentional Overdose Mortality

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study of overdose deaths, disparities in overdose mortality were evident, with Black men and Black women experiencing a pronounced and increasing burden of mortality compared with their white counterparts. Addressing these disparities will require a multipronged approach targeting the social, physical, economic, and policy risk environments. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Kechna Cadet, PhD, MPH, email kc3010@cumc.columbia.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.2728) Editor’s ...

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Science1 Apr 2025

PLOS announces new partnership in China

San Francisco, California, United States - The Public Library of Science (PLOS) and the Society of China University Journals (CUJS) today announced a 3-year strategic partnership between the organizations to work together on topics and content related to open access, open science, scientific integrity and scientific evaluation. CUJS is an academic, national and non-profit social organization with more than 1,200 journal members. The organization conducts academic research and training programs in the editing and publishing of STM journals and promotes the development of STM ...

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Science1 Apr 2025

New study refocuses research on mysterious falcon decline

North America’s smallest falcon, the American Kestrel (Falco sparverius), has declined across the continent since the 1970s, yet the causes continue to stump raptor biologists. A new study published in the Journal of Raptor Research adds a piece to the puzzle with the discovery that in the Northeast, where declines are most alarming, fledglings demonstrate a relatively high survival rate. This paper, titled “Juvenile and Adult Survival Estimates of American Kestrels Throughout the Full Annual Cycle in Eastern North America,” is the first of its kind. No other study has assessed winter survival ...

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Science1 Apr 2025

Study finds higher cardiac deaths in combined day-night heatwaves

Cardiac deaths increase significantly during compound heatwaves—heatwaves where temperatures are elevated both during the day and overnight—according to a new study in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology. The study also found that some types of heart disease are more sensitive to heatwaves than others and that different types of heatwaves may impact heart health in distinct, nonlinear ways. The research highlights the special risks of compound heatwaves ...

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Science1 Apr 2025

Study reveals stark racial disparities in IBD care across the united states

New York, NY – April 1, 2025- A study published today in the American Journal of Gastroenterology reveals significant disparities in healthcare utilization among racial and ethnic groups with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in the United States. The research, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), led by investigators from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation provides crucial insights into the challenges faced by underrepresented communities ...

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Science1 Apr 2025

Mpox could become a serious global threat, scientists warn

Mpox has the potential to become a significant global health threat if taken too lightly, according to scientists at the University of Surrey. In a letter published in Nature Medicine, researchers highlight how mpox – traditionally spread from animals to humans – is now showing clear signs of sustained human-to-human transmission. Mpox is a viral infection caused by a virus that belongs to the same family as smallpox. The virus can cause a painful rash, fever, and swollen glands and, in some cases, lead to more serious illness. Mpox usually spreads through ...

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Science1 Apr 2025

Newborn warty birch caterpillars defend the world’s smallest territory

Real estate is precious. Some creatures defend territories extending over several kilometres, but when Jayne Yack (Carleton University, Canada) encountered miniature newborn warty birch caterpillars (Falcaria bilineata) she wondered if she might have discovered one of the world’s smallest, and youngest, territorial critters. ‘We had noticed that tiny warty birch caterpillars produced vibrations’, says Yack, who first encountered the feisty little creatures in 2008. She also noticed that the tiny caterpillars – 1 to 2 mm long – reside in solitude on birch leaves, making her speculate whether they ...

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Science1 Apr 2025

New UNSW research reveals dramatically higher loss of GDP under 4°C warming

New projections by the UNSW Institute for Climate Risk & Response (ICRR) reveal a 4°C rise in global temperatures would cut world GDP by around 40% by 2100 – a stark increase from previous estimates of around 11%. The recently-published analysis fixes an oversight in the current economic model underpinning global climate policy, toppling previous carbon benchmarks. The results support limiting global warming to 1.7 °C, which is in line with significantly faster decarbonisation goals like the Paris Agreement, and far lower than the 2.7°C supported ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

ALL ALS consortium launches website to advance ALS research

ALL ALS Consortium Launches Website to Advance ALS Research The Access for All in ALS (ALL ALS) Consortium announced the launch of its official website, creating a central hub for information about its initiatives and clinical research studies. ALL-ALS.org is designed to inform and engage researchers, clinicians, and current and prospective study participants. The ALL ALS Consortium formed in fall 2023 with funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The consortium consists of 35 clinical sites in the United States and Puerto Rico, led by researchers at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Arizona and Massachusetts ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

Predicting older people’s frailty helps doctors intervene earlier

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 00.01 AM BST ON TUESDAY 1 APRIL The new Electronic Frailty Index 2 (eFI2) is now available to 60% of England’s GPs thanks to research funded by the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) and conducted by researchers at the University of Leeds and UCL GP data on 36 health problems such as dementia, falls and fractures will help medical professionals to more accurately identify older people’s frailty and intervene earlier Interventions may include a holistic assessment and treatment plan, falls prevention, targeted medicines review, and resistance exercise ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

New study validates lower limits of human heat tolerance

A study from the University of Ottawa’s Human and Environmental Physiology Research Unit (HEPRU) has confirmed that the limits for human thermoregulation—our ability to maintain a stable body temperature in extreme heat—are lower than previously thought. This research, led by Dr. Robert D. Meade, former Senior Postdoctoral Fellow and Dr. Glen Kenny, Director of HEPRU and professor of physiology at uOttawa's Faculty of Health Sciences, highlights the urgent need to address the impacts of climate change on human health. The study found that many regions may soon experience heat and humidity levels that exceed the safe limits ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

Association for Molecular Pathology celebrates U.S. District Court’s decision to vacate FDA rule on laboratory-developed test procedure regulation

ROCKVILLE, Md. – March 31, 2025 – The Association for Molecular Pathology, the premier global molecular diagnostic professional society, and pathologist Michael Laposata​, M.D.​​​​, Ph.D., today​​ announced a favorable ruling in their lawsuit against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over the regulation of laboratory-developed test procedures. The ruling by Judge Sean D. Jordan of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas granted AMP’s motion for summary judgment ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

Dr. David Winchester is new Chair of ACC Board of Governors

Effective today, David E. Winchester, MD, MS, FACC, will serve as chair of the American College of Cardiology Board of Governors (BOG) and secretary of the Board of Trustees. His term will run one year from 2025-2026. Winchester will lead governors from chapters representing all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico and representatives from the U.S. health services. The BOG serves as the grassroots governing body of the ACC, a leading cardiovascular organization representing over 56,000 cardiovascular care team members around the world. “Being Chair of the Board ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

4:3 Intermittent fasting shows modestly greater weight loss than daily caloric restriction

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 31 March 2025 Follow @Annalsofim on X, Facebook, Instagram, threads, and Linkedin Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

New warnings of a ‘Butterfly Effect’ — in reverse

Contact: Bess Connolly, 203-432-1324 or elizabeth.connolly@yale.edu New Haven, Conn. — A Yale-led study warns that global climate change may have a devastating effect on butterflies, turning their species-rich, mountain habitats from refuges into traps. Think of it as the “butterfly effect” — the idea that something as small as the flapping of a butterfly’s wings can eventually lead to a major event such as a hurricane — in reverse. The new study, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

Scientists solve “cocktail party” mystery of bat echolocation

Aya Goldshtein, Omer Mazar, and Yossi Yovel have spent many evenings standing outside bat caves. Even so, seeing thousands of bats erupting out of a cave and flapping into the night, sometimes in densities so high that they appear liquid, astounds the scientists every time. But until recently, the bat biologists were even more baffled by what they didn’t see. “The bats don’t run into each other,” says Goldshtein from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, “even in colonies of ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

New study challenges the story of humanity’s shift from prehistoric hunting to farming

A new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has turned traditional thinking on its head by highlighting the role of human interactions during the shift from hunting and gathering to farming - one of the biggest changes in human history - rather than earlier ideas that focused on environmental factors. The transition from a hunter-gatherer foraging lifestyle, which humanity had followed for hundreds of thousands of years, to a settled farming one about 12,000 years ago has been widely discussed in popular books like Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari. Researchers from the University of Bath, the Max Planck Institute ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

Oldest known phosphatic stromatoporoid sponge discovered in south China

International scientists have uncovered the oldest known phosphatic stromatoporoid sponge, dating back approximately 480 million years to the Early Ordovician, in South China. Stromatoporoid sponges were key reef builders during the Palaeozoic era, playing a crucial role in constructing biological frameworks—similar to the role of modern corals. They were especially important during the middle Paleozoic era (from the late Middle Ordovician to Devonian), a time marked by a major transition from microbial-dominated to skeletal-dominated reef ecosystems. Previously, stromatoporoid ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

Rice scientists pioneer method to tackle ‘forever chemicals’

Rice University researchers have developed an innovative solution to a pressing environmental challenge: removing and destroying per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), commonly called “forever chemicals.” A study led byJames Tour, the T.T. and W.F. Chao Professor of Chemistry and professor of materials science and nanoengineering, and graduate student Phelecia Scotland unveils a method that not only eliminates PFAS from water systems but also transforms waste into high-value graphene, offering a cost-effective and sustainable approach to environmental remediation. This research was published March 31 in Nature Water. PFAS ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

Exploring why some athletes perform better than others under stress

Lack of sleep and stress hinder athletic performance, but some athletes may be better at performing competitively despite sleep issues and stress. In a new JNeurosci paper, researchers led by Yan Sun, from Peking University, looked for predictive behavioral and neural markers in athletes who maintain their performance level following sleep deprivation and under stress. The researchers assessed college and professional athletes’ stress levels and cognitive changes after 24 h of sleep deprivation, then followed their ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

Exploring binge eating and binge drinking alcohol comorbidity

The comorbidity of binge eating and alcohol binge drinking is prevalent and increases the risk of other neuropsychiatric and bodily conditions. However, the mechanisms linking these forms of binge consumption are unclear. To explore the link between binge eating and binge drinking alcohol, Karen Szumlinski, from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and colleagues developed a way to model the disease comorbidity in mice. As reported in their JNeurosci paper, this mouse model led to the discovery that females with a history of binge eating start binge drinking ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

The proportion of harmful substances in particulate matter is much higher than assumed

People breathing contaminated air over the course of years are at greater risk of developing numerous diseases. This is thought to be due to highly reactive components in particulate matter, which affect biological processes in the body. However, researchers from the University of Basel, Switzerland, have now shown that precisely these components disappear within hours and that previous measurements therefore completely underestimate the quantities in which they are present. From chronic respiratory problems to cardiovascular diseases, ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

Administration is weakening U.S. research capacity and endangering Americans, nation’s leading scientists warn

The wellbeing of Americans and the country’s longstanding position as a world leader in science and technology are in jeopardy due to the actions of the Trump administration, approximately 1,900 leading figures in medicine, science, and engineering warn today in an open statement to the American public. The list of signatories includes Nobel Prize winners, deans of medical schools, and national leaders in science and technology. “For over 80 years, wise investments by the US government have built up the nation’s research enterprise, making it the envy of ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

Long-term practice of Transcendental Meditation may reduce both stress and aging

A collaborative study conducted by researchers at Maharishi International University (MIU), the University of Siegen, and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences reveals that individuals practicing Transcendental Meditation® (TM®) technologies long-term show favorable biological markers of aging and stress. The research compared gene expression, cognitive function (via EEG), and hair glucocorticoids (cortisol and cortisone) in 12-year and 40-year TM groups and non-meditator controls. “This study provides evidence that long-term practice of TM technologies has a broad range of health benefits at the molecular ...

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Science31 Mar 2025

Postpartum hormonal contraceptive use and risk of depression

About The Study: Hormonal contraceptive initiation postpartum was associated with an instantaneous increased risk of developing depression in this cohort study. The associated risk was higher the earlier it was initiated postpartum, at least for combined oral contraceptives. This finding raises the issue of whether the incidence of depression postpartum is increased by routine hormonal contraceptive initiation after childbirth. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Vibe Gedsø Frokjaer, PhD, email vibe.frokjaer@nru.dk. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.2474) Editor’s ...

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