Science
press releases.

Science24 Mar 2025

Childhood tuberculosis cases up by 26% in the EU/EEA

New data published by ECDC and the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe [1] show that with almost 39 000 reported tuberculosis cases in 2023, the 29 European Union and European Economic Area (EU/ EEA) countries continue to see increases in TB notifications. Given that young children have an increased risk of developing tuberculosis disease during the first year after infection, childhood TB serves as a marker for ongoing transmission within a community. The new data for 2023 indicate that children and adolescents under the age of 15 accounted for ...

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Science24 Mar 2025

Study shows almost all people claiming Universal Credit struggle to afford to eat properly

A new study has shown that almost all people claiming Universal Credit aren’t able to eat properly, with many never eating fruit or vegetables, and a significant proportion regularly not eating for whole days at a time, leading to deficiencies in vital nutrients. The Benefits and Nutrition Study (BEANS) was led by the University of Nottingham’s Division of Food, Nutrition and Dietetics to examine food insecurity among people who claim Universal Credit. Their findings, published in the European Journal of Nutrition, show that 85% of those in receipt of Universal Credit are food ...

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Science23 Mar 2025

Guardians of the vineyard: Canines and chemistry work to combat powdery mildew

SAN DIEGO, March 23, 2025 — Dogs have many jobs but one you may not expect is identifying grapevines coated in a destructive and highly contagious fungus. Although dogs can detect serious vine infections by smell, scientists don’t know exactly what odor molecules are triggering the response. Researchers are now analyzing volatile chemicals emanating from grape leaves infected by a fungus called powdery mildew with the goal of improving training for vineyard canines. Nayelly Rangel, a graduate student at Texas Tech University, will present the team’s results at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS Spring 2025 is being held ...

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Science22 Mar 2025

Uncomfortable bladder tests for female incontinence can be avoided, say researchers

Women with ongoing urinary incontinence could avoid invasive bladder pressure tests, as new research shows that a range of non-invasive assessments work just as well in guiding treatment. Led by researchers at the University of Aberdeen, the findings of the FUTURE Trial are presented today (Saturday 22 March 2025) at the European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress in Madrid and published in The Lancet. The UK study is the world’s first randomised controlled trial of the clinical and cost-effectiveness of invasive urodynamics testing. It focuses on a group of women with ...

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Science21 Mar 2025

Transition point in romantic relationships signals the beginning of their end

The end of a romantic relationship usually does not come out of the blue but is indicated one or two years before the breakup. As the results of a psychological study have demonstrated, the terminal stage of a relationship consists of two phases. First, there is a gradual decline in relationship satisfaction, reaching a transition point one to two years before the dissolution of the relationship. "From this transition point onwards, there is a rapid deterioration in relationship satisfaction. Couples in question then move towards separation," said Professor ...

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Science21 Mar 2025

Unlocking dopamine’s hidden role: Protective modification of Tau revealed

Peking University, March 19, 2025: The research group led by Prof. Wang Chu from the College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering at Peking University published a research article entitled “Quantitative Chemoproteomics Reveals Dopamine’s Protective Modification of Tau” in Nature Chemical Biology (DOI:10.1038/s41589-025-01849-9). Using a novel quantitative chemoproteomic strategy, the team uncovered a protective role of dopamine (DA) in regulating the function of the microtubule-associated protein Tau. This discovery deepens our understanding of dopamine’s physiological and pathological roles in the human brain. Why it matters: 1. Dopamine, ...

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Science21 Mar 2025

Nature’s warriors: How rice plants detect and defend against viral invaders

Peking University, March 20, 2025: A groundbreaking study led by Li Yi, professor at the School of Life Sciences, was published in Nature on March 12, titled “Perception of viral infections and initiation of antiviral defence in rice”, uncovering a molecular mechanism by which rice cells perceive viral infections and initiate antiviral response, which significantly contributes to understanding of virus-host interactions for further disease resistance breeding. Why it matters: Viruses affecting rice, a staple food for more than half of the world population, pose ...

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Science21 Mar 2025

State earned income tax credits and firearm suicides

About The Study: In this cohort study, the presence and generosity of state refundable earned income tax credits were associated with a decrease in firearm suicide rates, supporting the growing body of literature highlighting the importance of antipoverty policies for reducing firearm suicide. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Nicole Asa, MPH, email nasa3@uw.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.1398) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, ...

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Science21 Mar 2025

VR study reveals how pain and fear weaken sense of body ownership

A study from Hiroshima University found that when people were told to imagine their virtual bodies in pain, their brains resisted the illusion of ownership. Their findings could provide insights into why some people may struggle with feeling connected to their own bodies, particularly in contexts involving depersonalization or negative physical states. The sense of body ownership—the feeling that our body belongs to us—is crucial in distinguishing ourselves from objects and responding to threats. Researchers study it using techniques like the rubber hand illusion (RHI) and full-body illusion (FBI), in which an individual is somehow ...

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Science21 Mar 2025

Recent study in mice provides key insights on the impact of excessive sucrose consumption in specific organs

Researchers at the Advanced Research Unit on Metabolism, Development & Aging (ARUMDA), in the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR, Mumbai and TIFR Hyderabad), have unveiled a comprehensive understanding of the harmful effects of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) on human health, using a preclinical mouse model that closely mimics human consumption patterns. The study, published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry, sheds light on how chronic sucrose-water intake (10%) alters key physiological, molecular, and metabolic processes across various organs, driving ...

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Science21 Mar 2025

Bubbly idea: Ultrafine bubble showers suppress atopic dermatitis

Bubble baths might be soothing soaks, but bubble showers could be the next thing in keeping the skin clean. An Osaka Metropolitan University-led medical research team found that ultrafine bubble showers might help prevent atopic dermatitis. Graduate School of Medicine student Ayaki Matsumoto and Associate Professor Hisayoshi Imanishi led the study into using ultrafine bubbles, often used to clean medical equipment, on mice with atopic dermatitis. The scientists found that in mice with atopic dermatitis due to external factors, inflammation was markedly suppressed when the affected skin ...

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Science21 Mar 2025

Aotearoa once home to elephant seals

Southern elephant seals are the “canary in the coal mine” for the Southern Ocean, offering insight into how the ecosystem may react to future climate change and human impact, new research shows. Joint senior author Associate Professor Nic Rawlence, Director of the Otago Palaeogenetics Laboratory, says while elephant seals now only inhabit the subantarctic islands and South America, Aotearoa beaches used to be “heaving” with the colossal animals. “At the time of human arrival in New Zealand, you would be hard pressed to find room on the beaches, with fur seals on the rocky headlands, prehistoric sealions and elephant seals ...

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Science20 Mar 2025

Galapagos birds exhibit ‘road rage’ due to noise

A new study has discovered that birds in the Galápagos Islands are changing their behaviour due to traffic noise, with those frequently exposed to vehicles showing heightened levels of aggression. Published in the journal Animal Behaviour and led by experts from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) and the Konrad Lorenz Research Centre at the University of Vienna, the research examined the impact of vehicle noise pollution on Galápagos yellow warblers (Setophaga petechia aureola), a songbird widespread on the archipelago. The Galápagos Islands, ...

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Science20 Mar 2025

How feathers develop in chickens

Inhibiting the sonic hedgehog (Shh) pathway strongly perturbs feather development in chickens by restricting feather bud outgrowth, invagination and branching, according to a study published March 20th, in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Rory Cooper and Michel Milinkovitch from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. Avian feathers are intricate appendages whose forms vary substantially across species and body areas, and between juvenile and adult stages. Understanding both the developmental and evolutionary mechanisms underpinning this morphological diversity has long fascinated biologists. The morphological intricacies ...

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Science20 Mar 2025

Insomniac fruit fly mutants show enhanced memory despite severe sleep loss

Fruit fly mutants that have severe sleep deficits perform better at olfactory learning and memory tasks, according to a study published March 20th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Sheng Huang and Stephan Sigrist from Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, and colleagues. The paradox of enhanced memory despite sleep loss could be explained by protein kinase A (PKA) signaling in the mushroom body of the fly brain. Sleep is a dynamic process conserved from invertebrates to mammals and humans. Although sleep is thought to serve many purposes, it is often studied for its restorative roles, which ...

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Science20 Mar 2025

Infants encode short-lived hippocampal memories

Challenging assumptions about infant memory, a novel functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study shows that babies as young as 12 months old can encode memories, researchers report. The findings suggest that infantile amnesia – the inability to remember our first few years of life – is more likely caused by memory retrieval failures rather than an inability to form memories in the first place. Despite infancy being a period of rapid learning, memories from this time do not persist into later childhood or adulthood. In ...

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Science20 Mar 2025

Why don’t we remember being a baby? New study provides clues

Though we learn so much during our first years of life, we can’t, as adults, remember specific events from that time. Researchers have long believed we don’t hold onto these experiences because the part of the brain responsible for saving memories — the hippocampus — is still developing well into adolescence and just can’t encode memories in our earliest years. But new Yale research finds evidence that’s not the case. In a study, Yale researchers showed infants ...

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Science20 Mar 2025

New US Academic Alliance for the IPCC opens critical nomination access

WASHINGTON — The American Geophysical Union and the U.S. Academic Alliance for the IPCC today open calls for U.S. researchers to self-nominate as experts, authors and review editors for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Seventh Assessment Report through a new application portal. The IPCC nomination period opened in early March and will close in mid-April. USAA-IPCC is a newly established network of U.S. academic institutions registered as observers with the IPCC. Both observer organizations and governments may nominate experts for ...

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Science20 Mar 2025

Tiny component for record-breaking bandwidth

Plasmonic modulators are tiny components that convert electrical signals into optical signals in order to transport them through optical fibres. A modulator of this kind had never managed to transmit data with a frequency of over a terahertz (over a trillion oscillations per second). Now, researchers from the group led by Jürg Leuthold, Professor of Photonics and Communications at ETH Zurich, have succeeded in doing just that. Previous modulators could only convert frequencies up to 100 or 200 gigahertz ...

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Science20 Mar 2025

In police recruitment efforts, humanizing officers can boost interest

Many U.S. police departments face a serious recruiting and staffing crisis, which has spurred a re-examination of recruitment methods. In a new study, researchers drew on the field of intergroup communication to analyze how police are portrayed in recruitment materials to determine whether humanizing efforts make a difference. The study found that presenting officers in human terms boosted participants’ interest in policing as a career. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of California Santa Barbara (UCSB), Texas State University (TXST), ...

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Science20 Mar 2025

Tuberculosis in children and adolescents: EU/EEA observes a rise in 2023

As young children have an increased risk of developing tuberculosis (TB) disease during the first year after infection, childhood TB serves as an indicator of ongoing transmission within a community. In 2023, 1,689 children and young adolescents below the age of 15 years were diagnosed with tuberculosis in the European Union/European Economic Area (EU/EEA) countries. This particular age group usually represents a relatively small proportion among the overall reported TB cases in the region, with a range from 3.4% in 2021 for example to 6.4% in 2016. However, the data for children and young ...

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Science20 Mar 2025

How family background can help lead to athletic success

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Americans have long believed that sports are one area in society that offers kids from all backgrounds the chance to succeed to the best of their abilities. But new research suggests that this belief is largely a myth, and that success in high school and college athletics often is influenced by race and gender, as well as socioeconomic status, including family wealth and education. “We often think about sports as level playing fields that reward people who earn their success, but that’s not the whole ...

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Science20 Mar 2025

Adaptive defenses against malicious jumping genes

Adverse genetic mutations can cause harm and are due to various circumstances. “Jumping genes” are one cause of mutations, but cells try and combat them with a specialized RNA called piRNA. For the first time, researchers from the University of Tokyo and their collaborators have identified how the sites responsible for piRNA production evolve effective behaviors against jumping genes. This research could lead to downstream diagnostic or therapeutic applications. The word mutation can mean different things in different situations. ...

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Science20 Mar 2025

First Comprehensive Stroke Centers certified in India

DALLAS, March 20, 2025 — Stroke is the fourth leading cause of death in India and the fifth leading cause of disability.[1] To establish a coordinated system of care for stroke in the country, Apollo Hospital in Hyderabad, Telangana, and Aster Hospital in Calicut, Kerala, are the first in India to be certified as Comprehensive Stroke Centers by the American Stroke Association. Launched in India last year, certifications from American Stroke Association, a division of the American Heart Association, devoted to a world ...

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Science20 Mar 2025

New rules for the game of memory

As animals experience new things, the connections between neurons, called synapses, strengthen or weaken in response to events and the activity they cause in the brain. Neuroscientists believe that synaptic plasticity, as these changes are called, plays an important role in storing memories. However, the rules governing when and how much synapses change are not well understood. The traditional view is that the more two neurons fire together, the stronger their connection becomes; when they fire separately, their connection weakens. New research ...

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