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press releases.

Science16 Dec 2025

Young adults commonly mix cannabis with nicotine and tobacco

December 16, 2025 -- Simultaneous use of cannabis with nicotine and tobacco products is common among cannabis users—particularly those who vape—according to a new study from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The research also shows that both vaped and smoked cannabis use have increased over time, with more participants initiating use than quitting. Until now, the frequency, patterns, and motivations for cannabis use in early adulthood have remained understudied. The findings are published in Tobacco Induced Diseases. The study reveals that young adults in the New York City area—including those who do not ...

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Science16 Dec 2025

Sports injuries sustained during your period might be more severe

The menstrual cycle is a key physiological process in women: it impacts performance, neuromuscular control, metabolism, and immune response. For professional female athletes, fluctuations in hormones that happen throughout the menstrual cycle could impact risk of injury. Now, researchers in Spain and the UK have set out to examine whether menstruation determined injury incidence or severity in professional female football players. They published their results in Frontiers in Sports and Active Living. “We show that menstruation itself does not increase how often injuries happen,” said first author Dr Eva Ferrer, who specializes in sports medicine at Sant ...

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Science16 Dec 2025

Scalable and healable gradient textiles for multi‑scenario radiative cooling via bicomponent blow spinning

As heat waves intensify, keeping people, packages and gadgets cool without extra energy is climbing the global tech wish-list. A Donghua–Jiangnan University team led by Prof. Chao Zhang and Prof. Tianxi Liu now unveils a single-step bicomponent blow-spinning route that delivers kilometre-scale rolls of an ultra-flexible, self-healing micro-fibre textile engineered with two built-in gradients—one in fibre diameter (2.0 → 0.3 µm) and the other in polymer chemistry (PVDF → PMMA). The dual-gradient architecture behaves like a Janus optical engine: the sun-facing side reflects 98.7 % of solar irradiance while beaming 95 % mid-IR radiation to outer space; ...

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Science16 Dec 2025

Intelligent XGBoost framework enhances asphalt pavement skid resistance assessment

Researchers have developed a novel AI-driven framework using the XGBoost algorithm to accurately evaluate the skid resistance of asphalt pavements under various conditions. Published in Smart Construction, this breakthrough achieves over 90% prediction accuracy, offering a smarter and more adaptive approach to enhancing road safety and maintenance. Skid resistance is a critical factor for asphalt pavement durability and traffic safety, particularly under wet or extreme weather conditions. However, traditional evaluation methods, such as sand patch measurements or pendulum tests, often struggle with generalization across different pavement types and face challenges in quantifying ...

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Science16 Dec 2025

NTP-enhanced lattice oxygen activation in Ce-Co catalysts for low-temperature soot combustion

Soot emitted from diesel exhaust is the primary contributor to haze formation and elevated PM2.5 levels. Catalytic diesel particulate filters (CDPF) are considered the most economical and feasible post-treatment technique for controlling soot elimination. During cold starts of diesel engines, exhaust temperatures remain low (100-200 °C), resulting in a substantial increase in pollutant emissions. However, currently available catalysts cannot reduce the ignition temperature below the exhaust temperature, because few catalysts can continuously provide sufficient amounts ...

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Science15 Dec 2025

An ‘illuminating’ design sheds light on cholesterol

High levels of cholesterol are linked to heart disease, stroke, and many other health problems. However, this complex and vital fatty, water insoluble molecule—a lipid—is found in every cell of the body and is not all bad news. It also regulates crucial processes that science has yet to map. “Cholesterol helps build membranes and serves as the starting point for important hormones like estrone and testosterone, so it shapes many aspects of our health and disease,” says Michael ...

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Science15 Dec 2025

Study showcases resilience and rapid growth of “living rocks”

South Africa is home to some of the oldest evidence of life on Earth, contained in rocky, often layered outcroppings called microbialites. Like coral reefs, these complex “living rocks” are built up by microbes absorbing and precipitating dissolved minerals into solid formations. A new study, co-led by researchers at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and Rhodes University, suggests that these microbialites aren’t just surviving — they’re thriving. The paper, recently published in Nature Communications, quantifies how microbialites along the South African coast take up carbon ...

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Science15 Dec 2025

Naval Research Lab diver earns Office of Naval Research 2025 Sailor of the Year

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Office of Naval Research (ONR) named U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Petty Officer 1st Class and Navy Diver Mitchell Apgar as the 2025 ONR Sailor of the Year (SOY). SOY honors an Enlisted Sailor in the Navy in the pay grade of E-6 who demonstrates sustained superior performance, leadership and professionalism. “This is an absolute honor to be selected as this year's ONR Sailor of the Year,” Apgar said. “Coming from a Command with highly competitive and hard working first classes, my selection is a testament to the hard work and support of both my leaders ...

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Science15 Dec 2025

Reducing saturated fat intake shows mortality benefit, but only in high-risk individuals

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 15 December 2025 Follow @Annalsofim on X, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, 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 also on behalf of the organization they represent. ---------------------------- 1. ...

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Science15 Dec 2025

Study: Mixed results in using lipoic acid to treat progressive multiple sclerosis

The over-the-counter supplement lipoic acid may have a small beneficial effect in slowing the loss of gray matter in the brains of people with progressive forms of multiple sclerosis, according to new research led by Oregon Health & Science University and the Portland VA Health Care System. However, the randomized controlled trial found that it did not improve the primary clinical outcome measured by walking speed. The findings were published Dec. 15 in the journal Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study included 54 participants with primary progressive and secondary progressive multiple sclerosis. People in the experimental group ...

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Science15 Dec 2025

Exploring how the visual system recovers following injury

The brain shows a capacity to recover from traumatic injury, which somewhat contradicts the widely accepted idea that neurons do not regenerate. So how is recovery possible? In a new JNeurosci paper, Athanasios Alexandris and colleagues, from Johns Hopkins University, used mice to explore how the visual brain system recovers following traumatic injury. The researchers monitored connections from cells in the eye to the brain after injury. They discovered that surviving cells ...

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Science15 Dec 2025

Air conditioning in nursing homes and mortality during extreme heat

About The Study: In this case-crossover study, mortality was lower during extreme heat days in nursing homes with air conditioning (AC) compared to those without AC. These findings suggest that AC provision in nursing homes and other congregate care settings may be important for preventing mortality among older adults during extreme heat days. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Nathan M. Stall, MD, PhD, email nathan.stall@sinaihealth.ca. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2025.6595) Editor’s Note: Please ...

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Science15 Dec 2025

Review article | Towards a Global Ground-Based Earth Observatory (GGBEO): Leveraging existing systems and networks

A new peer-reviewed article published in Big Earth Data presents a comprehensive roadmap for building an integrated Global Ground-Based Earth Observatory (GGBEO) to better tackle the escalating planetary environmental and climate crisis. The study argues that unifying existing ground-based, in situ, remote sensing, marine, and airborne observation networks is crucial for meeting the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and for advancing climate science and societal resilience. Citation Lappalainen, ...

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Science15 Dec 2025

Cleveland researchers launch first major study to address ‘hidden performance killer’ in athletes

CLEVELAND—Athletes are 2.5 times more likely than the general public to develop nail fungus, according to a study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. A condition that can disrupt training, change performance and end careers. However, until now, no thorough study has examined how nail fungus affects various sports. Today, Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals announced the launch of the first large-scale collaborative study focused on onychomycosis, a chronic fungal infection of the nails, among ...

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Science15 Dec 2025

Electrodes created using light

Visible light can be used to create electrodes from conductive plastics completely without hazardous chemicals. This is shown in a new study carried out by researchers at Linköping and Lund universities, Sweden. The electrodes can be created on different types of surfaces, which opens up for a new type of electronics and medical sensors. “I think this is something of a breakthrough. It’s another way of creating electronics that is simpler and doesn’t require any expensive equipment,” says Xenofon Strakosas, assistant professor at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, LOE, at Linköping University. LOE’s researchers are working with ...

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Science15 Dec 2025

Second-hand gift-giving is a well-deliberated decision

Fair price, treasure hunting, i.e., the thrill of finding something rare or valuable, as well as ethical and ecological reasons motivate consumers’ intentions to buy second-hand gifts, a recent study from the University of Eastern Finland finds. Administered to users of one of Finland’s most popular consumer-to-consumer online marketplaces, Tori.fi, the survey also shows that an intention to buy a second-hand gift often leads to an actual purchase decision. “Our findings indicate that buying second-hand gifts is a well-thought-through decision rather than an impulsive one. It involves the ...

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Science15 Dec 2025

How human interaction drove evolution to make bears less aggressive

A new paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution, published by Oxford University Press, reports that Italian bears living in areas with many villages evolved and became smaller and less aggressive. Humans have long shaped the environments in which they live, dramatically affecting ecosystems and biodiversity. Habitat change and overuse are among the human activities with the greatest impacts on wildlife, often leading to population declines and/or shifts in selective pressures, thus influencing how a species evolves. The Apennine brown bear, Ursus arctos marsicanus, is a small and isolated population found only in ...

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Science15 Dec 2025

1 in 4 children with major traumatic injuries not cared for in pediatric trauma centres

New research shows that 1 in 4 children with major traumatic injury do not receive care in a pediatric trauma centre, where outcomes are generally better than in adult centres. The authors of the study, published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.250625, recommend evidence-based strategies to improve care for this vulnerable age group. “Given the strong evidence of improved clinical outcomes associated with care in pediatric trauma centres, access to these centres in Canada must be improved urgently,” ...

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Science13 Dec 2025

Making lighter work of calculating fluid and heat flow

Tokyo, Japan – Scientists from Tokyo Metropolitan University have re-engineered the popular Lattice-Boltzmann Method (LBM) for simulating the flow of fluids and heat, making it lighter and more stable than the state-of-the-art. By formulating the algorithm with a few extra inputs, they successfully got around the need to store certain data, some of which span the millions of points over which a simulation is run. Their findings might overcome a key bottleneck in LBM: memory usage. From rocket fuel and drainpipes to the inner workings of organisms, simulations of fluids ...

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Science12 Dec 2025

Indoor tanning makes youthful skin much older on a genetic level

Tanning bed users are known to have a higher risk of skin cancer, but for the first time researchers have found that young indoor tanners undergo genetic changes that can lead to more mutations in their skin cells than people twice their age. The study, which was led by UC San Francisco and Northwestern University, appears Dec. 12 in Science Advances. “We found that tanning bed users in their 30s and 40s had even more mutations than people in the general population who were in their 70s and ...

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Science12 Dec 2025

Mouse model sheds new light on the causes and potential solutions to human GI problems linked to muscular dystrophy

Myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1) is the most common form of adult-onset muscular dystrophy, affecting about 1 in 8,000 people. While it is well known for causing muscle weakness and stiffness, DM1 also affects other organs, including the brain, heart and gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Although around 80% of people with DM1 experience GI problems that greatly reduce their quality of life, including difficulty swallowing, delayed stomach emptying, constipation and severe conditions like intestinal obstruction, the underlying causes remain understudied. To shed light onto the causes and potential solutions to ...

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Science12 Dec 2025

Smarter tools for peering into the microscopic world

The microscopic organisms that fill our bodies, soils, oceans and atmosphere play essential roles in human health and the planet’s ecosystems. Yet even with modern DNA sequencing, figuring out what these microbes are and how they are related to one another remains extremely difficult. In a pair of new studies, researchers at Arizona State University introduce powerful tools that make this work easier, more accurate and far more scalable. One tool improves how scientists build microbial family trees. The other provides a software foundation used worldwide to analyze ...

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Science12 Dec 2025

Applications open for funding to conduct research in the Kinsey Institute archives

The Kinsey Institute invites applications for two competitive research awards that provide in-person access to the Institute’s internationally renowned Library & Special Collections at Indiana University Bloomington. These awards support original scholarship drawing on one of the world’s most significant archives on sexuality, relationships, gender, and human behavior—spanning manuscripts, publications, fine art, photography, ephemera, and scientific data across disciplines including biology, medicine, psychology, anthropology, ...

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Science12 Dec 2025

Global measure underestimates the severity of food insecurity

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Before you can address a problem, you need to understand its scope. That’s why the United Nations developed the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification System. Aid organizations rely on analyses from this global partnership, which monitors and classifies the severity of food insecurity to help target assistance where and when it is most needed. These analyses are multifaceted and complex — often taking place in regions where data is scarce and conditions are deteriorating — and stakeholders tend to assume ...

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Science12 Dec 2025

Child survivors of critical illness are missing out on timely follow up care

When the unthinkable happens and a child is left critically ill or injured, the miracle workers in pediatric intensive care units around the country work tirelessly to save their lives. Yet, after discharge from the hospital, many of these children could be missing out on vital follow up care, finds a study from Michigan Medicine. “There aren't specific guidelines in terms of whether or when a child should follow up with their primary care physician or pediatrician after a stay in the PICU,” ...

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