Science
press releases.

Science11 Dec 2025

Body image issues in adolescence linked to depression in adulthood

Teenagers who are unhappy with their bodies are more likely to develop symptoms of eating disorders and depression in early adulthood, according to a new study led by University College London (UCL) researchers. The research, believed to be the first of its kind, followed more than 2,000 twins born in England and Wales. It found that higher body dissatisfaction at age 16 predicted greater symptoms of eating disorders and depression well into the twenties, even after taking into account family background and genetics. Researchers say the findings strengthen evidence that negative body image is ...

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Science11 Dec 2025

Child sexual exploitation and abuse online surges amid rapid tech change; new tool for preventing abuse unveiled for path forward

Societal and behavioral shifts including growing recognition of children displaying harmful sexual behaviors and links to extremism, violence and financial scams are driving child sexual exploitation and abuse online according to a new report. A new Prevention Framework -- the WeProtect Global Alliance’s Global Threat Assessment 2025 --launched by WeProtect Global Alliance is a comprehensive synthesis of globally available data, expert analysis, youth and survivor perspectives and case studies from organizations tackling technology-facilitated sexual abuse. The assessment provides a practical tool for technology companies, governments, civil society ...

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Science11 Dec 2025

Epilepsy can lead to earlier deaths in people with intellectual disabilities, study shows

A combination of missed prevention opportunities and health inequalities can result in the early deaths of people living with epilepsy and intellectual disabilities, a study has shown. Around 1.2million people in England have some form of intellectual disability, with epilepsy estimated to impact 20-25% of them – up to 300,000 people – compared to just 1% of the general population. However, until now there has been no national-level population-based evidence on the risks and protective factors specifically contributing to epilepsy-related deaths in people with intellectual disability. This new research aims to ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

AAN issues new guideline for the management of functional seizures

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 10, 2025 Highlights: A new guideline by the American Academy of Neurology says psychological interventions are possibly effective in helping people achieve freedom from functional seizures. Functional seizures, previously known as psychogenic nonepileptic seizures or non-epileptic attack disorder, can look or feel like seizures from epilepsy or fainting, but they have their own typical features. The guideline says appropriate treatment may decrease the frequency of functional seizures, decrease anxiety and improve quality of life. The guideline recommends that antiseizure ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Study finds increase in risk of binge drinking among 12th graders who use 2 or more cannabis products

BUFFALO, N.Y. – The cannabis marketplace continues to grow and evolve, offering consumers new ways to use cannabis — and new ways to combine it with other substances, such as alcohol. That practice can be particularly detrimental to adolescents, who are known to use both substances in high numbers. And when it comes to cannabis use and binge drinking among high school seniors, modality matters, according to new research from the University at Buffalo finding that differing modes of cannabis consumption may be associated with risky alcohol use behaviors in this population. The study is among the first to evaluate modes of cannabis use on binge drinking outcomes ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Opioids: clarifying the concept of safe supply to save lives

Canadian researchers want to clarify the concepts related to safe opioid supply to better assess their impact and guide public-health policies. In Canada, thousands of people use contaminated street opioids. To reduce overdoses, the country has been experimenting for the past 10 years with the distribution of pharmaceutical opioids as an alternative to illicit drugs. This method is often referred to as “safe supply” or “safer supply.” What exactly do these terms, which emerged in the late 2010s and are central to Canadian harm reduction policies, mean? In a study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Biobanking opens new windows into human evolution

Nijmegen, 10 December 2025 - More than a decade after the first Neanderthal genome was sequenced, scientists are still working to understand how human-specific DNA changes shaped our evolution. A new study by the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, published in Science Advances, offers an innovative approach: by scanning DNA of hundreds of thousands of people in a population biobank, researchers can identify individuals who carry the very rare archaic versions of these genetic changes, making it possible to directly observe their real-world effects in living humans. It’s just over a decade since scientists first reported successfully sequencing the virtually ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Sky-high smoke

Key takeaways Harvard atmospheric scientists directly sampled 5-day old wildfire smoke in the upper troposphere and found large particles that are not reflected in current climate models. The large particles had a measurable cooling effect, with potential implications for future climate predictions Some wildfires are so intense, they create their own weather – thunderstorms driven by heat that hurtle smoke as high as 10 miles into the sky like giant chimneys. When these smoke plumes reach the thin, calm air of the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, they can persist for weeks or even months – yet their ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Fingerprint of ancient seafarer found on Scandinavia’s oldest plank boat

A fingerprint has been found in the tars used to build the oldest known wooden plank boat in Scandinavia, which provides a direct link to the seaborne raiders who used the boat over 2,000 years ago. By analysing the tar itself, Lund University researchers are closer to solving the long-standing mystery of where the attackers in the boat came from. WATCH VIDEO: Archaeologist describes moment he discovered ancient fingerprint In the 4th century BC, an armada of boats attacked the island of Als off the coast ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

The Iberian Peninsula is rotating clockwise according to new geodynamic data

Plate tectonics can be visualized like large moving parts on the earth’s crust. The constant movement of the plates causes major stresses, and, as a result, deformations or earthquakes occur on the plate boundaries. “Every year the Eurasian and African plates are moving 4-6 mm closer to each other. The boundary between the plates around the Atlantic Ocean and Algeria is very clear, whereas in the south of the Iberian Peninsula the boundary is much more blurred and complex,” explained Asier ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Contraception and castration linked to longer lifespan

Blocking reproduction increases lifespan in both males and females of many different species, a new international University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka-led study has found. Using data from mammals housed in zoos and aquariums worldwide, the researchers found ongoing hormonal contraception and permanent surgical sterilisation were associated with increased life expectancy. Lead author Associate Professor Mike Garratt, of Otago’s School of Biomedical Sciences, says that while the relative increase in lifespan was similar across sexes, the cause ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Three-hit model describes the causes of autism

A new University of California San Diego School of Medicine study offers a unified biological model to explain how genetic predispositions and environmental exposures converge to cause autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The study, published in Mitochondrion on Dec. 9, 2025, describes a “three-hit” metabolic signaling model that reframes autism as a treatable disorder of cellular communication and energy metabolism. The model also suggests that as many as half of all autism cases might be prevented or reduced with ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

How thinning benefits growth for all trees

A new study on intensively managed loblolly pine plantations in the southern United States reveals how trees compete for light and nutrients, and how thinning reshapes that competition. The findings, published in Forest Ecosystems, provide new insight into how forest management affects both tree growth patterns and overall productivity. Researchers from Zhejiang University and Stephen F. Austin State University tracked 48 plots of loblolly pine across Texas and Louisiana for seven years after mid-rotation thinning. They used two indicators to assess forest structure: the Gini index (GI), which measures differences in tree size, and growth ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Researchers upgrades 3-PG forest model for improved accuracy

The study, published in Forest Ecosystems, presents a refined update to the 3-PG (Physiological Processes Predicting Growth) model. Its major innovation is adding a carbon storage pool specifically for stem growth, making it possible for the model to account for the “carry-over effect” in which trees use carbohydrates stored from previous years to form new wood, particularly early in the growing season when photosynthesis is low. Including such physiological processes improved simulations in ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Failure mechanisms in PEM water electrolyzers

Proton exchange membrane (PEM) water electrolyzers are a leading technology for clean hydrogen production, yet their widespread deployment is limited by high cost and insufficient durability, particularly at the anode where the oxygen evolution reaction (OER) occurs under extremely harsh conditions. Commercial systems rely on Ir/Ru-based oxides, which are scarce and intrinsically unstable in these environments. Anode degradation is not a single-material issue but arises from tightly coupled chemical, electrochemical, mechanical, and impurity-driven processes ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

From dots to lines: new database catalogs human gene types using ’ACTG’ rules

Fukuoka, Japan—Whether you turn red when drinking alcohol, dislike certain smells, or metabolize drugs differently from others, the explanation often lies in your DNA, or more precisely, your gene types. People share the same genes but not the exact same gene types. These types are unique combinations of multiple DNA sequence differences that together shape our biological traits. Researchers have long investigated these genetic variations, but traditional tools analyze only 150-300 bases at a time, providing isolated “dots” of information. Advances ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Gen Z views world as "scary place" with growing cynicism about ability to create change

Washington, D.C. December 10, 2025 – Gen Z views the world as a scary place, according to new research presented at the 2025 Society for Risk Analysis Conference. In ongoing research that began in Fall 2022, Gabriel Rubin, Ph.D. a justice studies professor at Montclair State University, has now conducted 104 long-form interviews with Gen Z young people in the Northeast United States about their views on politics, risk and protest—expanding on his initial findings from the study, Gen Z Risk Perceptions: ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Leveraging incomplete remote sensing for forest inventory

Researchers have harnessed a new statistical technique that allows forest managers to use incomplete satellite imagery for precise forest inventories, bypassing the need for complex and often uncertain data repair processes. The method, known as a "hybrid estimator," is particularly valuable for leveraging decades of archived data from the aging Landsat 7 satellite, which has been collecting images with systematic gaps since 2003. The study, published in Forest Ecosystems, addresses a critical challenge in forestry and climate science. Remote sensing is vital for large-scale ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Key chemical in dark chocolate may slow down ageing

A chemical found in dark chocolate could slow the rate of biological ageing. Research from King’s College London has found that the chemical theobromine, a common plant compound that comes from cocoa, could have anti-ageing properties. The study, published today in Aging, compared levels of theobromine in people’s blood, with blood-based markers of biological ageing. Biological age markers indicate how old your body seems based on its health and function, as opposed to the years you have lived. These markers ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Uranus and Neptune might be rock giants

The planets in the Solar System are typically divided into three categories based on their composition: the four terrestrial rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars), followed by the two gas giants (Jupiter and Saturn), and finally two ice giants (Uranus and Neptune). According to the work carried by the UZH scientific team, Uranus and Neptune might actually be more rocky than icy. The new study does not claim the two blue planets to be one or the other type, water- or rock- rich, it rather challenges that ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Targeted oxygen for initial resuscitation of preterm infants

About The Study: Initiating resuscitation of preterm infants with fraction of inspired oxygen of 0.6 vs 0.3 did not affect the risk of death or brain injury by 36 weeks’ corrected gestational age. These results lay a foundation for future trials evaluating the effectiveness and safety of using higher initial fraction of inspired oxygen levels for preterm infant resuscitation. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Ju Lee Oei, MD, email j.oei@uq.edu.au. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2025.23327) Editor’s ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Study shows how everyday repairs sustain autonomy in a Japanese squat

Everyday acts of care—tightening a loose hinge, patching up a wall, or simply moving a crate—may seem mundane. But a new study from Ritsumeikan University shows that these small repairs are key to sustaining autonomy and an inclusive social life in a squatted space in Japan. The research, led by Associate Professor Kyoko Tominaga from the College of Social Sciences at Ritsumeikan University, Japan, explores how spatial practices within the squat at the Takayama Architecture Summer School (TASS) enable diverse residents to coexist through collaborative ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Fecal tests reveal active termite attacks

Termite pellets can linger long after the insects that dropped them have disappeared. By testing for microbes in the excrement, researchers can distinguish old droppings from fresh, and whether a colony is actively chewing its way through a home. Previous efforts to determine pellet age focused on testing hydrocarbon compounds or other chemicals in the pellets. These studies have required expensive, specialized laboratory equipment and complicated extraction processes. In some cases, researchers ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

Dual use of cigarettes and vapes can reduce risks of smoking and help smokers quit

A new major study from Queen Mary University of London has found that smokers who use both cigarettes and e-cigarettes at the same time – known as dual use – are reducing their intake of harmful chemicals and are also more likely to eventually quit smoking than those who continue to smoke only. This challenges common fears about dual use. The study examined data from a large trial, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and Cancer Research UK (CRUK), which followed 886 adult smokers ...

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Science10 Dec 2025

More yield through heterosis: IPK research team decodes gene interaction

When two homozygous plant lines with different characteristics are crossed, the resulting offspring are often more robust and productive than their parents. This phenomenon is called heterosis. It can be caused by positive variants of genes that dominate negative ones, or by complex interactions among numerous genes that ‘communicate’ with each other and influence one another. The research team has developed a new statistical method that can analyse these gene interactions more quickly and accurately. Rather than testing billions of possible gene combinations individually, the new method, hQTL-ODS ...

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