Science
press releases.

Science18 Sep 2025

Disparities by race and ethnicity in percutaneous coronary intervention

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study examining racial and ethnic disparities in receipt of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), racial and ethnic disparities persisted throughout the care process. The largest magnitude of disparity was PCI receipt if transferred, but the disparity with the largest impact was PCI receipt when initially presenting to PCI-capable hospitals. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Charleen Hsuan, JD, PhD, email chsuan@psu.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For ...

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Science18 Sep 2025

New light on toxicity of Bluefin tuna

Researchers at the ESRF - the European Synchrotron-, together with CNRS, ENS Lyon and the Institute of Marine Research in Norway, have unveiled how Atlantic Bluefin tuna transforms the toxic form of mercury into less harmful forms. Their study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, shows that the tuna’s edible muscle contains not only toxic methylmercury, but also mercury bound in stable, non-toxic compounds. Mercury contamination in seafood is a global health concern. Mercury (Hg) originates both from natural sources like volcanoes ...

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Science18 Sep 2025

FGF21 muscle hormone associated with slow ALS progression and extended survival

“[…]we have identified FGF21 as a novel biomarker in ALS that is detected in multiple compartments including muscle, spinal cord, and circulation.” BUFFALO, NY — September 18, 2025 — A new research paper was published in Volume 17, Issue 8 of Aging-US on August 9, 2025, titled “The myokine FGF21 associates with enhanced survival in ALS and mitigates stress-induced cytotoxicity.” In this study, led by first author Abhishek Guha and corresponding author Peter H. King from the University ...

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Science18 Sep 2025

Thermal trigger

Researchers at the Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University, report in ACS Nano, how proteins in cells can be controllably activated through heating, an effect that can be used to initiate programmed cell death. Cellular processes are governed by the activity of proteins. Being able to control the functioning of proteins is therefore highly relevant for the development of biotechnological tools. Doing so with high-enough spatial and temporal precision is hugely challenging, however. One approach for tackling this challenge, called thermogenetics, is based on the thermal response of certain proteins, with slight heating or cooling resulting in (de)activation. ...

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Science18 Sep 2025

New book challenges misconceptions about evolution and our place in the tree of life

In a world where evolutionary biology often gets boiled down to simplistic hierarchies of "primitive" and "advanced" species, a new book by University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) biologist Kevin Omland offers a fresh, genomics-informed perspective. Understanding the Tree of Life, published by Cambridge University Press as part of its "Understanding Life" series, invites readers to rethink evolution as a continuous, branching process where all organisms—from humans to platypuses to bacteria—are interconnected cousins sharing a common ancestry. Omland draws on decades of research ...

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Science18 Sep 2025

Decoding a decade of grouper grunts unlocks spawning secrets, shifts

More than a decade of acoustic recordings of grouper grunts are providing new insight into how sound can be used to monitor and manage vulnerable fish populations. The research by Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute focused on the red hind (Epinephelus guttatus), a commercially important Caribbean grouper species. Red hind are protogynous hermaphrodites, starting life as females and later becoming males. Each winter, they travel more than 30 kilometers to offshore sites to spawn under the full moon in large gatherings. Males use rhythmic, low-frequency sounds ...

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Science18 Sep 2025

4 beer and wine discoveries

Scientists regularly uncork fresh insights into beer and wine — even though they were invented thousands of years ago. Four recent discoveries go beyond buzz and bouquet, diving into the haziness and gluten content of beer as well as the astringent taste and potential health impacts of wine. Sip back and learn more about research published in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Reporters can request free access to these papers by emailing newsroom@acs.org. Yeast extracts add haze to lager beer. Hazy beer styles are becoming more popular, ...

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Science18 Sep 2025

Shortlist announced for Panmure House Prize

An international group of four leading researchers and scientists have been shortlisted for the prestigious $75,000 Panmure House Prize. This year’s competition attracted entries from across North America, Europe, and beyond, reflecting the global reach of the award. Now in its fifth year, the Prize is named after Panmure House, the former Edinburgh residence of 18th-century Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith. It is regarded as one of the largest awards in financial research and is dedicated to advancing understanding of long-term ...

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Science18 Sep 2025

Millisecond windows of time may be key to how we hear, study finds

You have 20 minutes of spare time, but the new episode of your favorite podcast is a few minutes longer. No problem; you can increase the listening speed and fit in those extra minutes. Phew. What happens when you listen to speech at a different speed? Neuroscientists thought that your brain may turn up its processing speed as well. But it turns out that at least the auditory part of the brain keeps “listening” or clocking in at a fixed time. That is the key finding of new research out today in Nature Neuroscience. The research was led by Sam Norman-Haignere, PhD, ...

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Science18 Sep 2025

A graphene sandwich — deposited or transferred?

Spintronics devices will be key to realizing faster and more energy-efficient computers. To give us a better understanding of how to make them, a Kobe University team now showed how different manufacturing techniques influence the material properties of a key component. Electronic devices could be made more efficient and faster if electrons could carry more information at once. This is the basic idea behind spintronics, where researchers try to use the electrons’ spin in addition to charge in data storage, processing and sensor devices to significantly improve our computers. ...

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Science18 Sep 2025

New light-powered motor fits inside a strand of hair

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have made light-powered gears on a micrometer scale. This paves the way for the smallest on-chip motors in history, which can fit inside a strand of hair. Gears are everywhere – from clocks and cars to robots and wind turbines. For more than 30 years, researchers have been trying to create even smaller gears in order to construct micro-engines. But progress stalled at 0.1 millimetres, as it was not possible to build the drive trains needed to make them move any smaller. Researchers from Gothenburg University, among others, have now broken through this barrier by ditching ...

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Science18 Sep 2025

Oil rig study reveals vital role of tiny hoverflies

A study of migratory hoverflies on a North Sea oil rig has revealed their vital role as long-distance pollen transporters. Researchers studied 121 marmalade hoverflies that landed on an oil rig in the Britannia oil field, 200km off the coast of Scotland. Pollen was found on 92% of the hoverflies and – with no vegetation on the rig, and no land nearby – this shows they can transport pollen over great distances, potentially linking plant populations that are hundreds of kilometres apart. The hoverflies ...

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Science17 Sep 2025

A third of licensed GPs in England not working in NHS general practice

Despite rising patient demand and commitments to strengthen primary care, one in three GPs with a licence to practise in England are not working in NHS general practice, finds a study published by The BMJ today. The results also suggest that many newly qualified GPs are not entering the NHS general practice workforce or are leaving within the first 10 years. Overall, the number of patients for each full time equivalent GP in NHS general practice in England has risen by 15% since 2015. And by the end of 2024, there were twice as many NHS patients for ...

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Science17 Sep 2025

ChatGPT “thought on the fly” when put through Ancient Greek maths puzzle

The Artificial Intelligence chatbot, ChatGPT, appeared to improvise ideas and make mistakes like a student in a study that rebooted a 2,400-year-old mathematical challenge. The experiment, by two education researchers, asked the chatbot to solve a version of the “doubling the square” problem – a lesson described by Plato in about 385 BCE and, the paper suggests, “perhaps the earliest documented experiment in mathematics education”. The puzzle sparked centuries of debate about whether knowledge is latent within us, waiting to be ‘retrieved’, or ...

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Science17 Sep 2025

Decoding plants’ language of light

Researchers have revealed a previously unknown way plants shape their growth in response to light — a breakthrough that could better equip crops to handle environmental stress. In a first-of-its-kind finding, the team discovered how a compound that’s involved in plant metabolism can actually "reprogram” an unrelated light-sensing protein. This unexpected interaction, which was reported in the journal Nature Communications, is an exciting step toward more fully understanding plant physiology. “In the future, this mechanism could be exploited to fine-tune plant growth, development and stress ...

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Science17 Sep 2025

Could a local anesthetic that doesn’t impair motor function be within reach?

All current local anesthetics block sensory signals — pain — but they also interrupt motor signals, which can be problematic. For example, too much epidural anesthesia can prevent mothers in labor from being able to push. Prolonged local anesthesia after orthopedic surgery can leave patients unable to participate in rehab. Researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital now report an alternative local anesthetic, 2',6'-pipecolylxylidine (PPX), in the journal Anesthesiology, the peer-reviewed ...

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Science17 Sep 2025

1 in 8 Italian cetacean strandings show evidence of fishery interactions, with bottlenose and striped dolphins most commonly affected, according to analysis across four decades of data and more than 5

1 in 8 Italian cetacean strandings show evidence of fishery interactions, with bottlenose and striped dolphins most commonly affected, according to analysis across four decades of data and more than 5,000 strandings Article URL: http://plos.io/47pWwAl Article title: Assessing fishery interaction on cetaceans stranded along the Italian coastline between 1986 and 2023 Author countries: Italy Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. END ...

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Science17 Sep 2025

In the wild, chimpanzees likely ingest the equivalent of several alcoholic drinks every day

The first-ever measurements of the ethanol content of fruits available to chimpanzees in their native African habitat show that the animals could easily consume the equivalent of more than two standard alcoholic drinks each day, according to researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. It's not clear whether they actively seek out fruit with high ethanol levels, which are typically riper fruit with more sugars to ferment. But the availability of ethanol in many species of fruit that they normally eat suggests that alcohol is a regular part of their diet and likely was a part of the diets of our human ancestors. "Across all sites, male and female chimpanzees ...

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Science17 Sep 2025

Indian adolescents are mostly starting their periods at an earlier age than 25 years ago

Indian adolescents are mostly starting their periods at an earlier age than 25 years ago - likely because of demographic factors such as improved education, and possibly even climate change. Article URL: https://plos.io/4nqfag7 Article Title: Understanding age at menarche: Environmental and demographic influences over a quarter century in India Author Countries: Bangladesh Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. END ...

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Science17 Sep 2025

Rates of alcohol-induced deaths among the general population nearly doubled from 1999 to 2024

In an analysis by race, sex, age, and geography, alcohol-induced death rates in 2024 are nearly double those in 1999, with a sharp increase at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although rates are higher for men, the largest increase in alcohol-induced deaths over the full 25-year period occurred in females aged 25-34, according to a study published on September 17 by Dr. Tony Wong and colleagues at UCLA in the open-access journal PLOS Global Public Health. Alcohol-induced deaths have been increasing over the past two decades. Particularly concering are increases between 2019 ...

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Science17 Sep 2025

Study finds cocoa extract supplement reduced key marker of inflammation and aging

Could cocoa extract supplements rich in cocoa flavanols reduce inflammation and, in turn, prevent age-related chronic diseases? In a new study from the COcoa Supplement and Multivitamin Outcomes Study (COSMOS), investigators from Mass General Brigham and their colleagues looked at changes in five age-related markers of inflammation among participants who received daily cocoa supplements over several years. They found that hsCRP—an inflammatory marker that can signal increased risk of cardiovascular disease—decreased in participants taking the cocoa extract supplement, suggesting its anti-inflammatory potential may ...

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Science17 Sep 2025

Dr. Carl Nathan wins David and Beatrix Hamburg Award

Dr. Carl F. Nathan, the R.A. Rees Pritchett Professor of Microbiology at Weill Cornell Medicine, has been awarded the David and Beatrix Hamburg Award for Advances in Biomedical Research and Clinical Medicine by the National Academy of Medicine. Established in 2004, the prestigious award honors innovative biomedical scientists who have advanced global health with an exceptional biomedical research discovery and translation that has fundamentally enriched the scientific community’s understanding of human biology and disease, leading to a significant reduction of disease burden and improvement in ...

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Science17 Sep 2025

New microscope captures large, high-resolution images of curved samples in single snapshot

WASHINGTON — Researchers have developed a new type of microscope that can acquire extremely large, high-resolution pictures of non-flat objects in a single snapshot. This innovation could speed up research and medical diagnostics or be useful in quality inspection applications. “Although traditional microscopes assume the sample is perfectly flat, real-life samples such as tissue sections, plant samples or flexible materials may be curved, tilted or uneven,” said research team ...

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Science17 Sep 2025

New CRISPR test could make tuberculosis screening as simple as a mouth swab

Tulane University researchers have developed an enhanced CRISPR-based tuberculosis test that works with a simple tongue swab, a potential breakthrough that could allow easier, community-based screenings for the world’s deadliest infectious disease. Current TB tests rely on sputum, mucus collected from the lungs and lower respiratory system. While rich in TB bacteria required for testing, collecting sputum is difficult, making it inefficient for large-scale community testing. Sputum testing is also unfeasible in about 25% of symptomatic cases and nearly 90% of asymptomatic cases, a gap which contributes to an estimated 4 million tuberculosis cases going undiagnosed ...

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Science17 Sep 2025

People on Ozempic who eat to regulate emotions less likely to lose weight

GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic can be a lifeline for people with diabetes — helping stabilize blood glucose and lose weight which contributes to diabetes complications. But not everyone benefits equally. Scientists monitoring 92 individuals with diabetes in Japan over their first year of taking GLP-1 drugs found that people’s reasons for overeating may affect the success of these therapies. Individuals who overeat in response to the sight or smell of tasty food were most likely to respond well to the drugs in the long term, whereas individuals who overeat for emotional reasons ...

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