Science
press releases.

Science20 Aug 2025

Inflammation and aging: Looking through an evolutionary lens

It’s been a long-accepted reality that with age comes increased inflammation – so widely accepted it’s been dubbed “inflammaging.” With this increase in age-related chronic inflammation also comes serious health concerns, such as cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s. But according to new research, inflammaging isn’t as universal of an experience as previously thought. Published today in Proceedings of Royal Society B, “Inflammaging is minimal among forager-horticulturalists in the Bolivian Amazon,” the work highlights little inflammaging in one non-industrialized ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

What happened before the Big Bang?

We’re often told it is “unscientific” or “meaningless” to ask what happened before the big bang. But a new paper by FQxI cosmologist Eugene Lim, of King's College London, UK, and astrophysicists Katy Clough, of Queen Mary University of London, UK, and Josu Aurrekoetxea, at Oxford University, UK, published in Living Reviews in Relativity, in June 2025, proposes a way forward: using complex computer simulations to numerically (rather than exactly) solve Einstein’s equations for gravity in extreme situations. The team argues that numerical relativity should be applied increasingly in cosmology to probe ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

First SwRI-owned office outside Texas opens in Warner Robins, Georgia

SAN ANTONIO — August 20, 2025 — Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has constructed its first facility outside of its San Antonio headquarters in Warner Robins, Georgia. The 33,000-square-foot, $18.5 million building, equipped to advance national defense technology, is strategically located 3 miles from Robins Air Force Base to bolster SwRI’s longstanding support for the U.S. Air Force. Institute leadership welcomed government and community leaders to the grounds on August 20 for a ribbon-cutting ceremony and tours to mark the grand opening of the new structure, which houses offices, conference rooms and laboratories. SwRI employees based in Warner Robins ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Ad hominem attacks are the most common way users confront content they perceive as wrong in comment sections beneath news videos, with over 40% of analyzed comments relying on reputation-based insults

Ad hominem attacks are the most common way users confront content they perceive as wrong in comment sections beneath news videos, with over 40% of analyzed comments relying on reputation-based insults to oppose earlier replies Article URL: http://plos.io/4os0Tkc Article title: Beyond ad hominem attacks: A typology of the discursive tactics used when objecting to news commentary on social media Author countries: U.S. Funding: This research was funded by the National Science Foundation Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (NSF, Funding number: 2106476). Full ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Extreme heat poses growing threat to our aging population

Embargoed until 2:00 PM ET on August 20, 2025 COLUMBUS, Ohio – Older adults often don’t realize how vulnerable they are to extreme heat and most aren’t prepared for long periods of hot weather, according to a review of more than 40 studies. In the review, researchers found that most studies focused on how older adults react when heat waves strike, such as staying hydrated or moving to cooler locations. But there is less research on how they plan for prolonged heat events, which may be evidence of low-risk ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Hunting wolves reduces livestock deaths measurably, but minimally, according to new study

Wolf hunting has prevented livestock loss in a measurable way, but it is by no means a silver bullet, according to an international research team led by the University of Michigan. "Hunting, on the whole, is not removing negative impacts associated with wolves. It does have some effect on rates of livestock loss, but the effect is not particularly consistent, widespread or strong," said Neil Carter, associate professor at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability and senior author of the new study published in the journal Science Advances. As governmental protections ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Feeding massive stars

Kyoto, Japan -- The size of our universe and the bodies within it is incomprehensible for us lowly humans. The sun has a mass that is more than 330,000 that of our Earth, and yet there are stars in the universe that completely dwarf our sun. Stars with masses more than eight times that of the sun are considered high mass stars. These form rapidly in a process that gives off stellar wind and radiation, which could not result in stars of such high mass without somehow overcoming this loss of mass, or feedback. Something is feeding these stars, but how exactly they can accumulate so much mass so quickly has remained a mystery. Observations of enormous disk-like structures that form around ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Outsmart an island fox? Not so fast

For decades, scientists believed animals on islands evolved smaller brains relative to body size to save energy. But most Channel Islands foxes — tiny predators no bigger than a house cat – defied that rule, evolving larger brains than their mainland cousins. The findings, published in PLOS One by researchers at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, suggest brain size may hinge less on isolation and more on the demands of survival. Island syndrome refers to a suite of traits including reduced size, brain shrinkage, loss of flight in birds and tamer behavior. Until ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Falling water forms beautiful fluted films

When water drains from the bottom of a vertical tube, it is followed by a thin film of liquid that can adopt complex and beautiful shapes. KAUST researchers have now studied exactly how these “fluted films” form and break up, developing a mathematical model of their behavior that could help improve the performance, safety, and efficiency of industrial processes[1] “At first glance, water draining from a tube seems like an everyday process driven by gravity,” says Abhijit Kushwaha, a member of the team behind the work. “It is only with high-speed imaging that we can slow ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Reading for pleasure in freefall: New study finds 40% drop over two decades

A sweeping new study from the University of Florida and University College London has found that daily reading for pleasure in the United States has declined by more than 40% over the last 20 years — raising urgent questions about the cultural, educational and health consequences of a nation reading less. Published today in the journal iScience, the study analyzed data from over 236,000 Americans who participated in the American Time Use Survey between 2003 and 2023. The findings suggest a fundamental cultural shift: fewer people are carving out time in their day to read for enjoyment. “This is not just a small dip — it’s ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Scientists discover a new crystal that breathes oxygen

A team of scientists from Korea and Japan has discovered a new type of crystal that can "breathe"—releasing and absorbing oxygen repeatedly at relatively low temperatures. This unique ability could transform the way we develop clean energy technologies, including fuel cells, energy-saving windows, and smart thermal devices. The newly developed material is a special kind of metal oxide made of strontium, iron, and cobalt. What makes it extraordinary is that it can release oxygen when heated in a simple gas environment and then take it back in, all without falling apart. This process can be repeated many times, making it ideal for real-world applications. This ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Earth System Models project the start of the Amazon dieback within the 21st century

The Amazon is the world's largest rainforest. It harbors immense biodiversity and plays a crucial role in the global climate system by storing vast amounts of carbon in its vegetation (Figure 1). The Amazon is widely recognized as a major climate tipping element note 1(IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Continued deforestation and climate change could push the system past a critical threshold, causing the Amazon to shift from rainforest rich in biodiversity to a degraded savannah-like ecosystem. ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

How mutations in bodily tissues affect ageing

Two new studies from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have investigated how mutations that occur in muscles and blood vessels over time can affect ageing. The studies, which are published in Nature Aging, show that such mutations can reduce muscle strength and accelerate blood vessel ageing. The results can be of significance to the treatment of age-related diseases. Somatic mutations are non-hereditary genetic changes in cells and occur during a lifetime as a result of environmental factors or through random errors when a cell copies its DNA before dividing. The mutations can give rise to cancer, but otherwise their effect has been disputed. “We’ve discovered that mutations ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Should additional food allergens have mandatory labelling due to anaphylaxis risk?

The European Regulation list on mandatory labelling of foods includes 14 allergenic foods. Research published in Clinical & Experimental Allergy has identified eight additional foods frequently involved in food-induced anaphylaxis. The research was based on an analysis of food-induced anaphylaxis cases reported to the Allergy Vigilance Network from 2002–2023. Allergenic foods involved in ≥1% of cases and not included in the European Regulation list included goat’s and sheep’s milk (2.8% of cases), buckwheat (2.4%), peas and lentil (1.8%), alpha-gal (1.7%), pine nut (1.6%), kiwi (1.5%), beehive products (1.0%), and apple (1.0%). Due ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Sleep problems in early teens associated with future self-harm

Self-harm in young people is a major public health concern, rates are rising, and the adolescent years presents a critical period of intervention. Another modern challenge facing adolescents is sleep deficiency, with global reductions in total sleep time and inconsistent sleep patterns, and as many as 70% of teenagers getting inadequate sleep. Published today in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, researchers at The University of Warwick and University of Birmingham have investigated this relationship between multiple measures of sleep problems and self-harm, using data from over 10,000 teenagers from the Millenium Cohort. 10,000 teenagers, ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Supergiant star’s gigantic bubble surprises scientists

Astronomers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have discovered a vast and expanding bubble of gas and dust surrounding a red supergiant star – the largest structure of its kind ever seen in the Milky Way. The bubble, which contains as much mass as the Sun, was blown out in a mysterious stellar eruption around 4000 years ago. Why the star survived such a powerful event is a puzzle, the scientists say. The new results are published in the scientific journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, and the team was led by Mark Siebert, Chalmers, Sweden. Using the ALMA radio telescope ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Study uncovers biological clues about daytime sleepiness

Mass General Brigham researchers identified seven molecules in the blood linked to excessive daytime sleepiness, including factors related to diet and hormones. Approximately one in three Americans reports experiencing overwhelming drowsiness during the day—a condition known as excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS). EDS is linked to an increased risk of serious conditions such as cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes. A new study led by investigators from Mass General Brigham and Beth ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Youth vaping consistently linked to subsequent smoking, marijuana and alcohol use

Vaping among teens and young people is consistently linked to subsequent smoking, marijuana and alcohol use, finds an overarching (umbrella) review of systematic reviews of the evidence, published online in the journal Tobacco Control. And it’s associated with other harmful consequences, including heightened risks of asthma, cough, injuries and mental ill health as well as possibly pneumonia, bronchitis, headaches, migraine, dizziness/lightheadedness, low sperm count, and poor mouth health. The findings reinforce policy measures to restrict sales and marketing ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

For apes, out of sight isn’t out of mind

A series of hide-and-seek experiments with a bonobo named Kanzi shows for the first time that apes can mentally keep track of multiple familiar humans at once, even when they are out of sight. Kanzi could also recognize caregivers from their voices alone, an ability never before tested on bonobos. The work, led by Johns Hopkins University’s Social and Cognitive Origins Group, answers key questions about how animals manage to keep track of their groupmates and uncovers yet another aspect of human social cognition shared with our closest relatives. “People think social intelligence is a thing that makes humans unique—that because we have to manage so many different relationships, ...

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Science20 Aug 2025

Boys can help break taboo around periods

Teaching about periods in schools is still too focused on basic biological facts with insufficient information around how menstruation can affect a woman’s mood and wellbeing, problems associated with menstrual bleeding and the impact on physical and academic performance, concludes a new study by UCL (University College London) researchers. The survey and focus group based research, published in the academic journal Women’s Health, also suggests that periods should be taught amongst mixed sex groups as well as single sex at both primary and ...

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Science19 Aug 2025

Study of overdose dashboard in Cayuga County shows value of real-time data

ITHACA, N.Y. - As overdoses from fentanyl and opioids continue to rise, many communities have created interactive overdose dashboards showing data trends and community resources to help with substance abuse. However, there’s not much research looking at how effective these dashboards are at helping public health officials make data-driven decisions, especially in rural areas. Researchers from Cornell University are filling that gap. They collaborated with Cayuga County Mental Health ...

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Science19 Aug 2025

UAlbany study finds more new doctors are choosing to stay in New York

ALBANY, N.Y. (Aug. 19, 2025) — The percentage of physicians who go on to practice in New York State after completing their residency training continues to climb. A recent analysis conducted by the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany’s College of Integrated Health Sciences examined findings from their most recent New York Resident Exit Survey. They found that 52% of newly trained physicians with confirmed practice plans reported plans to stay in New York, ...

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Science19 Aug 2025

A serve with serious swerve

WASHINGTON, Aug. 19, 2025 — One of the world’s most popular sports, badminton is played by around 220 million people across the globe. As with other racket sports, a well-executed serve can establish a consequential advantage at the start of a rally. The “spin serve” was introduced by a Danish player at the Polish Open 2023 badminton tournament. The technique adds pre-spin before the racket touches the shuttlecock, whose natural spin is typically determined by its feathers’ inclination ...

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Science19 Aug 2025

How Zelda and Studio Ghibli inspire happiness and purpose

(Toronto, August 18, 2025) A new study published in JMIR Serious Games by JMIR Publications reveals that playing the open-world video game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and watching Studio Ghibli films can significantly improve young people’s overall happiness and sense of purpose in life. Led by researchers from Imperial College London, Kyushu Sangyo University, and Georgia State University, the exploratory randomized controlled study, titled “Effects of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Studio Ghibli Films on Young People’s Sense of Exploration, Calm, Mastery and Skill, Purpose and Meaning, and Overall Happiness ...

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Science19 Aug 2025

In Africa, heat waves are hotter and longer than 40 years ago, UIC researchers say

Heat waves — prolonged periods of abnormally hot weather — influence egg prices, energy bills and even public transit. And they’re becoming more common as temperatures increase. In a new study, UIC researchers report that heat waves across Africa are hotter, longer and more frequent today than 40 years ago, mainly due to increased greenhouse gas and black carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels. Understanding heat waves’ origins and effects can help African countries predict them and ...

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