Science
press releases.

Science18 Aug 2025

Ketamine use in chronic pain unsupported by evidence

The off-label use of ketamine to treat chronic pain is not supported by scientific evidence, a new Cochrane review has found. Ketamine is an anaesthetic commonly used for procedural sedation and short-term pain relief. Ketamine is also frequently prescribed off-label to manage chronic pain conditions such as nerve pain, fibromyalgia and complex regional pain syndrome. It is one of several NMDA receptor antagonists — a group of drugs thought to reduce pain by blocking certain brain receptors involved in pain signalling. The review, conducted by researchers from UNSW Sydney , ...

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Science15 Aug 2025

Unlocking the power of mitochondrial biogenesis to combat acute kidney injury

Acute kidney injury (AKI) remains a significant global health challenge, with high mortality rates and the potential for progression to chronic kidney disease. One promising avenue of intervention is targeting mitochondrial biogenesis (MB), a critical cellular process that promotes energy metabolism, stress resistance, and cell survival. By enhancing MB, it may be possible to restore mitochondrial function, alleviate oxidative stress, and improve renal recovery. The kidneys, particularly renal tubular epithelial cells, are highly ...

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Science15 Aug 2025

UBC Okanagan study suggests fasting effects on the body are not the same for everyone

While fasting has become a popular trend, particularly for people who hope to lose weight, new UBC Okanagan research suggests fasting does not have the same effect on all body types. Fasting as part of a ketogenic—very low-carbohydrate—diet is becoming more popular, as people aim to burn stored fat as a fuel source for energy when their bodies run low on carbs. Dr. Hashim Islam, Assistant Professor in UBCO’s School of Health and Exercise Sciences and the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management, says fasting and low-carbohydrate meals can benefit many people, but the ...

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Science15 Aug 2025

Harnessing VR to prevent substance use relapse

Substance use recovery is a life-long process, but environmental triggers, such as alcohol at social gatherings or pain medication advertisements, can put individuals in recovery at risk of relapse. Research by social work Professor Holly Matto, with colleagues from George Mason’s College of Science, demonstrates how positive stimuli, called recovery cues, can counteract drug cravings and lower relapse risk. The team equipped individuals in recovery with VR technology to see how relaxing sensory experiences ...

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Science15 Aug 2025

To craft early tools, ancient human relatives transported stones over long distances 600,000 years earlier than previously thought

In southwestern Kenya more than 2.6 million years ago, ancient humans wielded an array of stone tools—known collectively as the Oldowan toolkit—to pound plant material and carve up large prey such as hippopotamuses. These durable and versatile tools were crafted from special stone materials collected up to eight miles away, according to new research led by scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Queens College. Their findings, published Aug. 15 in the journal Science Advances, push back the earliest known evidence of ancient humans transporting ...

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Science15 Aug 2025

Human embryo implantation recorded in real time for the first time

Researchers at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) in collaboration with the Dexeus University Hospital have captured unparalleled images of a human embryo implanting. This is the first time that the process has been recorded in real time and in 3D. Failure of the implantation process in the uterus is one of the main causes of infertility, accounting for 60% of spontaneous abortions. Until now, it had not been possible to observe this process in humans in real time, and the limited available information came from still images taken at specific moments during the process. 'We have observed that human embryos ...

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Science15 Aug 2025

Recapitulating egg and sperm development in the dish

Recapitulating egg and sperm development in the dish New stem cell differentiation method is first to induce meiosis, a critical step in egg and sperm cell development, with potential for drug development and future fertility treatments By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — More than one-sixth of adults around the world experience infertility in their lifetime. There is a high unmet need not only for increased access to affordable, high-quality fertility care for those in need but, importantly, also for new biomedical solutions that can address the root causes of infertility. Some of the earliest causes ...

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Science15 Aug 2025

Study reveals benefits of traditional Himalayan crops

In the high-elevation desert region of the Trans-Himalayas, most people farm for a living. In the 1980s, they largely transitioned from subsistence-based to market-oriented production of commercial crops, such as green peas (Pisum sativum L.), they could sell to other states in India. For their own communities and monasteries, however, some farmers still cultivate foods with a 3,000-year legacy in the area, including barley (Hordeum vulgare) and a local variety of black peas that lacks a scientific name. Favored for nutrition and sustained energy, these black peas are an integral part of traditional recipes, such as soups ...

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Science15 Aug 2025

60 percent of the world’s land area is in a precarious state

A new study maps the planetary boundary of “functional biosphere integrity” in spatial detail and over centuries. It finds that 60 percent of global land areas are now already outside the locally defined safe zone, and 38 percent are even in the high-risk zone. The study was led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) together with BOKU University in Vienna and published in the renowned journal One Earth. Functional biosphere integrity refers to the plant world’s ability to co-regulate ...

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Science15 Aug 2025

FastUKB: A revolutionary tool for simplifying UK Biobank data analysis

FastUKB is an innovative tool specifically developed to streamline and enhance research workflows utilizing the UK Biobank, effectively addressing key limitations of existing platforms such as the UK Biobank Research Analysis Platform (RAP). One of its most notable features is its breakthrough bulk data extraction functionality, which transforms traditionally complex coding tasks into intuitive click operations. This is made possible through a user-friendly interface equipped with dropdown menus and a hierarchical variable tree structure, allowing researchers to effortlessly navigate and select the data they need. Unlike RAP, which restricts ...

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Science15 Aug 2025

NIH grant funds effort to target the root of HIV persistence

A multi-institutional team led by Weill Cornell Medicine has received a five-year, $14.9 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, to find ways to remove latent HIV from the cells of individuals with HIV. The team aims to use a personalized medicine approach to transform the management of HIV into effective cures. Over 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV, according to the World Health Organization. People with ...

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Science14 Aug 2025

Deprivation and transport density linked to increased suicide risk in England

*Embargoed links to the paper, regional data, and additional quotes are available at the end of this press release* IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON PRESS RELEASE Peer Reviewed / Observational study / People An analysis of suicide rates in England has shown how factors like deprivation and transport density are linked to regional increases in suicide risk. The first of its kind study, led by researchers at Imperial College London, UCL and the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), looked at suicide trends in England from 2002 to 2022 combined with the ...

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Science14 Aug 2025

66th Supplement to the Check-list of North American Birds publishes today in Ornithology

CHICAGO — August 14, 2025 — The 66th Supplement to the American Ornithological Society’s (AOS’s) Check-list of North American Birds, published today in Ornithology, includes several significant updates to the classification of bird species found in North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. A few highlights from the supplement, detailed below, include species splits for Myiarchus nuttingi, Vireo gilvus, and Larus argentatus; the addition of subfamilies in the Laridae for white-terns and noddies; and a merging of three families ...

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Science14 Aug 2025

ORC2 regulation of human gene expression shows unexpected breadth and scale

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Origin-recognition complex, or ORC, plays an unexpectedly broad role in the regulation of human cell gene expression, according to a study in the journal Cell Reports. “This is the first detailed study of how and where ORC regulates epigenetics and gene expression in human cells,” said Anindya Dutta, Ph.D., leader of the study and chair of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Department of Genetics. “The unanticipated scale and breadth of the regulation opens new chapters in ORC biology.” The six-subunit complex was discovered ...

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Science14 Aug 2025

A new way to study omega fatty acids

Omega fatty acids are important to human health, including their role in metabolizing fats. Deviations in their position in a fatty acid chain can signal enzyme malfunctions or pathological metabolic processes, such as those occurring in cancer and autoimmune disorders. Now, researchers from UC San Diego and the University of Graz (Austria) have presented a new computational method to determine omega positions of lipids — the scientific term for fats — in complex biological samples including human tissues and blood. Until ...

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Science14 Aug 2025

Densely planted maize communicates with neighboring plants to defend against pests

A careful experiment by Dongsheng Guo and colleagues reveals that maize in a densely planted plot can communicate with neighboring plants through the release of the volatile gas linalool, triggering the roots of its neighbors to release compounds that can change the bacterial composition of the soil. This plant-soil communication helps the plants defend against the increased risk of pests and predation found in high-density plantings, Guo et al. conclude. The findings could aid agricultural researchers looking for ways to sustainably optimize crop yield through different planting patterns and possibly through targeting linalool production. ...

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Science14 Aug 2025

Laying the foundation for gene editing for inherited progressive deafness in adults, DFNA41

Zheng-Yi Chen, DPhil, associate scientist at the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories, and Ines and Fredrick Yeatts Chair in Otolaryngology, at Mass Eye and Ear, is the senior and co-corresponding author of a paper published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, “Single Dose Genome Editing Therapy Rescues Auditory and Vestibular Functions in Adult Mice with DFNA41 Deafness.” Q: How would you summarize your study for a lay audience? This study provides an example of a successful use of gene editing technology to treat a mouse model of human genetic hearing loss. We developed a one-time, gene editing ...

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Science14 Aug 2025

AFAR receives NIH award renewal totaling more than $5.7 million for the Nathan Shock Centers Coordinating Center

NEW YORK — The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) has received a five-year renewal award totaling $5,722,435 from the National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to continue and expand the Nathan Shock Centers Coordinating Center (NSC3). The NSC3 coordinates the activities of the 8 Nathan Shock Centers (NSC) of Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, which provide expert resources to expand basic research into the biology of aging. The NSCs began in 1995 in honor of ...

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Science14 Aug 2025

Ancient cephalopod, new insight: Nautilus reveals unexpected sex chromosome system

Nautiloids—a lineage of ancient, externally-shelled cephalopods that diverged from their octopus and squid relatives over 400 million years ago—once dominated our oceans. Today, this living fossil is restricted to a handful of species in the Southern Indo-Pacific, making it one of the few marine invertebrates listed under CITES appendix II of species in need of protection from over-exploitation.. Although no one had previously investigated sex determination systems in cephalopods, recent research suggested a ZZ/Z0 ...

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Science14 Aug 2025

Ocular adverse events with semaglutide

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that semaglutide was not associated with an increased risk of eye disorders or diabetic retinopathy. Despite the fact that an association between semaglutide treatment and nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) was found, current evidence remains insufficient to establish definitive conclusions regarding its association with NAION. Further studies with larger sample sizes and adequate evaluation of NAION are warranted ...

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Science14 Aug 2025

Frailty linked to higher risk of respiratory complications and death in smokers

“[…]in a population of adults with a smoking history, frailty and prefrailty are associated with increased respiratory exacerbations and increased risk of death.” BUFFALO, NY — August 14, 2025 — A new research paper was published in Volume 17, Issue 7, of Aging (Aging-US) on July 3, 2025, titled “Frailty associates with respiratory exacerbations and mortality in the COPDGene cohort.” In this study, led by first author Eleanor ...

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Science14 Aug 2025

Multifocus microscope pushes the limits of fast live 3D biological imaging

WASHINGTON — Researchers have developed a high-speed 3D imaging microscope that can capture detailed cell dynamics of an entire small whole organism at once. The ability to image 3D changes in real time over a large field of view could lead to new insights in developmental biology and neuroscience. “Traditional microscopes are constrained by how quickly they can refocus or scan through different depths, which makes it difficult to capture fast, 3D biological processes without distortion ...

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Science14 Aug 2025

Researchers mimic a mystery of nature to make ice move on its own

In Associate Professor Jonathan Boreyko’s Nature-Inspired Fluids and Interfaces Lab, Ph.D. student Jack Tapocik watched a disc-shaped chunk of ice resting on an engineered metal surface. As the ice melted, the water formed a puddle beneath. Even after many seconds of melting, the ice disk remained adhered to the engineered surface. At first, Tapocik was tempted to conclude that nothing would happen, but he waited. His patience paid off. After a minute, the ice slingshot across the metal plate he designed, gliding along as if it was ...

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Science14 Aug 2025

Helicobacter pylori eradication may raise risk of reflux esophagitis, meta-analysis warns

The management of Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori), a globally prevalent gastric pathogen, has long been centered on its eradication to prevent peptic ulcers, gastric malignancies, and related gastrointestinal complications. However, a newly published meta-analysis in eGastroenterology raises a crucial clinical dilemma: Could the treatment itself, intended to heal, paradoxically increase the risk of reflux oesophagitis (RE)? Led by Prof. Mingxin Zhang and colleagues from Xi'an Medical University and The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi'an Medical University, this comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis ...

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Science14 Aug 2025

Researchers use smart watches to better understand human activity

PULLMAN, Wash. –Researchers have long been able to use information from smartwatches to identify physical movement, such as sitting or walking, that wearers are performing in a controlled lab setting. Now, Washington State University researchers have developed a way, using a computer algorithm and a large dataset gathered from smartwatches, to more comprehensively identify what people are doing in everyday settings, such as working, eating, doing hobbies or running errands. The work, published in the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics, could someday lead ...

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