LOS ANGELES — Liver disease is usually caused by one of three factors: alcohol consumption, fat buildup in the liver linked to obesity, diabetes and high cholesterol, or hepatitis B and C.   Now, a new study published in Liver International from Keck Medicine of USC reveals that tetrachloroethylene (PCE), a chemical used in dry cleaning and found in consumer products such as adhesives for arts and crafts, spot cleaners and stainless steel polish, may also be harmful to the liver.  Exposure to PCE was shown to triple the risk ...

DALLAS, Oct. 23, 2025 — Zainab Mahmoud, M.D., M.Sc., an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and Zhao Zhang, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, will receive the inaugural Jack Sarver Prize in Clinical Science and Jack Sarver Prize in Basic Science, respectively, at the American Heart Association’ Scientific Sessions 2025. The meeting, to be held Nov. 7-10, 2025, in New Orleans, is a premier global exchange of the latest scientific advancements, research and evidence-based clinical practice updates in cardiovascular ...

Miami (October 23, 2025) – The Bronchiectasis and NTM Association announced today that two abstracts using Bronchiectasis and NTM Research Registry data were presented at CHEST 2025, held October 19-22, 2025, in Chicago. The abstracts are: “The Relationship Between Baseline Severity of Bronchiectasis and Incident Non-Tuberculous Mycobacterial Infection: findings from the U.S. Bronchiectasis and NTM Research Registry,” which examined whether increased bronchiectasis severity was associated with an increased risk of NTM ...

CLEVELAND—For decades, scientists have thought they understood the biochemical machinery that causes asthma—inflammation in the lungs that constricts airways and makes it hard to breathe. Molecules called “leukotrienes”—chemicals that get released from white blood cells when something irritates your airways or you inhale an allergen—were labeled the culprits. Medications have been developed to block the molecular cascade they initiate that leads to difficulty breathing. But ...

Nursing education is not only about clinical skills. It also shapes the values, attitudes, and sense of responsibility of those who provide care. In Japan, most nursing programs follow government-prescribed curricula that emphasize qualifications, leaving limited space for universities to articulate their own missions. Catholic universities, however, stand apart. Their nursing faculties embed spiritual and ethical perspectives, placing compassion, dignity, and service at the heart of the profession.   A study led by Professor Naoko Tsukamoto with Ms. Aya Watanabe, Ms. Yoko Takiguchi, and Ms. Yukiko Katagiri from Sophia University’s ...

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a progressive condition in which the kidneys gradually lose their ability to filter waste from the blood. It is a common health concern that affects an estimated 8–16% of the global population, particularly among older adults. CKD can arise from various causes, including glomerulonephritis, a group of diseases that damage the glomeruli, the tiny filtering units within the kidneys.   Now, researchers from Chiba University have identified a molecule called C-C chemokine ligand 5 (CCL5) as a key player in ...

Problems with the brain’s waste clearance system could underlie many cases of dementia and help explain why poor sleep patterns and cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure increase the risk of dementia. A study led by researchers at the University of Cambridge found that impaired movement of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) – the clear liquid that cushions and cleans the brain – predicted risk of dementia later in life among 40,000 adults recruited to the UK Biobank. Their findings are published today in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association. In the healthy ...

Ghent, 23 October 2025 – A mutation previously linked to skin disorders like psoriasis may also play a surprising role in gut health, according to new research published by scientists at VIB-UGent and colleagues from UGent, the University of Barcelona, and University College London. This mutation activates skin immune responses but also affects the intestine. This finding, published in EMBO Molecular Medicine, reveals a new connection between genetics, the immune system, and the gut, which may have therapeutical implications.   Scientists under the leadership of Dr. Inna ...

A test deployed in many fertility clinics to assess the viability of embryos for use in IVF is likely to overestimate the number of embryos with abnormalities, suggests a study published today. Using a new technique for imaging embryos in real time, a team led by scientists at the Loke Centre for Trophoblast Research, University of Cambridge, showed that abnormalities can arise at a later stage of embryo development than previously thought. This means that the tests used in some clinics may be finding errors in cells that will go on to develop into the placenta – and abnormalities in placental cells are less likely to affect the health of the fetus. When an egg has been ...

Alzheimer’s disease is notorious for scrambling patients’ daily rhythms. Restless nights with little sleep and increased napping during the day are early indicators of disease onset, while sundowning, or confusion later in the day, is typical for later stages of the disease. These symptoms suggest a link between the progression of the disease and the circadian system — the body’s internal clock that controls our sleep and wake cycle — but scientists did not know the full nature of the connection. Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis ...

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are the delivery vehicles of modern medicine, carrying cancer drugs, gene therapies and vaccines into cells. Until recently, many scientists assumed that all LNPs followed more or less the same blueprint, like a fleet of trucks built from the same design.  Now, in Nature Biotechnology, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Waters Corporation have characterized the shape and structure of LNPs in unprecedented detail, revealing that the particles come in a surprising variety of configurations. ...

Key points  Hydrogen gas is produced in the gut, with some expelled as flatulence Researchers have shed new light on how gut microbes make and use hydrogen This will help in understanding and maintaining overall gut health Farts are causing a stink in the research world, but in a positive way. Melbourne scientists have revealed how hydrogen is made and used in the human gut. Though infamous for making farts ignite, hydrogen also has a positive role supporting gut health. In this study published in Nature Microbiology, ...

A supersolid is a paradoxical state of matter—it is rigid like a crystal but flows without friction like a superfluid. This exotic form of quantum matter has only recently been realized in dipolar quantum gases. Researchers led by Francesca Ferlaino set out to explore how the solid and superfluid properties of a supersolid interact, particularly under rotation. In their experiments, they rotated a supersolid quantum gas using a carefully controlled magnetic field and observed a striking phenomenon: “The quantum droplets of the supersolid are in a crystal-like periodic order, all dressed by a superfluid between them”, explains ...

Some genetic disorders—such as cystic fibrosis, hemophilia and Tay Sachs disease—involve many mutations in a person’s genome, often with enough variation that even two individuals who share the same disorder might have a different combination of mutations. Complexities like these make it challenging to develop broadly applicable gene therapies for these disorders. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin now have developed an improved method of gene editing that is precise, more efficient than other similar methods and can correct many disease-causing mutations ...

PRESS RELEASE EMARGOED UNTIL 08:00AM GMT, 23 OCOTBER 2025 Scientists from the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at Queen Mary University of London have developed a simple model to show how buoyant plastic can settle through the water column and they predict it could take over 100 years to remove plastic waste from the ocean’s surface. Published today in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, the study is the third and final paper in a trilogy that explores the long-term fate of microplastic ...

In the high-altitude and extremely remote region of Dolpo in north-west Nepal, there are numerous Buddhist temples whose history dates back to the 11th century. The structures are threatened by earthquakes, landslides and planned infrastructure projects such as the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. There is also a lack of financial resources for long-term maintenance. Researchers from the Institute of Architectural Theory, History of Art and Cultural Studies and the Institute of Engineering Geodesy and Measurement Systems at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) want to prevent ...

PISCATAWAY, NJ – When trained correctly on medically accurate information, ChatGPT can provide trustworthy information for pregnant women seeking medical advice for treating opioid use disorder, according to new research in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, based at Rutgers University. The research might one day lead to apps and websites for people seeking help for conditions that they may not want to discuss face to face with a health care provider. “Seeking health advice online is a ...

When dust sticks to a surface or a lizard sits on a ceiling, it is due to ‘nature’s invisible glue’. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have now discovered a quick and easy way to study the hidden forces that bind the smallest objects in the universe together. Using gold, salt water and light, they have created a platform on which the forces can be seen through colours.   In the lab at Chalmers, doctoral student Michaela Hošková shows a glass container filled with millions of micrometre-sized gold flakes in a salt solution. Using a pipette, she picks up a drop of the ...

Ewing sarcoma is one of the most common bone cancers seen in children, and if it spreads, it can be deadly. One study found that under a quarter of children with multi-metastatic Ewing sarcoma survived five years after their diagnosis. Now scientists have found that a drug called pazopanib had striking success in treating a small group of young patients. 85% of their patients survived two years after diagnosis, and two-thirds saw no disease progression. The team calls for larger studies which can develop this treatment further.  “Survival rates were higher than in historical controls, suggesting it may extend lives and, importantly, ...

Teenagers who don’t get enough sleep on school nights or have interrupted sleep are at greater risk of suicide, new research from the University of Warwick has found. Suicide is the one of the leading causes of death among adolescents in the UK. Despite teenagers’ well-known tendency to miss out on sleep—due to both biological and social factors—the long-term impact of this sleep loss on suicide risk has remained unclear. Now, researchers at the University of Warwick have demonstrated a longitudinal link between disrupted sleep in early adolescence and later suicide attempts, ...

From agriculture and urban land clearance to loss of habitat and feral animal predation, native wild animals and their food sources face a rising tide of threats caused by human activities. A new study led by Flinders University warns traffic noise is one more pressure faced by one of southern Australia’s rare songbirds, the threatened Southern Emu-wren (Stipiturus malachurus). “Anthropogenic (human) noise has the potential to negatively impact wildlife by disrupting communication and reducing overall fitness. This includes the effects ...

Agricultural non-point source (NPS) pollution is a major cause of water quality degradation, with pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus carried by farmland surface runoff being important sources. Statistics show that in 2017, the total nitrogen discharge from agricultural sources in China reached 1.4149 Mt, and total phosphorus was 212 kt. Among these, the nitrogen and phosphorus emissions from cropping alone accounted for 51% and 36% of agricultural source pollutants, respectively. However, current farmland runoff monitoring methods have obvious limitations: traditional runoff pool monitoring has a small ...

Agricultural green development is an important issue for global sustainable development, and the efficient utilization of nitrogen fertilizers and environmental emission reduction have always been core challenges faced by China’s agriculture. As a key input in food production, nitrogen fertilizers contribute 45% of China’s grain yield increase and 60% of protein supply in the food chain. However, China’s nitrogen use efficiency was only 42.6% in 2024, which not only causes resource waste but also leads to environmental problems such as about 400 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, 70% of global nitrous oxide emissions, and water eutrophication. ...

Australian ecologists have made a remarkable discovery about the mysterious and endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart: it is partial to climbing trees. Up until now, the small carnivorous marsupial was thought to be a ground dweller. The finding, published this month in Pacific Conservation Biology, is the first confirmed evidence that the Kangaroo Island dunnart can climb trees and shelter in hollows, using artificial nest boxes that were originally installed for pygmy-possums. The discovery is part of the Kangaroo Island Nest Box Project, a large-scale citizen science initiative led by UniSA scientist Associate Professor Sophie (Topa) Petit and Peter Hammond from the Kangaroo Island ...

What if the front line in the fight against climate change wasn’t in a high-tech lab or a global summit—but in the muddy, tangled roots of a mangrove forest? In the coastal heart of the Philippines, a quiet revolution is taking root. A new study published on September 5, 2025, in the open-access journal Carbon Research, shows that mangroves, those hardy, salt-tolerant trees lining tropical shorelines, are not just nature’s coastal defenders. They’re also carbon vaults, quietly locking away tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And now, thanks to the work of Dr. Hannah Alexis Melquiades Asilo and her team at the University of the Philippines ...