McGill University researchers have identified a brain function that helps explain why childhood stress raises metabolic health risks for some women later in life. A new study found that variations in the brain’s insulin receptor network affect how women respond to early-life adversity. This effect has a lesser impact in men, suggesting there is a sex-specific process at play. The findings, published in Communications Biology (Nature Portfolio), point to the brain’s insulin receptor network as a promising avenue for earlier detection and future prevention strategies for metabolic syndrome, a major driver of cardiovascular ...

SAN ANTONIO — December 9, 2025 — A new study led by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) links quasi-periodic pulsations (QPPs) in solar flares to dynamic oscillations in magnetic reconnection, a phenomenon that can drive space weather and affect technology on Earth. This research could help refine traditional solar flare models and provide new insights into the mechanisms driving them. Magnetic reconnection occurs when magnetic field lines in plasma break and reconnect, releasing immense energy into the surrounding atmosphere ...

New York, NY —The American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) and Hevolution Foundation are pleased to announce the third cohort of the Hevolution/AFAR New Investigator Awardees in Aging Biology and Geroscience Research. This grant program enables junior investigators with labs in the US and Canada, and with at least three years of independent research, to advance research projects in basic biology of aging, as well as geroscience projects that translate advances in basic research on aging biology from the laboratory to the clinic, paving ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  EMBARGOED UNTIL DECEMBER 9, 2025  GeoFlame VISION: Using AI and Satellite Imagery to Predict Future Wildfire Risk  A new computer model produces a dynamic wildfire risk map,  starting with the state of California  Washington, D.C., December 9, 2025 – Wildfires pose a significant threat across the southwestern United States, due to the region’s unique topography and weather conditions. Accurately identifying locations at the highest risk of a severe wildfire is critical ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  EMBARGOED UNTIL DECEMBER 9, 2025  Nationwide Study Suggests that Water Treatment Methods May Impact the Risk of Legionnaires’ Disease  Higher rates of disease are seen in zip codes served by water treatment plants that use chlorine as the primary disinfectant  Washington, D.C., December 9, 2025 – Preliminary results of a nationwide study suggest that the disinfectant used to treat water before it is distributed through pipes may impact the incidence of Legionnaire’s disease in certain parts of the country. The findings will be presented Dec. 9 at the annual meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis in Washington, D.C.   Waterborne ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  EMBARGOED UNTIL DECEMBER 9, 2025  Oyster Larvae on Drugs Move Slowly and Are Stressed  Study finds that exposure to addictive drugs like fentanyl and ketamine affect the behavior and survival rates of oyster larvae   Washington, D.C., December 9, 2025 – The discharge and prevalence of psychoactive drugs in surface waters has raised concerns about potential risks to ecosystems and public health. Yet there is limited information on the ecotoxicity of these compounds in marine environments and aquaculture.  A study presented on Dec. 9 at the annual meeting of the Society for Risk Analysis in ...

PULLMAN, Wash. -- Washington State University researchers have discovered how a neural circuit – or a connection between two brain regions – drives relapse after opioid use, a finding that could lead to more effective treatments for opioid use disorders. In a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers in the Department of Integrative Physiology and Neuroscience at WSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine used a preclinical model to model opioid use in humans and found that reducing the activity within a specific neuronal ...

(ORLANDO, Dec. 9, 2025) Patients with relapsed or refractory (R/R) multiple myeloma who received a combination of teclistamab, a bispecific monoclonal antibody, and daratumumab, a CD38-directed monoclonal antibody, were 83% more likely to be alive without disease progression compared with those who received standard second-line therapies at a median of nearly 35 months of follow-up, according to the results of a new trial presented at the 67th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition. The ...

PHILADELPHIA – More than half of patients in a Phase III clinical trial who received a limited course of the experimental monoclonal antibody ianalumab for primary immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), an autoimmune disorder that can cause life-threatening bleeding, were able to maintain safe platelet counts without serious bleeding episodes for at least one year. The results were published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and presented by collaborators at the 67th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition Orlando, Florida (LBA-2). ITP is an autoimmune condition where ...

(ORLANDO, Dec. 9, 2025) –– When hospitals were randomly assigned to treat patients undergoing higher-risk non-cardiac surgery with tranexamic acid (TXA) or a placebo, patients who received TXA needed significantly fewer blood transfusions and saw no increase in potentially life-threatening blood clots (thrombosis) after 90 days of follow-up, according to research presented at the 67th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition. “Our findings confirm that TXA reduces the need for blood transfusion in patients ...

(ORLANDO, Dec. 9, 2025) Patients with immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) who received a first-in-class investigational drug in addition to standard therapy went longer without a bleeding episode that needed urgent treatment or needing another treatment for their ITP, compared with patients who received a placebo in addition to standard therapy. The study is the first to test a novel drug for ITP early in the disease course and was presented at the 67th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition. “In patients for whom first-line therapy had stopped working, treatment ...

(ORLANDO, Dec. 9, 2025) – In a new trial, the Bruton tyrosine kinase (BTK) inhibitor pirtobrutinib increased the rate of survival without disease progression and was well tolerated with a more favorable safety profile when compared with bendamustine plus rituximab (BR) in patients with previously untreated chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL). The data were presented at the 67th American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting and Exposition. “We were able to prove that pirtobrutinib is an excellent drug both in terms of efficacy and tolerance,” ...

Researchers find that tracking pixels—small pieces of embedded code that can transmit user data to third parties—significantly increase data breach risk on hospital websites. Hilal Atasoy and colleagues analyzed 12 years of archived website data from 1,201 large US hospitals between 2012 and 2023, examining the adoption of pixel tracking and their relationship to data breaches. The authors found pixel tracking in 66% of hospital-year observations, despite stringent privacy regulations. Hospitals using third-party pixels experienced at least a 1.4 percentage point increase in breach probability, representing a 46% ...

Researchers develop a method to detect the destruction of buildings using freely available satellite radar imagery. Daniel Racek and colleagues’ algorithm analyzes publicly available Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar images from the European Space Agency to identify destroyed buildings in conflict zones. The method statistically assesses the visual similarity of locations over time, enabling detection of destruction from a single satellite image every 12 days, without requiring labeled training data or expensive proprietary imagery. Unlike optical ...

A modeling study shows how under some conditions, increasing numbers of households with rooftop solar panels can lead to higher rates for those without their own solar system. When utility customers cancel their accounts after switching to residential solar panels, the utility must spread their fixed costs around to a smaller number of remaining customers, which can lead to rate increases. Charles Sims and colleagues studied how this pecuniary externality affects different income groups using agent-based computational economic modeling of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), an area with some of the highest poverty rates in the United States. The authors asked 2,307 TVA residential customers ...

CLEVELAND—Scientists working to enhance brain-computer interface (BCI) technology—which allows people to control devices with their thoughts—have found they can improve the performance of electrodes implanted in the brain by targeted delivery of anti-inflammatory drugs. Case Western Reserve University researchers, in collaboration with Haima Therapeutics, used a novel “platelet-inspired nanoparticle” to deliver an anti-inflammatory drug directly to where BCI electrodes were implanted. The drug doubled the effectiveness of ...

Supramolecular chemistry involves the study of self-assembly of discrete molecules that are used to build functional large structures. Often, these molecules are allowed to self-assemble into one-dimensional polymeric structures (supramolecular polymers or SPs) in a suitable environment, and the dynamic molecular interactions are noted for tweaking the environment and improving the features of the resulting SPs. They are being explored as the next-generation polymeric materials with applications in electronics, soft-robotics, ...

Liquid biopsy is increasingly recognized as a promising tool for cancer detection and treatment monitoring, yet its effectiveness is often limited by the extremely low levels of tumor-derived DNA circulating in the blood. To address this challenge, researchers led by Professor Junseok W Hur from Korea University College of Medicine, in collaboration with multiple partners, have developed MUTE-Seq, a highly sensitive CRISPR-based method designed to detect cancer mutations present at exceptionally low frequencies while simultaneously reducing sequencing costs and background error noise. The study was first made available ...

Philadelphia, PA, USA, December 9, 2025, First Patient Enrolled in GOG-3133/ FRAmework-01 Phase 3 Study Evaluating Sofetabart Mipitecan (LY4170156), a Novel ADC Targeting Folate Receptor Alpha (FRα), in Recurrent Ovarian Cancer The GOG Foundation, Inc. is proud to announce the enrollment of the first patient in GOG-3133, a pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial titled FRAmework-01: A Two-Part Phase 3 Study of LY4170156 versus Chemotherapy or Mirvetuximab Soravtansine in Platinum-Resistant Ovarian Cancer, and LY4170156 plus Bevacizumab versus Platinum-Based Chemotherapy plus Bevacizumab in Platinum-Sensitive Ovarian Cancer. The study is sponsored by Eli ...

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem proudly congratulates two of its esteemed researchers on receiving the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant for 2025. Both awardees, who lead groundbreaking work in applied physics and international relations, were selected for one of Europe’s most competitive grants, awarded to researchers 7–12 years after their doctorates. These grants support the establishment of independent research groups, the development of new laboratories, and innovative projects across the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. This recognition continues the university’s ...

University of Tartu Associate Professor in Climate Physics Velle Toll received the Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) to quantify the extent to which air pollution particles cool the Earth’s climate. The results of Toll’s work would help fill a gap in our detailed understanding of human-induced climate change and improve the accuracy of climate projections.  The main cause of anthropogenic climate change is the greenhouse gases released by burning fossil fuels, and the ...

The brain-chemical surge that comes with running may bolster coordination and speed in the old and young alike, a new study of middle-aged mice shows. Such physical activity may help restore ease of movement and agility, which often decline as humans and animals get older, the study authors said. Led by NYU Langone Health researchers, the investigation explored how aerobic exercise can boost the release of dopamine, a brain chemical involved in movement, reward, and memory. The team built upon its earlier work, which revealed that young (10-week-old) male rodents had a lasting increase in dopamine release after voluntarily running on an exercise wheel for 30 days. The new findings showed ...

Doctors and researchers try to understand what medications a person has taken by asking patients directly or by looking at medical records. But this information is often incomplete. People may forget what they took, use over-the-counter drugs, take leftover prescription drugs, buy medicines online, or be exposed unintentionally through food and the environment. As a result, significant drug exposures can be missed. Knowing what drugs are present is important because they can have unexpected effects on biology ...

Humans live in a world abundant in salt, but this everyday seasoning is a luxury for wild herbivores, and it’s far from clear how these animals get enough.    A new study published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution and authored by Northern Arizona University researchers and collaborators found the density and distribution of Earth’s largest land animals, including elephants, giraffes and rhinos, appear to be limited by this kitchen essential. There are only a few areas ...

WASHINGTON –   A new finding from researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center shows that the learning process of associating cues with rewards can be altered by increased or decreased activity of a specific protein in the brain. Knowing when to respond positively to cues that result in beneficial outcomes or rewards vs. ignoring cues that result in bad habits, such as smoking addiction, is an essential part of learned behaviors. “Our ability to link certain cues or stimuli ...