Severe vitamin D deficiency is associated with a higher rate of hospitalisation for respiratory tract infections such as bronchitis and pneumonia, according to a new study led by the University of Surrey. Scientists found that those with a severe deficiency (below 15 nnmol/L) were 33 per cent more likely to be admitted to hospital for treatment than those with sufficient levels of vitamin D (at least 75 nmol/L).  In the largest study of its kind, analysing NHS data from the UK Biobank, researchers from Surrey, in collaboration with the University of Reading ...

There has been a lasting and disproportionate impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on diagnosis rates for conditions including depression, asthma and osteoporosis. Depression is the most severely impacted, with almost a third fewer diagnoses than expected compared with pre-pandemic trends. The King’s College London study is the first to evaluate whether diagnosis rates have recovered after emerging from the pandemic. Published today in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), it uses anonymised data from over 29 million people in England. The pandemic had an unprecedented impact on healthcare systems around the world, leading to abrupt decreases ...

A 66 million-year-old mystery behind how our planet transformed from a tropical greenhouse to the ice-capped world of today has been unravelled by scientists. Their new study has revealed that Earth’s massive drop in temperature after the dinosaurs went extinct could have been caused by a large decrease in calcium levels in the ocean. An international team of experts led by the University of Southampton discovered that concentrations of calcium in the sea dropped by more than half across the last 66 million years. The ...

Key points: Red light therapy is an emerging therapy which shines near-infrared light into the brain through the skull, aiming to reduce inflammation. A preliminary study with 26 football players suggests that red light therapy could prevent brain inflammation caused by repetitive impacts. IMPACT: If larger studies confirm the results, red light therapy could help protect people who experience frequent head impacts, like soldiers and athletes, from long-term health consequences. Punch-drunk syndrome, boxer’s madness, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The name has changed over the years, but the cause is clear: repeated impacts can affect long-term brain health, with symptoms ...

A multi-institutional study led by the University of California, Davis, finds that living in urban areas with a higher percentage of visible trees is associated with a 4% decrease in cardiovascular disease. By comparison, living in urban areas with a higher percentage of grass was associated with a 6% increase in cardiovascular disease. Likewise, a higher rate of other types of green space, like bushes or shrubs, was associated with a 3% increase in cardiovascular disease. The new research was published in Environmental Epidemiology. “Our ...

ATLANTA (Jan. 20, 2026) – UL Research Institutes’ Chemical Insights scientist Katie Paul Friedman, Ph.D. received the prestigious 2026 Achievement Award from the Society of Toxicology (SOT). SOT recognized Dr. Paul Friedman for her leadership in computational toxicology and her contributions to new approach methodologies (NAMs) that are transforming chemical safety assessment. Dr. Paul Friedman, Director of the Center for Informatics and Screening at Chemical Insights, was recognized for exemplifying scientific excellence and service through her innovative research, vision on addressing regulatory needs with NAMs, and dedication ...

A research team, led by Professor of Chemistry at NYU Abu Dhabi Panče Naumov, in collaboration with a research team led by Professor Hongyu Zhang at Jilin University, China, has discovered a new type of organic crystal that can repair itself after being damaged at extremely low temperatures. This breakthrough could pave the way for the next generation of durable, lightweight materials designed to perform in some of the harshest environments on Earth and beyond. The material, which is one of the newly researched materials known as smart molecular crystals whose discovery was pioneered by Naumov’s group, can restore its structure even ...

In a major scientific breakthrough, researchers from Monash University and the Lions Eye Institute have discovered a tissue protein that acts as a central ‘traffic controller’ for immune cells and can be hijacked by a virus to weaken immune responses.  Published today in Nature, the study discovered a key mechanism that controls how immune cells coordinate their responses, and how a common virus can sabotage it. The research reveals that a molecule called CD44 centrally controls the network of support cells that guide immune system function. Within this network of support cells, stromal cells help immune cells move efficiently and exchange the information needed ...

The tropical oceans that once served as oxygen-rich havens for Earth's earliest complex life have become the planet's largest marine dead zones. The dramatic reversal occurred hundreds of millions of years ago and researchers are now beginning to better understand its timing. A new study led by former Syracuse University doctoral student Ruliang He and co-authored by his advisor, Earth and environmental sciences Professor Zunli Lu, reveals that Earth's ancient tropical oceans were ...

A six-year analysis of marine microbes in coastal California waters has overturned long-held assumptions about how the ocean's smallest organisms interact.  Researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography found that marine microbes interact in ways that benefit one another more often than they eat each other or compete. The team also found that periods of elevated ocean temperatures, usually times of stress for these microbes because of a dearth of nutrients, actually resulted in even more of these positive interactions. The study was published Jan. 21 in the ISME Journal: Multidisciplinary Journal of Microbial ...

New research into the impact of climate change on snow sports provides recommendations to increase the climate-resilience of the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. The University of Waterloo led the study, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Innsbruck and the University of Toronto, and it builds on their influential work to determine reliable locations for the Winter Games as global warming accelerates. The team analyzed the 93 potential host locations where the International Olympic Committee (IOC) indicated the necessary winter sports infrastructure was already in place. They found that if countries continue with current climate policies, only 52 would remain climate-reliable ...

Amid a surprisingly severe flu season and a Covid-19 resurgence, those highly contagious respiratory illnesses are drawing the largest share of media coverage and public attention. But it is also the season for another respiratory illness, respiratory syncytial virus or RSV, and RSV cases are “elevated in many areas of the country,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). RSV data for the week of Jan. 5, 2026, show an increase both in emergency department visits and hospital admissions for children up to age four, according to CIDRAP, the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy, at the University of Minnesota. And the Pan American ...

A new, fast and easy test could revolutionize blood transfusions—giving blood centers and hospitals a reliable way to monitor the quality of red blood cells after they sit for weeks in storage.  The project is a collaboration between engineers and medical researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder and University of Colorado Anschutz. The team’s device hasn’t yet been approved for use. But the group hopes that it could one day help the United States better manage its precious blood supply. The entire test also fits on a single chip, said Xiaoyun ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2026 MINNEAPOLIS — Having an ischemic stroke during pregnancy or three months after pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events like heart attack or second stroke, heart disease and depression later in life. The new study is published on January 21, 2026, in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Ischemic stroke is the most common type of stroke. It occurs when a clot or blockage reduces blood flow to the brain, depriving it of oxygen and nutrients. The study also found that female participants who had ...

Atmospheric scientist Amanda Staudt will join the American Meteorological Society (AMS), the professional society for weather, water, and climate sciences and services, as its new executive director in March 2026.  Staudt, who previously served as senior director of Climate Crossroads at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, has decades of experience helping translate science into informed decision-making in collaboration with major scientific organizations. As executive director, Staudt ...

While many people binge-watch their favorite shows, binge-watching addiction is associated with loneliness, according to a study published January 21, 2026 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Xiaofan Yue and Xin Cui from Huangshan University in China. COVID-19 drove many people indoors and onto the couch, driving concerns about mental health, especially as people were also isolated and distressed. Now, while many people have resumed daily activities, some people binge-watch to the point of addiction—experiencing obsession, ...

Ancient people transported a wild relative of the common potato across the southwestern U.S., likely expanding the range of the species, according to a study published January 21, 2026 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Lisbeth Louderback from the University of Utah, U.S., and colleagues. This research provides new evidence that Indigenous people may have put the species on a path to domestication, while creating a unique cultural element in the Four Corners region. The Four Corners potato, Solanum jamesii, is a small, resilient, ...

Researchers investigating the effectiveness of outdoor ads promoting climate change awareness and action found that a general message of climate emergency awareness received more QR code scans compared to a more-specific campaign focusing on sustainable fashion, according to a study published January 21, 2026 in the open-access journal PLOS Climate by Maxwell Boykoff from the University of Colorado Boulder, USA, and colleagues.  Advertising can help shape public opinion, for better or worse. Climate advocates and climate change activists are now using advertisements to promote their messages to the public. In this study, Boykoff and colleagues ...

A new medical large language model (LLM) achieved over 91 percent accuracy in identifying female participants diagnosed with major depressive disorder after analyzing a short WhatsApp audio recording where participants described their week, according to a study published January 21, 2026 in the open-access journal PLOS Mental Health by Victor H. O. Otani, from Santa Casa de São Paulo School of Medical Sciences and Infinity Doctors Inc., Brazil, and colleagues. Major depressive disorder is a mental health condition that affects over 280 million people globally, and early detection can be critical for timely treatment. Here, Otani and colleagues used machine learning ...

Overuse of antibiotics has accelerated the development of bacterial resistance to conventional drugs, a global health crisis projected to result in more than 10 million deaths annually by 2050. The multidrug-resistant bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa accounts for approximately one-fifth of hospital-acquired pneumonia cases and is associated with severe illness and increased mortality. Nitric oxide is a therapeutic gas that researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital, a founding member of the Mass ...

An artificial intelligence-based tool can predict the medical trajectories of individual premature newborns from blood samples collected soon after they are born, a Stanford Medicine-led study has shown. The research, which will publish Jan. 21 in Science Translational Medicine, provides a new understanding of the complexity of premature birth, not as a single problem defined by early arrival but as several distinct conditions. The study is a step toward predicting and preventing complications of prematurity using treatments ...

Starchy residue preserved in ancient stone tools may rewrite the story of crop domestication in the American Southwest, according to new research led by the University of Utah. The Four Corners Potato (Solanum jamesii) has been an important cultural, nutritional and medicinal food staple across the Colorado Plateau for millennia. Despite its long history and contemporary use, the extent to which Indigenous people domesticated S. jamesii remains unknown. Previous genetic research has shown that the tubers were transported and intentionally cultivated far beyond its natural range—two crucial steps toward ...

New study shows that cancer damages its own DNA by pushing key genes to work too hard. Researchers found that the most powerful genetic “on switches” in cancer cells, called super-enhancers, drive unusually intense gene activity. That high gear creates stress on the DNA and can cause dangerous breaks. Cancer cells can often repair this damage, but the process is frequently error-prone, the repeated cycle of breaking and repairing can make these regions more prone to accumulating mutations over time. In short, the same mechanisms that help cancer grow quickly may also make its DNA more fragile, helping explain how tumors continue to evolve and, in some cases, ...

A remarkable prehistoric hammer made from elephant bone, dating back nearly half a million years ago, has been uncovered in southern England and analysed by archaeologists from UCL and the Natural History Museum, London. It is the oldest elephant bone tool to ever be discovered in Europe and provides an extraordinary glimpse into the ingenuity of the early human ancestors who made it. The research, published in Science Advances, describes the roughly 500,000-year-old tool, and reveals the unexpectedly sophisticated craftsmanship and skill of the species responsible for making it, likely either early neanderthals or another species known as Homo heidelbergensis. ...

Researchers have deciphered the diet of an important nomadic people in Eastern European history. By analyzing dental calculus, they have provided the first direct evidence that the diet of the Scythians included milk from various ruminants and horses. For centuries, the Scythians have been regarded as a nomadic horsemen people who roamed the vast steppes of Eurasia during the Iron Age. This image remains powerful to this day. In recent years, however, scientific research has challenged this simplified narrative. It shows that the so-called “Scythians” were not a uniform group, but consisted of a diverse, multi-ethnic population with different geographical origins. ...