Fukuoka, Japan—As global energy demand increases, researchers, industries, governments, and stakeholders are working together to develop new ways of meeting that demand. This is especially important as we address the ongoing climate crisis and transition away from fossil fuels. One very promising type of energy generation is solid-oxide fuel cells, or SOFCs. Unlike batteries, which release stored chemical energy as electricity, fuel cells convert chemical fuel directly into electricity and continue to do so as long as fuel is provided. A common ...

The University of California, Irvine School of Social Ecology today released the results of its latest UCI-OC Poll, shedding light on the changing nature of work in Orange County two years after the official end of the COVID-19 pandemic.   Conducted from June 20 to July 1, 2025, the survey of 800 Orange County adults offers insights into remote work preferences, attitudes toward artificial intelligence and overall job satisfaction – providing valuable insights for business leaders and policymakers navigating ...

Van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” has stirred the souls of art lovers for over a century. Now, its swirling skies may also speak to physicists, as it echoes the patterns of quantum turbulence. Physicists at Osaka Metropolitan University and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology have for the first time successfully observed the quantum Kelvin–Helmholtz instability (KHI) — a phenomenon predicted decades ago but never before seen in quantum fluids. The instability produces exotic vortex patterns known as eccentric fractional skyrmions, whose crescent-shaped structures ...

Science Advisory Highlights: Most ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) are characterized by poor nutritional quality, contributing to excessive calories, and are typically high in saturated fats, added sugars and sodium (salt), the combination of which is often abbreviated as HFSS, which contribute to adverse cardiometabolic health outcomes, including heart attack, stroke, obesity, inflammation, Type 2 diabetes and vascular complications. Observational studies have found links between eating higher amounts of UPFs and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, chronic illness and mortality. Emerging evidence also suggests certain additives and industrial processing techniques ...

What happens to a social robot after it retires?  Four years ago, we placed a small owl-shaped reading robot named Luka into 20 families’ homes. At the time, the children were preschoolers, just learning to read. Luka’s job was clear: scan the pages of physical picture books and read them aloud, helping children build early literacy skills.  That was in 2021. In 2025, we went back — not expecting to find much. The children had grown. The reading level was no longer age-appropriate. Surely, Luka’s work was done.  Instead, ...

When Singapore celebrated its 50th  year of independence in 2015, a team of student researchers led by Associate Professor Foong Shaohui from Singapore University Technology and Design (SUTD) embarked on an ambitious challenge: to design and build a drone capable of 50 minutes of sustained flight. At the time, most hobbyist quadcopters could barely manage half of that. The SG50 Multi-Rotor Drone project succeeded, but to fly that long, the craft had to be large, complex, and heavy.   A decade on, Assoc Prof Foong has reached new heights in his drone research—this time by going small and pursuing a completely different ...

A novel ε-poly-L-lysine-loaded sodium-alginate/gelatin hydrogel (PSG15) has shown exceptional promise in accelerating the healing of infected wounds. This multifunctional injectable hydrogel delivers robust antibacterial properties while regulating macrophage polarization and stabilizing the skin microbiota. It significantly inhibited bacterial growth, including that of E. coli and S. aureus, and promoted tissue regeneration in infected wounds. In animal models, PSG15 enhanced angiogenesis, collagen deposition, and wound closure. These findings demonstrate the ...

Chronic diabetic wounds, including diabetic foot ulcers, are a significant burden for patients, as impaired blood vessel growth hinders the healing process. A recent breakthrough offers hope by combining small extracellular vesicles (sEVs) loaded with miR-221-3p and a GelMA hydrogel to target thrombospondin-1 (TSP-1), a protein that suppresses angiogenesis. This new bioactive wound dressing not only accelerates healing but also promotes blood vessel formation, offering a promising new approach to treating one of the most challenging complications of diabetes. Diabetic wounds, particularly foot ulcers, are notorious for their slow and often incomplete healing due to reduced blood flow and endothelial ...

Osaka, Japan – A Japanese superconducting quantum computer, fully designed and built with homegrown components and software, went live on July 28th at The University of Osaka’s Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology (QIQB). This achievement signifies Japan's technological prowess in quantum computing, demonstrating the nation's capacity to design, manufacture, and integrate a complete quantum system. Visitors to Expo 2025, Osaka, Kansai, Japan will have the opportunity to interact with this cutting-edge technology through a dedicated exhibit. The project, spearheaded ...

To a hawk an airport can look like the perfect place to settle down. The layout provides ample open space, perches, and nice habitat for a variety of prey species. However, congregations of birds, especially big birds, poses a safety issue for aircraft. A new study focused on Cooper’s Hawks (Accipiter cooperii), published in the Journal of Raptor Research, found that removing a hawk from an airfield and taking it somewhere else, called translocation, can serve as a method for reducing this risk. Researchers also showed that ...

MIAMI, FLORIDA (AUG. 7, 2025) – Researchers at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, have documented their use of a new RNA sequencing technology to uncover molecular drivers of cellular differentiation that could lead to better regenerative therapies. In addition to being used in the lab, the technique, Rapid Precision Run-On Sequencing (rPRO-seq), has the potential to help doctors understand patients’ disease states and response to treatment in real time. The findings appear ...

Early withdrawal of a treatment for patients with a rare kidney disease is possible without relapse, safer for patients and saves the NHS millions of pounds, new research has revealed. Atypical Haemolytic Uraemic Syndrome (aHUS) is a life-threatening condition caused by an uncommon defect in the immune system which, in the past, led to kidney failure. Newcastle University worked with Newcastle Hospitals to carry out clinical trials into the pioneering drug, eculizumab, which led to the NHS approving the treatment from 2015, positively transforming the outlook for patients with the ...

CHICAGO—August 7, 2025—Illinois Institute of Technology (Illinois Tech) hosted the third annual EV Readiness Community Award Ceremony this week, celebrating 17 local governments across northern Illinois for their leadership in preparing for the transition to electric vehicles (EVs). The ceremony, co-led by ComEd and the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus, brought together mayors, municipal leaders, industry experts, and elected officials to recognize communities that have earned EV Ready designations through actionable local policy, planning, and infrastructure. The event featured remarks from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Senator Dick Durbin, ...

When bacteria battle for survival, they do so with microscopic precision. Some produce toxins that target rival microbes, shaping not only their own fitness but the structure of entire microbial communities. Marcos de Moraes, assistant professor of biosciences at Rice University, is fascinated by these microbial skirmishes and how they might be harnessed for biotechnology. Now, with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER), de Moraes will study a little-understood family of bacterial toxins known as deaminases. The five-year, $1.2 million grant will fund research into the molecular ...

New research to be presented at this year’s Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Vienna, Austria (15-19 September) shows, among people recently diagnosed with type with type 2 diabetes and no previous cardiovascular disease, a clear association exists between a person’s self-reported physical activity and their risk of all-cause mortality and major adverse cardiac events (MACE), that include heart attacks and strokes. The study is by Ms Line Eriksen and Dr Sidsel Domazet, Steno Diabetes Centre Odense, Odense University ...

PHILADELPHIA— For some patients with gastrointestinal (GI) cancers like colorectal and pancreatic cancer, chemotherapy can cause severe, sometimes life-threatening side effects in those who carry certain genetic variants that can impact how their bodies process the drugs used to treat their disease. Testing for variants in two genes before starting chemotherapy can significantly improve patient safety by providing physicians with information to help tailor doses, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University ...

Glaciers carved the deep valleys of Banff, eroded Ontario to deposit the fertile soils of the Prairies and continue to change the Earth’s surface. But how fast do glaciers sculpt the landscape?   Published today in Nature Geoscience, University of Victoria (UVic) geographer Sophie Norris and her international team provide the most comprehensive view of how fast glaciers erode, and how they change the landscape. Most importantly, their research also provides an estimate of the rate of future erosion for more than 180,000 glaciers worldwide.  Using ...

The Barcelona CryoZoo is a one-of-a-kind project aiming to safeguard and study biological material from a wide range of animal species – especially those at risk of extinction – in order to preserve and better understand the planet’s biodiversity.  Born out of an initiative by the Barcelona Zoo Foundation, a space managed by BSM through the Barcelona Zoo Foundation, and that is developed jointly with University Pompeu Fabra (UPF), EMBL Barcelona, and the Natural Science Museum of Barcelona, CryoZoo has now been awarded a competitive grant from the wildlife conservation organisation Revive & Restore. This support ...

Scientists blocked a newly discovered anaphylaxis pathway in mice using Zileuton Mice went from 95% susceptible to anaphylaxis to 95% protected ‘A totally different, out-of-the-box approach to treat food allergy’ Clinical trial recently launched to test the same approach in humans CHICAGO --- A drug already FDA-approved for asthma was found to nearly eliminate life-threatening allergic reactions to food allergens in mice — a breakthrough that could lead to new protection for millions of people living with food allergies, reports a new Northwestern Medicine ...

FRANKFURT. Most of us find it difficult to grasp the quantum world: According to Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, it’s like observing a dance without being able to see simultaneously exactly where someone is dancing and how fast they’re moving – you always must choose to focus on one. And yet, this quantum dance is far from chaotic; the dancers follow a strict choreography. In molecules, this strange behavior has another consequence: Even if a molecule should be completely frozen at absolute zero, it never truly comes to rest. The atoms it is made of perform a constant, never-ending quiet dance driven by so-called ...

New research in mice reveals that food-induced anaphylaxis is driven by distinct immune pathways involving inflammatory lipids called leukotrienes. The findings, published across two separate studies, identify genetic and cellular factors that influence susceptibility to severe allergic reactions and point to the potential of the drug Zileuton to block this life-threatening response. Food allergies arise when the immune system mounts an exaggerated response to certain proteins found in foods. This reaction is typically driven by Immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies, which recognize dietary allergens and activates mast cells throughout the body. In severe ...

In a Policy Forum, Mateo Aboy and colleagues argue that, instead of turning immediately to rigid regulation to govern emerging quantum technologies, the community should apply a standards-based governance approach tailored to the early, technically focused stage of development. Quantum technologies are poised to revolutionize everything from computing to medicine, offering performance leaps that far surpass the limits of current systems. Yet, this promise comes with complex governance challenges, as these powerful tools ...

A group of marine mollusks called chitons produce extraordinarily tough teeth, which they use to scrape algae off rocks for food. Now, researchers report the protein RTMP1 (radular teeth matrix protein 1) appears to guide the precise formation of the iron-based mineral magnetite in the ultra-hard teeth of chitons. The findings mark the first known instance of an iron oxide-forming protein in a eukaryote, offering new insights into biomineralization and potential inspiration for novel materials design. Throughout the animal kingdom, many organisms ...

A newly engineered antibody transport vehicle targeting the transferrin receptor enables enhanced delivery of anti-amyloid antibodies to the brains of mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease, researchers report. According to the study, the approach preserves key immune functions, such as microglial clearance of plaques, while offering a safer and more effective delivery strategy for anti–amyloid immunotherapies. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is marked by the buildup of amyloid-β (Aβ) protein plaques in the brain. ...

  Irvine, Calif. — Researchers at the University of California, Irvine and Japan’s Okayama and Toho universities conducted a first-of-its-kind study to understand how chitons, mollusks that feed on algae growing on intertidal rocks, develop such hard, wear-resistant and magnetic teeth, and what they learned is inspiring new ways to produce advanced materials for a variety of applications. The results were published today in Science. In its study, the team unveiled the process by which chiton-specific, iron-binding ...