“[…] manipulating LD dynamics represents a promising strategy to overcome hypoxia-induced resistance to ferroptosis and improve the success of PCa treatment.” BUFFALO, NY – July 14, 2025 – A new research paper was published in Volume 16 of Oncotarget on June 25, 2025, titled “Hypoxia induced lipid droplet accumulation promotes resistance to ferroptosis in prostate cancer.” In this study, researchers led by Shailender S. Chauhan and Noel A. Warfel from the University of Arizona discovered that prostate cancer cells survive treatment ...

A bottleneck in ensuring access to widespread molecular diagnostics, especially in low- and middle-income countries, has been the high cost and logistical complexities associated with rapid, point-of-care tests. Now, a collaborative research effort outlined in a Life Science Alliance (LSA) study to be published July 14, 2025 has addressed these challenges by developing a lyophilized (freeze-dried) open-source reverse transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP) assay for pathogen detection. This method, successfully applied to COVID-19, aims to make the diagnostics more accessible and affordable globally. In ...

AMHERST, Mass. — While popular culture commonly depicts extraterrestrial life as little green men with large, oval-shaped heads, it’s most likely that if there is life beyond our planet and within our solar system, it is microbial. Recently, NASA awarded University of Massachusetts Amherst microbiologist James Holden $621,000 to spend the next three years using his expertise to help predict what life on Jupiter’s moon Europa might look like. For that, Holden turned to an unexpected place: the volcanoes a mile beneath our own oceans. Jupiter’s moon, Europa, has a frozen surface, but astronomers believe that beneath all that ice lies a salty, liquid ocean ...

SAN ANTONIO — July 14, 2025 — Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is taking on the challenges of a hydrogen-powered future. In collaboration with NYSEARCH, a nonprofit research and development organization for the gas industry serving utility members across North America, SwRI is investigating how blending hydrogen into liquid natural gas (LNG) could affect the integrity of the LNG storage tanks. Natural gas is widely used to power appliances and heat homes. By blending hydrogen into ...

A new study from UNC-Chapel Hill reveals that repetitive flooding in North Carolina is far more common and more widespread than previously recognized, with over 20,000 buildings flooding multiple times between 1996 and 2020. The study, which mapped 78 flood events across roughly three-quarters of the state, fills a major gap in understanding the full impacts of flooding on communities well beyond the state’s coastal floodplains.  Until now, detailed flood maps have existed for only a handful of past events. The research team created high-resolution maps for more than 70 previously unmapped floods, linking them to the exact locations ...

People who view the world as a savage social jungle are more likely to admire antagonistic leaders, praising their competence, while those who see the social world as cooperative and benign might just call those leaders clueless, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. “Why do some people see antagonistic behavior in leaders – especially when it’s particularly mean or forceful or disagreeable – as a sign of incompetence, while others view it as a mark of savvy leadership?” said Christine Nguyen, a doctoral student at Columbia ...

New research published in Social Psychological and Personality Science shows that awareness of economic disparity affects happiness, meaning, harmony and spiritual well-being. A comprehensive new study examining data from 71 countries suggests that perceiving high levels of economic inequality significantly undermines individual well-being across multiple dimensions of human flourishing. The research provides crucial insights into how awareness of economic disparity affects not just happiness, but also people's sense of meaning, harmony, and spirituality. Led by researcher ...

While humans can escape the heat by seeking shade or shedding layers, plants remain rooted in place. So how do they survive extreme heat? It’s a question many have wondered—and now, science has an answer. A research team led by Dr. Hye sun Cho at the Plant Systems Engineering Research Center of the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology(KRIBB) has uncovered, for the first time at the molecular level, the mechanism by which plants adapt and survive under heat stress. The breakthrough is expected to greatly ...

With intensifying global warming and climate change, drought has become a major threat to global agriculture, impacting crop yields and food security. To survive such adverse events, plants have evolved several strategies. One such strategy to counteract water scarcity is ‘stomatal closure,’ where stomata—the tiny pores on leaf surfaces responsible for gaseous exchange—close to limit water loss. This process is regulated by the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA), which plays a crucial ...

Magnetic micropillar arrays consist of tiny, vertical pin-shaped structures, arranged in a grid-like pattern. These micropillars can change their shape to a pre-programmed geometry when exposed to a magnetic field. They are made from magnetically responsive composites, comprising rubbery polymers like polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) embedded with magnetic particles. These composites can change their shape and recover repeatedly without any deterioration. Unfortunately, conventional magnetic micropillar arrays can only hold their changed shape temporarily while the magnetic field is being applied. Previous studies have explored various approaches to address this issue, including water-soluble ...

REDWOOD CITY, CA — July 14, 2025 — A landmark study published in Cell has unveiled a first-of-a-kind optogenetic screening platform, developed by scientists at Integrated Biosciences, a biotechnology company integrating optogenetics, chemistry and AI to discover small molecule therapeutics for age-related diseases. The new peer-reviewed publication demonstrates the platform’s capabilities by applying it to the integrated stress response (ISR), a key aging- and disease-associated signaling pathway implicated in neurodegeneration, cancer and viral infection.   In the Cell study, Integrated Biosciences scientists used optogenetic control to selectively activate the ...

Volatile air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide and ozone are only monitored loosely in the EU. Separate devices are used for each individual pollutant, and real-time monitoring is not possible. Birgitta Schultze-Bernhardt from the Institute of Experimental Physics at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) would like to simplify and significantly improve these measurements. In her MULTI TRACE research project, she is developing a portable device that can determine the concentration of several gaseous pollutants in ambient air with the utmost accuracy ...

Most genes are ancient and shared across species. But a small subset of genes are relative newcomers, spontaneously emerging from stretches of DNA that once encoded nothing at all. Now, after nearly a decade of charting these genes in fruit flies, researchers have discovered how these de novo genes are regulated. In complementary studies, in Nature Ecology & Evolution and PNAS, the team showed how transcription factors and genomic neighbors switch these genes on and integrate them into cellular networks—the first studies to identify these master regulators. Together, the findings shed light on how new genes become ...

KANSAS CITY, MO — July 14, 2025 — While humans can regularly replace certain cells, like those in our blood and gut, we cannot naturally regrow most other parts of the body. For example, when the tiny sensory hair cells in our inner ears are damaged, the result is often permanent hearing loss, deafness, or balance problems. In contrast, animals like fish, frogs, and chicks regenerate sensory hair cells effortlessly. Now, scientists at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have identified how two distinct genes guide the regeneration of sensory cells in zebrafish. The discovery improves our understanding of how regeneration works in zebrafish and may guide future studies ...

The cleanup of air pollution in East Asia has accelerated global warming, a new study published today (Monday, 14 July) in the journal Communications Earth and Environment has found. Global warming, driven primarily by emissions of greenhouse gases, has been accelerating for the past 15 years, leading to record-breaking surface temperatures. Over the same period, countries in East Asia have made strong efforts to clean up air pollution, which is important for public health. The largest air pollution clean-up has been made ...

Researchers at MUSC Hollings Cancer Center have identified a signaling loop involved in the growth and persistence of leukemia cells – and developed a novel immunotherapy that can disrupt that loop to boost immune function and improve survival. The findings, published in Nature Communications, offer new hope for treating and preventing cancer. Hollings researcher Sophie Paczesny, M.D., Ph.D., co-leader of the Cancer Biology and Immunology Research Program, led the multidisciplinary research ...

Astronomers have detected a giant exoplanet – between three and ten times the size of Jupiter – hiding in the swirling disc of gas and dust surrounding a young star. Earlier observations of this star, called MP Mus, suggested that it was all alone without any planets in orbit around it, surrounded by a featureless cloud of gas and dust. However, a second look at MP Mus, using a combination of results from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission, suggest that the star is not alone after all. The international team of astronomers, led by the University of Cambridge, detected a large gas giant in the star’s ...

Researchers have demonstrated a new technique that allows “self-driving laboratories” to collect at least 10 times more data than previous techniques at record speed. The advance – which is published in Nature Chemical Engineering – dramatically expedites materials discovery research, while slashing costs and environmental impact. Self-driving laboratories are robotic platforms that combine machine learning and automation with chemical and materials sciences to discover materials more quickly. The automated process allows machine-learning algorithms to make use of data from each experiment when predicting which experiment to conduct next to achieve ...

Spotting the Missteps: How MiROM Detects Protein Misfolding in Cancer Cells MiROM identifies proteins by using mid-infrared light to detect molecular vibrations – essentially the natural “dance” of molecules within protein structures. Unlike optical spectroscopy, which measures light attenuation, optoacoustics capture ultrasound waves generated when proteins absorb infrared light. This absorption causes a tiny, localized temperature increase, leading to transient expansion of medium surrounding the protein and the emission of ultrasound waves. By analyzing these signals in real time, MiROM can detect structural changes ...

At the dawn of the millennium, a group of eminent scientists began compiling a list of the threats they felt were most likely to impact the world’s rocky shorelines over the coming quarter of a century. Published in 2002, it included forecasts that – among other things – pollution from oil spills would decrease, the number of invasive species across the world would rise, genetically-modified organisms would have harmful effects on the ocean, and the impacts of global climate change would be felt more intensely. Now, 25 years on, the same academics – along with a larger and more wide-ranging team of international experts – have revisited ...

A promising industrial process can turn crushed sugar cane waste into green hydrogen far more efficiently than previously thought, shows a SECLG process simulation from the University of Johannesburg. The study is published in Renewable Energy. The simulation indicates high energy efficiency and produces a small fraction of the unwanted tar, carbon monoxide (CO), carbon dioxide (CO2), and nitrogen (N) compared to conventional biomass gasification plants. The process may assist in decarbonizing energy-intensive industries such as steel and cement in the future. Sugar cane and ...

The public, legislators, and media often group per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS or “forever chemicals,” which are found globally in countless products, into a single category. While certain PFAS are harmful for human and public health, new articles in Heart Rhythm, the official journal of the Heart Rhythm Society, the Cardiac Electrophysiology Society, and the Pediatric & Congenital Electrophysiology Society, published by Elsevier, emphasize that fluoropolymers, a specific class of PFAS, are not considered environmental contaminants and are indispensable for use in medical devices. ...

Climate change is coming… but what on Earth can we do about it? Scientist Dr. Kimberley Miner has written a guide to riding out the oncoming almighty storm. Miner is an Earth scientist whose research includes studying the changing Poles of Earth, the Arctic’s melting permafrost, forever chemicals and plastic pollution. Her new book Considering Climate Change provides practical guidance for young people concerned about the future. She poses questions like how to deal with eco-anxiety and climate-grief, how to prepare financially, ...

Did the COVID-19 pandemic affect obesity rates in Canada? A new study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.241421 found obesity rates based on body mass index (BMI) increased faster in the 4 years after the start of the pandemic than in the previous 11 years, especially in younger adults. “Compared with the average increase during the 11 years before the pandemic, the prevalence of obesity [as measured by BMI] increased at a greater rate during the 4 years after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2023), suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic and associated public health restrictions ...

Caring for autistic patients requires a unique approach, and a Five ways to support… article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.250152 aims to provide tips on caring for these patients. Suggestions include offering online bookings and virtual consultations, adapting health care delivery and environments to reduce sensory overstimulation, tailoring communications for individual patients, ensuring clarity and predictability in health care encounters, ...