UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Roughly 10,000 years ago, humans started shifting from being nomadic hunter-gatherers to building large agricultural settlements, marking one of the greatest transformations in human history. This transition, known as the Neolithic Revolution, began in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East and led to the spread of farming throughout Europe. For decades, researchers have debated what drove this change. Did farming spread mainly because farmers themselves moved into new lands, ...

During childhood and adolescence, our brain goes through a lot of changes. But studying those changes in juvenile mice is challenging because scientists don’t have a way to repeatedly image the same animal’s neural pathways as they grow. Now, by simply rubbing a solution into a juvenile mouse’s scalp, researchers at Stanford can make the skin transparent to all visible light, allowing them to image the developing connections in a living mouse’s brain. And because the technique is reversible and non-invasive, the researchers can return to the same animal over days and weeks. The work, published Aug. ...

MADISON, Wis. – A new study co-authored by a University of Wisconsin-Madison professor finds that life expectancy gains made by high-income countries in the first half of the 20th century have slowed significantly, and that none of the generations born after 1939 will reach 100 years of age on average. Published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study by Héctor Pifarré i Arolas of the La Follette School of Public Affairs, José Andrade ...

Scientists at the University of California, Davis, have developed wheat plants that stimulate the production of their own fertilizer, opening the path toward less air and water pollution worldwide and lower costs for farmers. The technology was pioneered by a team led by Eduardo Blumwald, a distinguished professor in the Department of Plant Sciences. The team used the gene-editing tool CRIPSR to get wheat plants to produce more of one of their own naturally occurring chemicals. When the plant releases the excess chemical into the soil, the chemical helps certain bacteria in the soil convert nitrogen from the air into ...

CORNELL UNIVERSITY MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE FOR RELEASE: August 27, 2025   Kaitlyn Serrao 607-882-1140 kms465@cornell.edu   Certain communities of pond plants may increase greenhouse gases   ITHACA, N.Y. - The composition of aquatic plant communities in shallow freshwater bodies, including floating plants, submerged plants and phytoplankton, can have important effects on greenhouse gas production, transport and emissions, according to a new study by Cornell University researchers.   The findings could lead to aquatic plant management strategies that help mitigate the release of gases such as methane (CH4), carbon dioxide (CO2) ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2025 Highlights: People who went through menopause earlier had lower scores on memory and thinking tests. Those who used transdermal estradiol had better test scores for episodic memory—like remembering past events—compared to those who never used hormone therapy. Those who took estradiol pills had better test scores for prospective memory—like remembering to meet for an appointment or take a medication—compared to those who never used hormone therapy. Hormone therapy did ...

MINNEAPOLIS — A new study found that Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander people had the highest rate of stroke among people from other race and ethnic groups, with a rate more than three times higher than that of white people. The study is published on August 27, 2025, in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. “Multiple studies have shown racial and ethnic disparities in the rate of stroke in the United States, but there is little information on the rate among Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander people, especially ...

The textbook picture of how planets form – serene, flat discs of cosmic dust – has just received a significant cosmic twist. New research, published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, is set to reshape this long-held view. An international team of scientists, wielding the formidable power of the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), has found compelling evidence that many protoplanetary discs, the very birthplaces of planets, are in fact subtly warped.   These slight bends and twists in the disc plane, often just a few ...

Humans could learn a thing or two from orangutans when it comes to maintaining a balanced, protein-filled diet. Great apes native to the rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia, orangutans are marvels of adaptation to the vagaries of food supply in the wild, according to an international team of researchers led by a Rutgers University-New Brunswick scientist. The critically endangered primates outshine modern humans in avoiding obesity through their balanced choices of food and exercise, the scientists found. The researchers reported their findings, based on 15 years of firsthand observations of wild orangutans ...

Insomnia patients taking cannabis-based medical products reported better quality sleep after up to 18 months of treatment, according to a study published August 27 in the open-access journal PLOS Mental Health by Arushika Aggarwal from Imperial College London, U.K., and colleagues. About one out of every three people has some trouble getting a good night’s rest, and 10 percent of adults meet the criteria for an insomnia disorder. But current treatments can be difficult to obtain, and the drugs approved for insomnia run the risk ...

Intrusive distracting thoughts may be associated with anxiety and linked to lower well-being, and occur more often when alone than in company, per experience of sampling survey of students.    Article URL: https://plos.io/4lBYjWu Article Title: Patterns of ongoing thought in the real world and their links to mental health and well-being Author Countries: Canada, England, United States Funding: This research was supported by (i) a National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) graduate fellowship (author: BM), (ii) an award from the Government of Canada’s New Frontiers in Research Fund (grant ID: NFRF-2021-00183, ...

A newly-discovered species of a large, crocodile-relative predator has been described via a remarkably well-preserved fossil from Argentina, according to a study published August 27, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Fernando Novas from Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales “Bernardino Rivadavia”, Argentina, and colleagues. The Chorrillo Formation formed around 70 million years ago, during the Maastrichtian age at the very end of the Cretaceous period. At this time, southern Patagonia was a warm, seasonally humid landscape of freshwater floodplains, home to creatures like dinosaurs, turtles, frogs, and various mammals. The new fossil unearthed in this formation is ...

A new survey-based study suggests that the “unhappiness hump”—a widely documented rise in worry, stress, and depression with age that peaks in midlife and then declines—may have disappeared, perhaps due to declining mental health among younger people. David Blanchflower of Dartmouth College, U.S., and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on August 27, 2025. Since 2008, a U-shaped trend in wellbeing with age, in which wellbeing tends to decline from childhood until around age 50 before ...

Breathwork while listening to music may induce a blissful state in practitioners, accompanied by changes in blood flow to emotion-processing brain regions, according to a study published August 27, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Amy Amla Kartar from the Colasanti Lab in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, U.K., and colleagues. These changes occur even while the body’s stress response may be activated and are associated with reporting reduced negative ...

NEW YORK, August 27, 2025 — Researchers at the Nanoscience Initiative at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) have made a breakthrough in the fight against viral diseases. Their study, published in the journal Science Advances, offers a promising path toward the development of the world’s first broad-spectrum antiviral (BSA), which could be deployed against a wide range of deadly viruses, including future pandemic threats. Unlike bacterial infections, which doctors often begin immediately treating with broad-spectrum antibiotics while they work to determine the specific bacteria, viral infections ...

A new study of young adults has strongly linked better sleep quality with better mental wellbeing, with fruit and vegetable consumption and physical activity also strongly associated with psychological wellbeing. Perhaps surprisingly, the findings also suggest that boosting fruit and vegetable intake could potentially help mitigate the effects on wellbeing of a poor night’s sleep. Dr. Jack Cooper, previously from the University of Otago, New Zealand, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on August 27, 2025. Prior research ...

A new study from researchers at Baylor College of Medicine brings hope for a more personalized approach to treat estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer, the most common type of this cancer. The team identified a biomarker in preclinical ER+ breast cancer models that indicates that the tumor is more likely to respond to treatment with CDK4/6 inhibitors. The findings support further clinical studies to determine whether this marker may help identify patients who could benefit from CDK4/6 inhibitors. The study appeared in Science Translational Medicine. ER+ breast ...

Researchers at Stockholm University have succeeded in creating a molecular blueprint of how one of the world's most dangerous toxins, botulinum toxin, is structured, stabilised, delivered and released. The research, published in the scientific journal Science Advances, paves the way for more effective drugs. Botulinum toxin is the strongest poison known to man – a million times more toxic than that found in cobra venom. The toxin is produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum. The toxin causes the serious illness botulism. However, the toxin also has many medical uses, for treating chronic migraine, ...

Philadelphia, August 27, 2025 – Researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) found that certain lipids, or fats, in obesity-causing foods also cause asthma-like lung inflammation. The findings suggest that in addition to modifying dietary choices, certain existing drugs could be repurposed to help treat this type of asthma. The findings were published online today by the journal Science Translational Medicine. The study was prompted by researchers noticing an association between childhood obesity and neutrophilic asthma, a non-allergic type of asthma triggered ...

Supercell thunderstorms are among the most impactful weather events in Europe. They typically occur in summer and are characterized by a rotating updraft of warm, humid air that brings strong winds, large hail and heavy rain. The impact is significant and often leads to property damage, agricultural losses, traffic chaos and even threats to human safety. The collaboration between the Institute of Geography, the Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research and the Mobiliar Lab for Natural Risks at the University of Bern and the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate ...

Hebrew SeniorLife, a Harvard Medical School–affiliated nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of older adults, has announced that its 108 Centre Street affordable senior housing building, located on the Center Communities of Brookline campus, has officially received Phius Certification for its high-performance, energy-efficient design. The seven-story, all-electric multifamily building provides 54 affordable apartments for seniors and significantly advances sustainable, healthy housing for older adults in Greater Boston. “Achieving Phius Certification reinforces our commitment not only to affordability and community, but also to environmental responsibility ...

SAN FRANCISCO—Certain brain cells are responsible for coordinating smooth, controlled movements of the body. But when those cells are constantly overactivated for weeks on end, they degenerate and ultimately die. This new observation made by scientists at Gladstone Institutes may help explain what goes awry in the brains of people with Parkinson’s disease. Researchers have long known that a particular subset of neurons die as Parkinson’s disease progresses, but they aren’t sure why. The new work, published in the scientific journal eLife, shows that in mice, chronic activation of these neurons can directly cause their demise. The scientists hypothesize ...

Bariatric surgery is usually effective on its own for weight loss, but an increasing proportion of patients who undergo bariatric surgery start taking one of the new glucagon-like 1 peptide receptor agonist (GLP-1) weight-loss drugs in the years after their surgery, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The researchers analyzed de-identified national electronic health records covering 112,858 individuals who underwent bariatric surgery from January 2015 to May 2023. They found that 14% of those patients used a GLP-1 such ...

Pelvic organ prolapse (POP) is a disorder that primarily affects older women who have experienced multiple vaginal childbirths.  Repeated vaginal deliveries can cause the muscles and connective tissue that hold the pelvic organs—the vagina, bladder, uterus, urethra, and rectum—to weaken, causing one or more of the organs to drop out of position and bulge or extrude outside the body.  “There’s a breakdown and loss of the elastic matrix which contributes to tissue elasticity, similar to how a rubber band can stretch and recoil,” says Lehigh University ...

We have all been familiar since childhood with the fact that our left and right hands are identical in structure but not in shape. They are mirror images of each other. In everyday life, this means that a left-handed glove does not fit on the right hand. This “handedness” is also a fundamental property of matter: similar to our hands, many molecules exist in two mirror-image versions, which, despite looking confusingly similar, are actually not identical. Chemists call this chirality. The distinction between right- and left-handed chiral molecules ...