Soil pollution from pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and industrial chemicals is a growing threat to global food security and public health. With nearly 80 percent of agricultural soils containing traces of organic contaminants, researchers are looking for sustainable ways to restore damaged land. A new study in Biochar highlights an emerging solution that pairs plant-microbe partnerships with biochar, an engineered carbon-rich material, to detoxify polluted soils while supporting plant growth and economic resilience. The review, led by Nandita Das and Piyush Pandey, explores how combining biochar with ...

LA JOLLA (October 10, 2025)—Joseph Ecker, PhD, has been awarded the 2026 Barbara McClintock Prize for Plant Genetics and Genome Studies from the Maize Genetics Cooperation, a global organization of maize geneticists and breeders. The prize honors “the most outstanding plant scientists working on both genetics and genomics in the present era.” It is named after distinguished plant biologist Barbara McClintock, whose work in maize genetics earned her the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.  Ecker ...

Scientists have found that ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) in women is diagnosed approximately 5 years later than in men, despite symptoms appearing at the same age. Women with ADHD also suffer greater emotional and functional difficulties than men. This work will be presented at the ECNP Congress in Amsterdam, after recent publication. Lead researcher Dr Silvia Amoretti (Barcelona) said: “ADHD affects millions of people, but our understanding of how it presents and impacts males and females differently remains limited. We found that females are underdiagnosed, often receiving a diagnosis years later than males. ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Power plants may emit higher amounts of pollution during lapses in federal monitoring and enforcement, such as during a government shutdown, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State. The study, published in the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, details the short-term effects of enforcement of federal environmental laws and regulations on power plant air emissions. Using data from the 2018-19 federal government shutdown, which lasted 35 days, as a natural experiment, the researchers found ...

The increasing pressure for teachers to obey school curriculum policies is “profoundly demotivating” and is leading directly to people leaving the profession, a new study warns. Teachers value being able to be creative and collaborate with each other to design lessons but are increasingly subject to school policies requiring their conformity. The research shows this is also reducing their curriculum-making skills and reducing teacher autonomy and motivation, as well as relationships between colleagues and with pupils. There is a teacher recruitment and retention crisis in England. There is a particular challenge in recruiting physical science teachers, ...

HAMILTON, ON October 10, 2025 – Researchers at McMaster University have developed a new menstrual health product designed to complement and enhance an existing menstrual cup that is safer, easier to use and more environmentally sustainable than current options. The innovation is part of a broader initiative at McMaster to develop wearable technologies that proactively monitor women’s health. As part of this work, the research team has published a perspective review in Nature Communications, outlining how emerging technologies, ...

Some industrial processes used to create useful chemicals require heat, but heating methods are often inefficient, partly because they heat a greater volume of space than they really need to. Researchers including those from the University of Tokyo devised a way to limit heating to the specific areas required in such situations. Their technique uses microwaves, not unlike those used in home microwave ovens, to excite specific elements dispersed in the materials to be heated. Their system proved to be around 4.5 times more efficient than current methods. While there’s more to climate ...

The vast majority of consumer electronics use lithium-ion batteries, and with each generation, these devices are designed smaller, lighter and with longer battery life to meet the growing demands of consumers. Each new iteration also brings the batteries that power the devices closer to the limits of their size, weight and performance. Researchers are constantly testing new approaches and materials for making lightweight, high-performance components. The latest contender is MXene, a type of metallically conductive two-dimensional nanomaterial discovered by Drexel University researchers ...

MIAMI, FLORIDA (Oct. 10, 2025) – Women living close to federally designated Superfund sites are more likely to develop aggressive breast cancers — including the hard-to-treat triple-negative subtype — according to new studies from Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. According to a National Institutes of Health study, some especially aggressive forms of breast cancer that are resistant to treatment are on the rise.  Now, three recent ...

Oct. 10, 2025 MSU has a satellite uplink/LTN TV studio and Comrex line for radio interviews upon request. Contact: Emilie Lorditch, University Communications: 517-355-4082, lorditch@msu.edu; Bethany Mauger, College of Natural Science: 765-571-0623, maugerbe@msu.edu. Images, video Fuel for the finish line: How sperm achieve ‘overdrive’ Why this matters: To successfully reach and fertilize an egg, sperm undergo a rapid and massive increase in energy. Researchers have revealed how sperm use glucose found in their environment ...

University of Tennessee, Knoxville Nuclear Engineering Department Head Brian Wirth has been elected a 2025 Fellow of the American Physical Society. Wirth, a UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair Professor of Computational Nuclear Engineering, was recommended for the prestigious honor by the APS Division of Plasma Physics (DPP). He was recognized for “seminal advances in understanding plasma-surface interactions involving helium in metallic plasma-facing components, and for extensive community leadership and service.” The APS is a nonprofit membership organization working to advance physics by fostering a vibrant and global community dedicated to science and ...

Reston, VA (October 10, 2025)—New research has been published ahead-of-print by The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM). JNM is published by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, an international scientific and medical organization dedicated to advancing nuclear medicine, molecular imaging, and theranostics—precision medicine that allows diagnosis and treatment to be tailored to individual patients in order to achieve the best possible outcomes. Summaries of the newly ...

Glaciers are fighting back against climate change by cooling the air that touches their surfaces. But for how long? The Pellicciotti group at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) has compiled and re-analyzed an unprecedented dataset of on-glacier observations worldwide. Their findings, published today in Nature Climate Change, demonstrate that glaciers will likely reach the peak of their self-cooling power by the next decade before their near-surface temperatures spike up and melting accelerates. Thomas Shaw keeps a vivid memory of this special summer day in August 2022. The postdoctoral researcher in Francesca Pellicciotti’s group at the Institute of Science ...

Some people flip off the lights the moment they leave a room, while others rarely think twice about saving energy. According to the most comprehensive analysis of people’s sentiments toward household energy savings to date, publishing October 10 in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports Sustainability, people’s attitudes and moral sentiments about their energy usage—rather than income or knowledge of how to conserve power—determine whether they take action at home.   Domestic energy usage accounts for about a fifth of all energy consumption in the United States and European Union. Understanding what matters ...

Light is fast, but travels in long wavelengths and interacts weakly with itself. The particles that make up matter are tiny and interact strongly with each other, but move slowly. Together, the two can combine into a hybrid quasiparticle called a polariton that is part light,  part matter. In a new paper published today in Chem, a team of Columbia chemists has identified how to combine matter and light to get the best of both worlds: polaritons with strong interactions and fast, wavelike flow. These distinctive behaviors can be used to power optical computers and other light-based quantum ...

Scientists have identified an unusual type of brain cell that may play a vital role in progressive multiple sclerosis (MS), likely contributing to the persistent inflammation characteristic of the disease. The discovery, reported today in Neuron, is a significant step towards understanding the complex mechanisms that drive the disease and provides a promising new avenue for research into more effective therapies for this debilitating condition. MS is a chronic disease in which the immune system mistakenly attacks ...

Researchers have demonstrated a new and sustainable way to make the chemicals that are the basis of thousands of products – from plastics to cosmetics – we use every day. Hundreds of thousands of chemicals are manufactured by the chemical industry, which transforms raw materials – usually fossil fuels – into useful end products. Due to its size and its use of fossil fuel feedstocks, the chemical industry is responsible for roughly 6% of global carbon emissions. But researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, are developing new methods ...

Higher levels of screen time in early childhood are associated with lower scores in reading and mathematics on Ontario’s standardised tests, with each additional hour of daily screen time associated with a 10 per cent drop in the likelihood of achieving higher academic levels. Published in JAMA Network Open, the findings are part of a new study from TARGet Kids!, a collaborative research network co-led by Dr. Catherine Birken at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and Dr. Jonathon Maguire at Unity Health Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital.  The study followed more than 3,000 children across Ontario from 2008 to 2023. Researchers ...

About The Study: In this cohort study, early extracranial surgery was associated with adverse function, cognition, and disability after traumatic brain injury (TBI) rated as moderate-severe or with radiographic abnormalities on computed tomography (CT) scan regardless of Glasgow Coma Scale at index admission but not after orthopedic trauma or CT− TBI. Further studies may help determine whether surgical timing or other interventions can improve the observed long-term deficits.  Corresponding ...

About The Study: In this cohort study of employed workers in the U.S., the new year-round baseline for work absences appeared to be on par with the levels formerly confined to pre-pandemic influenza season conditions. Policymakers should consider the consequences for workers, including the value of policies and actions that mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace. This study additionally highlights the potential for using nationally representative labor market data to monitor the impacts of ...

About The Study: The findings of this study suggest that elimination of race-conscious admissions coincided with declines in medical school diversity, threatening progress toward health care equity. Medical schools must explore alternative admissions strategies, such as holistic review processes that account for structural barriers. Without such efforts, reduced diversity in medical education may worsen existing health disparities.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Natalie Florescu, MD, MPH, email natalie.florescu@uvmhealth.org. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this ...

A new tool developed by Weill Cornell Medicine and the University of Adelaide investigators has enhanced the ability to track multiple gene mutations while simultaneously recording gene activity in individual cancer cells. The technology, which can now use diverse types of pathology samples and quickly process large numbers of cells, has enabled the investigators to glean new insights into how cancers evolve toward greater aggressiveness and therapy resistance. Described in a paper published Oct. 10 in Cell Genomics, the new tool, GoT-Multi, is a next-generation advance ...

About The Study: In this prospective cohort study of Canadian children recruited from primary care settings, high levels of total screen time and TV and digital media in young children were associated with lower achievement levels in reading and math on standardized tests in elementary school. Early interventions to reduce screen time exposure should be developed and tested to enhance academic achievement in elementary school.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Xuedi Li, MSc, email xuedi.li@sickkids.ca. To access the embargoed ...

About The Study: In this cohort study, 40% of orders for glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs) were not filled. Non-Hispanic Black patients and Hispanic patients were less likely to fill orders than non-Hispanic white patients, and the non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic patients who filled their orders paid lower out-of-pocket costs. Out-of-pocket differences across groups may stem from differences in insurance coverage, use of different GLP-1RAs, or different cost thresholds for forgoing GLP-1RAs. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding ...

In a secondary analysis of a study of 200 classrooms, Mass General Brigham researchers found respiratory viral exposures were still high in those with HEPA purifiers, suggesting additional interventions are needed School is in session, and viral illness is on the rise. A new study suggests that lowering exposure to respiratory viruses in classrooms isn’t as simple as adding high-efficiency particulate air (HEPA) purifiers to the room. In a secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial, investigators from Mass General Brigham and their colleagues found that exposure to respiratory viruses in the air were ...