UN Headquarters, New York – Amid chronic groundwater depletion, water overallocation, land and soil degradation, deforestation, and pollution, all compounded by global heating, a UN report today declared the dawn of an era of global water bankruptcy, inviting world leaders to facilitate “honest, science-based adaptation to a new reality.” “Global Water Bankruptcy: Living Beyond Our Hydrological Means in the Post-Crisis Era,” argues that the familiar terms “water stressed” and “water crisis” fail to reflect today’s reality in many places: a post-crisis condition marked by irreversible losses of natural ...

Researchers at the John Innes Centre and the Earlham Institute are pioneering powerful single-cell visualisation techniques that could unlock higher yields of global wheat.   Firmly in their sights is the longstanding question that has perplexed the wheat research community: Why do grains at the bottom of the spike fail to achieve full size compared to those higher up?    Previous studies have analysed wheat tissue in bulk (taking dissected tissue pieces in their entirety), limiting image resolution, and increasing the likelihood of unclear results.   In ...

Quantum mechanics is rich with paradoxes and contradictions. It describes a microscopic world in which particles exist in a superposition of states—being in multiple places and configurations all at once, defined mathematically by what physicists call a ‘wavefunction.’ But this runs counter to our everyday experience of objects that are either here or there, never both at the same time. Typically, physicists manage this conflict by arguing that, when a quantum system comes into contact with a measuring ...

January 20, 2026 -- A new study from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health finds that community water fluoridation (CWF) is not associated with significant changes in birth weight—a widely accepted indicator of infant health and a predictor of later-life outcomes. The findings provide reassurance about the safety of fluoridated drinking water during pregnancy. The results are published in JAMA Network Open. Community water fluoridation is one of the most widely implemented public health interventions in the United States and has long been promoted ...

BELLINGHAM, WA, USA – January 19, 2026 – SPIE, the international society for optics and photonics, is celebrating the inaugural Biophotonics Discovery's Impact of the Year Award as well as its first recipient, Stanford University Associate Professor of materials science and engineering, Guosong Hong. Hong was officially honored at the Biophotonics Focus: Light-Based Technologies for Reproductive, Maternal, and Neonatal Health plenary during SPIE Photonics West on Sunday evening. Hong is being honored in the technology development category for “significantly advancing the field of biophotonics,” ...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20, 2026 — The ice in your freezer is remarkably different from the single crystals that form in snow clouds, or even those formed on a frozen pond. As temperatures drop, ice crystals can grow in a variety of shapes: from stocky hexagonal prisms to flat plates, to Grecian columns. Why this structural roller coaster happens, though, is a mystery. When first observed, researchers thought it must relate to a hypothesis proposed by famed physicist Michael Faraday — ice below its melting point has a microscopically thin liquid layer of water across its surface. This “premelting ...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20, 2026 — Holding an egg requires a gentle touch. Squeeze too hard, and you’ll make a mess. Opening a water bottle, on the other hand, needs a little more grip strength. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are approximately 50,000 new amputations in the United States each year. The loss of a hand can be particularly debilitating, affecting patients’ ability to perform standard daily tasks. One of the primary challenges with prosthetic hands is the ability to properly tune the appropriate grip based on the object being handled. In ...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 20, 2026 — People with from spinal cord injuries often lose some or all their limb function. In most patients, the nerves in their limbs work fine, and the neurons in their brain are still operational, but the damage to their spinal cords prevents the two areas from communicating. In APL Bioengineering, by AIP Publishing, researchers from universities in Italy and Switzerland conducted an initial feasibility study to explore whether electroencephalography (EEG) could be a useful tool for connecting brain signals with limb movements. When a patient tries to move their paralyzed limb, ...

About The Study: This cohort study of more than 11 million births found no association of community water fluoridation with adverse birth outcomes. These findings provide reassurance about the safety of community water fluoridation during pregnancy and underscore the value of rigorous causal designs in evaluating potential adverse effects of public health interventions. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Matthew Neidell, PhD, email mn2191@columbia.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.54686) Editor’s ...

About The Study: This comparative effectiveness study found that initiation of sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitor (SGLT2i) vs glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) treatment in individuals with type 2 diabetes was associated with a lower 5-year risk of chronic kidney disease and a lower 5-year count of acute kidney injury. These findings underscore the potential of SGLT2i treatment for primary prevention of kidney disease in individuals with type 2 diabetes.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Simon K. Jensen, PhD, email skj@clin.au.dk. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link ...

About The Study: The findings of this case-control study suggest that air pollution, even at relatively low levels typical of Sweden, may contribute both to the risk of developing motor neuron disease and disease prognosis after motor neuron disease diagnosis. Corresponding Authors: To contact the corresponding authors, email Jing Wu, PhD, (jing.wu@ki.se) and Fang Fang, MD, PhD, (fang.fang@ki.se). To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2025.5379) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In this decision analytical modeling study of breast cancer screening, population risk-based screening using 5-year invasive breast cancer risk was associated with similar or greater benefits than age-based screening as well as reduced false-positive recalls. As personalized medicine advances, risk-based screening is poised to become a cornerstone of breast cancer prevention, offering a more nuanced and tailored approach to patient care. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Oguzhan Alagoz, PhD, email alagoz@engr.wisc.edu. To ...

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) women are significantly more likely to have alcohol involved at the time of suicide compared with heterosexual women, according to a new study from Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. The findings are published in JAMA Network Open. The researchers found that lesbian and gay women had a 15 percent higher likelihood of detectable blood alcohol content, a 17 percent higher chance of intoxication, and a 38 percent higher probability of any alcohol involvement at the time of death. Statistical interaction tests confirmed that associations between alcohol involvement and suicide varied ...

Prolonged exposure to air pollution can be linked to an elevated risk for serious neurodegenerative diseases like ALS and seems to speed up the pathological process, report researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The study is published in the journal JAMA Neurology. “We can see a clear association, despite the fact that levels of air pollution in Sweden are lower than in many other countries,” says Jing Wu, researcher at the Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet. “This underlines the importance of improving air quality.” Motor neuron diseases (MNDs) are serious neurological diseases in which the nerve cells ...

Scientists have discovered an answer to the longstanding mystery of why more than half of patients with chronic kidney disease ultimately die of cardiovascular problems: Their kidneys produce a substance that poisons the heart. The researchers, at UVA Health and Mount Sinai, say the discovery could let doctors identify people at risk and develop new treatments to help prevent and treat heart failure for these patients. “Kidney and heart disease can develop silently, so they are often discovered only after damage has already been done,” ...

A new study led by Aaron Hobbs, Ph.D., and Rachel Burge, Ph.D., at MUSC Hollings Cancer Center, reveals why a specific gene mutation behaves differently from other variants. The study, published in Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, shows that the mutation drives a less aggressive form of pancreatic cancer, challenging notions about how the gene functions and identifying new opportunities for personalized treatments. Pancreatic cancer is among the toughest cancers to detect early, and it’s even harder to treat. Unlike many cancers fueled by a mix of genetic changes, most pancreatic ...

Bowel habits aren’t exactly dinner-table talk. But they reflect how quickly the gut moves things along, and when that goes wrong people can experience constipation, diarrhoea, or irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Yet the biological mechanisms that control bowel movements are still not fully understood. A new study, published today in Gut, reports DNA clues to intestinal motility and spotlights vitamin B1 (thiamine) biology as an unexpected pathway for follow-up research. An international team coordinated by Mauro D’Amato, Professor of Medical Genetics ...

PULLMAN, Wash.—A recent study by geophysicists at Washington State University offers insight into how nutrients may reach the subsurface ocean of Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons and a leading candidate for extraterrestrial life in the solar system. Scientists have long wondered how life-sustaining nutrients could make it from the surface into Europa’s ice-covered ocean, where microscopic life is believed to exist. Drawing from a process from Earth’s geology known as crustal delamination, the research team used computer modeling to show that dense, nutrient-rich ice can separate from the surrounding ...

CLEVELAND—About 1 million Americans suffer from Parkinson’s disease, with around 90,000 new cases diagnosed each year, according to the Parkinson’s Foundation. The chronic, degenerative brain disorder destroys dopamine-producing cells essential for smooth, coordinated movement. Current treatments provide only short-term relief for such symptoms. But a team of Case Western Reserve University researchers have discovered a particular biochemical route that plays a role in the debilitating neurological condition. Their findings, published recently in Molecular ...

Key take-aways The European Society of Cardiology, the American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Association and the World Heart Federation have published the first joint statement calling for urgent action to address environmental stressors as major contributors to cardiovascular disease. Environmental risk factors that impact cardiovascular health include air pollution, traffic, airplane and industrial noise, artificial light exposure, chemical pollution, plastic and the various effects of climate change, such as heat extremes. Regulatory ...

Artificial light at night extends pollen season and increases allergen exposure in northeastern United States cities. Lin Meng and colleagues analyzed 12 years of pollen data from 12 monitoring stations across the Northeastern United States, combining measurements with satellite data on artificial light at night and climate records. The authors found that higher exposure to artificial light at night was significantly associated with earlier pollen season starts, later season ends, and longer overall pollen seasons, even after accounting for temperature and precipitation. The effect on ...

Women perceive artificial intelligence (AI) as riskier than men do, according to a study. Beatrice Magistro and colleagues hypothesized that women are both more exposed to  risk from AI and are more averse to risk in general than men. To test their hypothesis, the authors surveyed approximately 3,000 respondents in the United States and Canada in November 2023, using survey provider YouGov’s opt-in panel. Respondents were asked about the extent to which they agree that the risks of generative AI outweigh the benefits. Risk orientation was estimated by analyzing responses to lottery questions, such as whether the respondent would prefer a guaranteed win of $1,000, or a 50% ...

Incorporating living conditions and job opportunities in cities into mathematical models of human mobility improves model accuracy. The traditional gravity model of human mobility uses the distance of a move and the population of a destination city to predict migration patterns, with larger cities exerting more “pull” than smaller cities. The competing radiation model is based on quantifying the opportunity available in a destination location. Maurizio Porfiri and colleagues added to the radiation model, weaving in measures for living conditions and job quality. These measures include the presence of conflicts, natural hazards, and political persecution, and ...

Researchers propose a computational method to reveal the hidden timing structure of live performance. Vanessa C. Pope and colleagues present a framework, called Topology Analysis of Matching Sequences (TAMS), that algorithmically detects repeated material across performances and maps its timing to visualize performance dynamics. The authors applied TAMS to audio recordings from two professional stand-up comedians’ tours in the United Kingdom, analyzing multiple performances between 2017 and 2018. For the established comedian with a mature touring show, an average of 39.66% of each performance transcript matched exactly ...

Governments worldwide are increasingly adopting policies to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in response to the growing environmental challenges posed by climate change. Within the mobility sector, a major priority is replacing conventional fossil fuel based internal combustion engine vehicles with low carbon alternatives, such as battery electric vehicles and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. Heavy duty trucks, which account for a disproportionate share of transport emissions, have become a key focus of these decarbonization strategies. In South Korea, the government has outlined an ambitious ...