An international research team led by RMIT University have created tiny particles, known as nanodots, made from a metallic compound that can kill cancer cells while leaving healthy cells largely unharmed. While this work is still at the cell-culture stage – it hasn’t been tested in animals or people – it points to a new strategy for designing cancer treatments that exploit cancer’s own weaknesses. The particles are made from molybdenum oxide, a compound based on a rare metal called molybdenum, which is often used in electronics and alloys. The study’s lead researcher Professor Jian Zhen Ou and Dr Baoyue Zhang, from the School ...

Urbanization is rapidly growing worldwide, often bringing negative effects on wildlife through loss of habitat and disturbances such as light pollution and noise. Yet some species manage to adapt to cities, either due to their inherent traits, like boldness or being omnivorous, or by adjusting their ecological or behavioral traits to take advantage of urban resources. Among these resources, food plays a particularly important role for reproduction and survival. Cities offer many human-related food sources, including garbage, garden plants, and food that animals steal from people. Supplementary feeding, where people intentionally feed or put food out for small birds and ...

DARIEN, IL — New research among older adults with sleep apnea reveals that verbal memory performance is significantly worse in women — but not in men — who also have insomnia. Results show that older adults with comorbid insomnia and sleep apnea — often referred to as COMISA — demonstrated worse memory performance than those with sleep apnea alone. This interaction remained significant even after adjusting for age, body mass index, sleep apnea severity, and education. However, when analyzed by sex, COMISA was significantly associated with worse verbal memory outcomes in women, but not in men. “We expected that having both insomnia and sleep apnea would ...

In an increasingly acute surgeon shortage, artificial intelligence could help fill the gap, coaching medical students as they practice surgical techniques. A new tool, trained on videos of expert surgeons at work, offers students real-time personalized advice as they practice suturing. Initial trials suggest AI can be a powerful substitute teacher for more experienced students. “We’re at a pivotal time. The provider shortage is ever increasing and we need to find new ways to provide more and better opportunities for practice. Right now, an attending surgeon who already is short on time needs to come in and watch students practice, and rate them, and give them detailed feedback—that ...

CHICAGO – A study of data from seven outpatient facilities in the New York region found that 20-24% of all the breast cancers diagnosed during an 11-year period were found in women age 18 to 49, according to research being presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). “This research shows that a significant proportion of cancers are diagnosed in women under 40, a group for whom there are no screening guidelines at this time,” said Stamatia Destounis, M.D., radiologist ...

CHICAGO – A large new study using advanced imaging found that abdominal obesity, sometimes referred to as a “beer belly,” is associated with more harmful changes in heart structure than overall body weight alone, especially in men. The findings, being presented this week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA), also point to actions patients and doctors can take to identify potential risks and intervene earlier to protect the heart. “Abdominal obesity, a high waist-to-hip ratio, ...

A team of scientists have developed a simple method for automated manufacturing of lung organoids which could revolutionize the development of treatments for lung disease. These organoids, miniature structures containing the cells that real lungs do, could be used to test early-stage experimental drugs more effectively, without needing to use animal material. In the future, patients could even have personalized organoids grown from their own tissue to try out potential treatments in advance.  “The best result for now — quite simply — is that it works,” said Professor Diana Klein of University of Duisburg-Essen, first author ...

Multiple pre-exposure (PrEP) and postexposure (PEP) treatments are now available to prevent HIV infection. An updated Canadian guideline published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.250511 contains 31 recommendations and 10 good practice statements to help clinicians and other health care professionals offer these safe and effective options to teen and adult patients. The guideline is published on World AIDS Day, December 1, 2025, to raise awareness of new approaches to prevention. Pre-exposure prophylaxis involves an HIV-negative person starting antiretroviral medications ...

December 1, 2025 – For decades, lung cancer has been associated with stigma, anxiety, and loss. Advances in screening, therapeutics, and survivorship have created a new reality; lung cancer is treatable, survivable, and increasingly understood as a chronic disease for many. A special issue of the Journal of the American College of Radiology, published by Elsevier and in collaboration with the American Cancer Society National Lung Cancer Roundtable (ACS NLCRT), details this transformation, outlining how radiology is moving beyond disease detection to providing equitable care and becoming a champion of patient dignity. Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United ...

Adolescents and young adults (AYAs) with cancer have unique needs compared with other age groups. Access to palliative care among this age group remains challenging. New research published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.250615 points out gaps and areas for improvement in providing palliative care for AYAs with cancer in Ontario. “Palliative care is an essential component of cancer care that should be provided early for patients with advanced ...

Copper (Cu)-based catalysts are currently the most efficient for CO(2)RR to produce high-value C2+ products. Unfortunately, despite recent advances in catalyst design for CO(2)RR, a deep understanding of active sites in Cu-based catalysts remains elusive, primarily due to their poor structural stability under operating conditions, which may lead to significant reconstruction. Consequently, emerging in situ and ex situ characterizations provide ambiguousevidence regarding the true active sites of Cu-based catalysts, including morphology evolution, local pH changes, valence state shifts, ...

Hydrogen production from solar-driven water splitting serves as a crucial technology to sustainably access zero-carbon H2 energy. Toward large-scale application, cost-effective cocatalysts—such as transition metal sulfides—with high H2 evolution activity and excellent stability are desperately needed to greatly boost the solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency. Unfortunately, the intrinsic symmetrical electron distribution in crystalline metal sulfides usually causes an improper electronic configuration between catalytic S atoms and H intermediates (Had) to form strong S-Had bonds, ...

In iron and steel production, incomplete fuel combustion is the main cause of high CO emissions during sintering, accounting for over half of the industry's total emissions. Developing technologies for purifying high-concentration CO flue gas is urgent. The bottleneck in the industrialization of CO catalytic oxidation for sintering flue gas is developing catalysts with high activity, strong anti-poisoning ability and low cost. Conventional noble metal catalysts have high activity but are scarce and costly; they also tend to deactivate ...

Patients with major depressive disorder, including those who have not responded to first-line antidepressants, may benefit from short-term nitrous oxide treatment, a major meta-analysis led by the University of Birmingham has found. The new paper published in eBioMedicine today has assessed the best available clinical information to show how clinically administered nitrous oxide (N2O) can offer fast-acting depressive symptom relief for adults with major depressive disorder (MDD) and treatment-resistant depression (TRD).  TRD is characterised as depression that isn’t effectively managed after a patient tries two ...

Topline summary * Study indicates generative AI tools are being used widely by UK Universities for the REF * Findings show disparate level and nature of usage * Results highlight need for national oversight and guidelines * With innovative mindset and structured support…scope to improve efficiency and equitable access Full release A new national report has shown for the first time how generative AI (GenAI) is already being used by some universities to assess the quality of their research – and it could be scaled up to help all higher education institutions ...

From shifting economic policy to disrupted supply chains, there seems to be no lack of challenges for businesses nowadays. Rising inflation, shifting interest rates, labor shortages and geopolitical tensions can make things worse, pushing businesses into a crisis mode. To survive, companies sometimes must resort to extreme measures such as freezing salary increases, changing benefits, cutting employees’ perks or reducing headcount. For employees, such drastic changes can give rise to a phenomenon known as the “psychological contract breach,” a perception that an organization has failed to meet ...

CHICAGO – One of the largest MRI-based studies comparing knee injuries between men and women reveals surprising differences in injury patterns based on gender and age. The findings, which can be used to improve risk assessment and develop early intervention strategies, will be presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). “In recent years, we've grown more interested in the differences in knee injuries between men and women,” said study co-author Jenifer Pitman, M.D., assistant professor of radiology at Johns Hopkins Medical ...

University of Cambridge media release   First ‘Bible map’ published 500 years ago still influences how we think about borders   UNDER STRICT EMBARGO UNTIL 19:01 US ET ON FRIDAY 28TH NOVEMBER 2025 / 00:01 UK (GMT) ON SATURDAY 29TH NOVEMBER 2025   The first Bible to feature a map of the Holy Land was published 500 years ago in 1525. The map was initially printed the wrong way round – showing the Mediterranean to the East – but its inclusion set a precedent which continues to shape our understanding of ...

Experts at Cincinnati Children’s have uncovered striking metabolic differences in people with Fanconi anemia (FA), a rare genetic disorder that causes bone marrow failure and dramatically increases cancer risk. The findings, published Nov. 28, 2025, in Science Advances, could reshape how clinicians think about nutrition and potentially cancer prevention in this vulnerable population.  WHAT THE TEAM DISCOVERED  In collaboration with the Bone Marrow Transplantation Program and the Fanconi Anemia Comprehensive Care Center at Cincinnati Children’s, researchers used a cutting-edge technique ...

A new study published in Science Advances overturns a long-standing paradigm in climate science that stronger Northern Hemisphere summer insolation produces stronger tropical rainfall. Instead, a precisely dated 129,000-year rainfall reconstruction from a Cuban cave shows that the Caribbean often did the opposite, drying during intervals of intensified summer insolation. The research reveals a new unrecognized primary driver: The North Atlantic Subtropical High (NASH), a powerful and ever-present high-pressure system, that surprisingly has been the dominant force shaping the ...

A discovery from Australian researchers could lead to better treatment for children with neuroblastoma, a cancer that currently claims 9 out of 10 young patients who experience recurrence. The team at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, found a drug combination that can bypass the cellular defences these tumours develop that lead to relapse. In findings made in animal models and published today in Science Advances, Associate Professor David Croucher and his team have shown that a drug already approved for other cancers can trigger neuroblastoma cell death through alternative pathways when the usual routes become blocked. This ...

Belgian scientists from VIB and Ghent University (UGent), together with Danish collaborators, have uncovered compelling evidence that early-infancy infection with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) significantly increases the risk of developing childhood asthma—especially in children with a family history of allergy or asthma. Their study, published today in Science Immunology, suggests that protecting newborns against RSV could substantially reduce asthma cases later in life. Early triggers of asthma Across Europe, 5–15% of children live with asthma—a chronic condition that affects quality of life, can burden families ...

Osaka, Japan – Catalysts are vital substances that speed up many chemical reactions fundamental to modern life, including fertilizer, pharmaceutical, and energy production. However, many catalysts depend on expensive transition-metal elements, and their supply damages the environment and is vulnerable to geopolitical disruption. Recently, a team in Japan has developed a way to achieve a crucial type of chemical transformation without relying on transition-metal element resources. In an article due to be published in the Journal ...

Groundbreaking new research warns that Africa’s forests, once vital allies in the fight against climate change, have turned from a carbon sink into a carbon source. A new international study published in Scientific Reports and led by researchers at the National Centre for Earth Observation at the Universities of Leicester, Sheffield and Edinburgh reveals that Africa’s forests, which have long absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, are now releasing more carbon than they remove. This alarming shift, which happened after 2010, underscores the urgent need for stronger global action to protect forests, ...

Yuwei Gu was hiking through Bear Mountain State Park in New York when inspiration struck. Plastic bottles littered the trail and more floated on a nearby lake. The jarring sight in such a pristine environment made the Rutgers chemist stop in his tracks. Nature makes plenty of long-stranded molecules called polymers, including DNA and RNA, yet those natural polymers eventually break down. Synthetic polymers such as plastics don’t. Why? “Biology uses polymers everywhere, such as proteins, DNA, RNA and cellulose, ...