We’re nearly one month into 2025, but if you’re struggling to hold onto your New Year’s resolution, stay strong, as University of South Australia research shows that forming a healthy habit can take longer than you expect.   In the first systematic review of its kind, UniSA researchers found that new habits can begin forming within about two months (median of 59–66 days) but can take up to 335 days to establish.   It’s an important finding that could inform health interventions to ...

Two-component epoxies, which require mixing resin and curing agent before use, often suffer from issues such as mixing ratio errors, limited working times, and inconsistent curing. Additionally, they must be used immediately after mixing, leading to wasted residue. To address these challenges, one-component epoxies have gained attention. One-component epoxies come pre-mixed, making them easy to use, reducing processing time, and ensuring consistent quality without mixing. In particular, using latent curing agents allows curing to be triggered only under specific conditions (e.g., heat or UV exposure), significantly improving storage stability. However, ...

Neuromorphic computing—a field that applies principles of neuroscience to computing systems to mimic the brain’s function and structure—needs to scale up if it is to effectively compete with current computing methods. In a review published Jan. 22 in the journal Nature, 23 researchers, including two from the University of California San Diego, present a detailed roadmap of what needs to happen to reach that goal. The article offers a new and practical perspective toward approaching the cognitive capacity of the human brain with comparable form factor and power consumption.  “We ...

An international team of researchers led by the Strong Correlation Quantum Transport Laboratory of the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) has demonstrated, in a world’s first, an ideal Weyl semimetal, marking a breakthrough in a decade-old problem of quantum materials. Weyl fermions arise as collective quantum excitations of electrons in crystals. They are predicted to show exotic electromagnetic properties, attracting intense worldwide interest. However, despite the careful study of thousands of crystals, most ...

A study led by scientists at Rutgers University-New Brunswick has shown that specialized cells involved in how the body responds to insulin are activated in the brain after exercise, suggesting that physical activity may directly improve brain function. A study, published in Aging Cell, a journal focused on the biology of aging, indicates that therapies targeting this insulin action may be developed to offset or even prevent dementia progression. “We believe this work is important because it suggests exercise may work to improve cognition and memory by improving the abilities of insulin to act on the brain,” ...

Ultrawide-bandgap semiconductors—such as diamond—are promising for next-generation electronics due to a larger energy gap between the valence and conduction bands, allowing them to handle higher voltages, operate at higher frequencies, and provide greater efficiency compared to traditional materials like silicon. However, their unique properties make it challenging to probe and understand how charge and heat move on nanometer-to-micron scales. Visible light has a very limited ability to probe nanoscale properties, and moreover, it is not absorbed ...

The first randomized control trial of the school-based intervention called Supporting Transition Resilience of Newcomer Groups (STRONG) shows significant reductions in depression, anxiety and behavior problems among refugee and immigrant students. The study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, was co-led by Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Loyola University, in partnership with the Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Results were published in the American Journal of Community Psychology. Key findings are summarized ...

While entangled photons hold incredible promise for quantum computing and communications, they have a major inherent disadvantage. After one use, they simply disappear. In a new study, Northwestern University physicists propose a new strategy to maintain communications in a constantly changing, unpredictable quantum network. By rebuilding these disappearing connections, the researchers found the network eventually settles into a stable — albeit different — state.  The key resides in adding a sufficient number of connections to ensure the ...

Major uncertainties remain about the impact of puberty blockers and gender affirming hormone therapy on children and young people with gender related distress (gender dysphoria), making it impossible to determine conclusively whether they help or harm, find two pooled data analyses of the available evidence, published online in the Archives of Disease in Childhood. The findings echo those of the Hilary Cass review of gender identity services in the NHS, published last April. This concluded that the evidence for the use of puberty blockers and masculinising and feminising hormones for gender related distress—psychological distress caused by a mismatch between birth sex and gender ...

The prevalence of psychological distress caused by a mismatch between birth sex and gender identity, formally known as gender dysphoria, likely rose 50-fold nationwide between 2011 and 2021, suggests an analysis of primary care data in England and published online in Archives of Disease in Childhood. This means the condition is still uncommon, with fewer than 1 in 200 17-18 year olds affected, but levels of concurrent anxiety, depression, and self harm are high. And access to timely care is a live issue for young people and their families, a second feedback study shows. Most previously ...

Over the course of two decades, the lifespan of college graduates increased by 2.5 years to 84.2 years. If they were a country, their life expectancy would have ranked fourth globally. By contrast, the lifespan of those who didn’t earn a high school diploma remained at 73.5 years. If they were a country, their life expectancy would have ranked 137th globally. SEATTLE, Wash., Jan. 23, 2025 – Across more than 3,000 US counties, vast geographic differences with a widening gap were registered between the least and most educated, with a longer lifespan for those with a higher level of education. That’s ...

While climate change is likely to present significant challenges to agriculture in coming decades, it could also mean that crops such as chickpeas, soyabeans and oranges are widely grown across the UK, and home-produced hummus, tofu and marmalade are a common sight on our supermarket shelves by 2080. A new study led by the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) in collaboration with the University of East Anglia (UEA) predicts that future warmer temperatures in this country would be suitable for a variety ...

Researchers from The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center and College of Medicine’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences (HRS) recently published a study that found a link between impairments in physical function and hospital readmission risk among adults 50 years of age and older. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, 17% of Medicare beneficiaries in the United States returned to the hospital within 30 days of discharge between 2016 and 2020, posing burdens on healthcare systems and patients, alike. “Physical function is a crucial indicator of underlying ...

DALLAS, January 23, 2025 — The American Heart Association, a global force changing the future of health for all, is championing student health and well-being by awarding financial grants to seven schools nationwide. These grants, provided through the Association’s Kids Heart Challenge™ and American Heart Challenge™ programs, enable schools to invest in resources like fitness equipment, water bottle filling stations, and educational tools to support healthier environments. By directly funding these in-school resources, the Association aims to foster healthy habits in youth to combat issues like childhood obesity—which, according to ...

A team of researchers from NYU Tandon’s C2SMARTER — a U.S. Department of Transportation-funded Tier 1 University Transportation Center — has received an NVIDIA Academic Grant Program award to develop an advanced simulation system aimed at improving emergency response in urban areas. The project, called NanoDT (Nano Digital Twin), will create a detailed virtual replica (or “digital twin”) of Downtown Brooklyn that can help emergency responders better navigate accident scenes and ...

HOUSTON, January 22, 2025 — Marcus Freeman, head coach at the University of Notre Dame, was named college football Coach of the Year at the American Heart Association’s Paul “Bear” Bryant Awards, presented by Marathon Oil. The 39th annual awards program benefits the American Heart Association, the world’s leading voluntary health organization devoted to a world of longer, healthier lives for all. “We are honored to award Coach Freeman this year’s Paul “Bear” Bryant Coach of the Year Award, recognizing his exemplary efforts ...

Cancer is vicious. In 2025, it is expected to cause more than 618,000 U.S. deaths — nearly twice the combined populations of Merced and Modesto. Each year, almost half of this nation, young and old, is touched by the disease through personal diagnosis or an afflicted loved one. Jeff Yoshimi joined the 50% when his wife, Sandy, learned she had breast cancer. The blighted cells had spread to some lymph nodes. Alongside Sandy during one of many overnight hospital stays, Yoshimi drifted in and out of sleep, sifting through ideas ...

“Fight-or-flight” is not an option for plants, unfortunately, when it comes to pathogen attacks. Instead, plants opt for “do-or-die.” A deeper insight into the genetic mechanisms that enable plants to resist pathogen infections has equipped researchers with tools to tackle the most devastating pathogens in agriculture. Using advanced RNA sequencing, researchers have recently uncovered how varieties of soybean respond to different types of soybean cyst nematodes (SCNs), with potential implications for developing more resilient crops and reducing reliance on chemical treatments. Published ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – When a grocery store starts selling beer, its sales grow beyond just six-packs and cases: Households, and beer-purchasing households in particular, visit the store more frequently and increase their total monthly grocery expenditures, according to new Cornell research.  The finding has important implications for the intensely competitive grocery business, which operates on razor-thin profit margins between 1 and 3%, well below other retail sectors. One approach to boosting profits is employing “loss leaders,” specific products sold below cost to attract customers to a store and encourage them to buy other, more profitable ...

Key takeaways: Pulmonary fibrosis in patients with COVID-19 tends to resolve, while idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis always progresses Scientists believe key immune elements – cells and genes – may explain resolution versus progression of the disease “Both diseases are caused by injury to alveolar epithelial cells in the lungs. In the case of COVID-19, the injury is viral and acute and in the case of IPF, the injury is unknown but repetitive and chronic — so that may explain the different patterns of pulmonary fibrosis progression.’’ TAMPA, Fla. (Jan. 23, 2025) ...

Bronx, NY—In the global effort to combat climate change, large-scale, plant-based strategies such as planting forests and cultivating biofuels are an increasingly important part of countries’ plans to reduce their overall carbon emissions, but a landmark new study in the journal Science finds that well-intended strategies could have unforeseen impacts on biodiversity and that, in general, restoring forests has the most beneficial effect on wildlife. The authors, including New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) Assistant Curator Evelyn Beaury, Ph.D., argue that policy makers and conservation officials should consider impacts on biodiversity when evaluating the ...

A new statistical tool that combines multiple clinical and pathologic factors with a patient's 21-gene Oncotype DX Breast Recurrence Score® result provides more accurate estimates about that patient’s breast cancer prognosis and their potential benefit from chemotherapy than either the Recurrence Score® result or clinical factors alone.  The tool could be used in counseling patients with hormone receptor-positive (HR+), HER2-negative breast cancer that has spread to the lymph nodes, and could improve shared decision-making ...

Chirality refers to objects that cannot be superimposed to their mirror images through any combination of rotations or translations, much like the distinct left and right hands of a human. In chiral crystals, the spatial arrangement of atoms confers a specific "handedness", which, for example, influences their optical and electrical properties. The Hamburg-Oxford team focused on so-called antiferro-chirals, a type of non-chiral crystals reminiscent of antiferro-magnetic materials, in which magnetic ...

By definition, robots can’t feel empathy — it requires being able to relate to another person’s human experience, to put yourself in their shoes. But according to new U of T Scarborough research, artificial intelligence (AI) can create empathetic responses more reliably and consistently than humans, even when compared to professionals whose job relies on empathizing with those in need.  “AI doesn’t get tired,” says Dariya Ovsyannikova (HBSc 2023 UTSC), lab manager in Professor Michael Inzlicht’s lab at U of T Scarborough ...

Quantum dots are tiny semiconductor nano materials with color-tunable and high-efficiency photoluminescence, which have been successfully applied in different display technology such as liquid crystal displays (LCDs), organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), and micro light-emitting diodes (Micro-LEDs). In 2023, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry rewards the discovery and development of quantum dots. Perovskite quantum dots (PQDs) are emerging display materials with high absorption coefficient, low cost and easy processability, and less environmental impact. ...