Vision is one of the most fundamental senses, shaping how we perceive, navigate and interact with the world around us. Yet for more than 12 million Americans living with visual impairments, even small deficits can profoundly impact daily life, limiting independence and overall quality of life. Researchers have long recognized the potential of visual perceptual learning (VPL) – a process by which the brain improves its ability to detect subtle differences in visual stimuli, such as fine patterns or orientations – to enhance vision. VPL is already being explored ...

SEATTLE, WASH. — NOVEMBER 17, 2025 — Harnessing the muscle of one of the world’s fastest supercomputers, researchers have built one of the largest and most detailed biophysically realistic brain simulations of an animal ever. This virtual copy of a whole mouse cortex allows researchers to study the brain in a new way: simulating diseases like Alzheimer’s or epilepsy in the virtual world to watch in detail how damage spreads throughout neural networks or understanding cognition and consciousness. It simulates both form and function, with almost ten million neurons, 26 billion synapses, and 86 interconnected brain regions.   This spectacular achievement is the product ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A study using more than 27,000 sleep records of collegiate athletes provides the best evidence to date that early morning team practices take a toll on healthy sleep.   Researchers at The Ohio State University used data from wearable sleep trackers to measure sleep for 359 varsity athletes over five years.   They found that when male athletes had team practices that began before 8 a.m., they averaged about 30 minutes less sleep the night before when compared to later morning workouts. Female athletes averaged about 20 minutes less sleep.   Findings also showed evidence that ...

DALLAS, Nov. 17, 2025 — Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is the most common inherited heart disease and impacts an estimated 1 in 500 people in the U.S., according to the American Heart Association, a relentless force changing the future of health for everyone everywhere. Because many cases go undetected and untreated until acute symptoms occur, the Association is scaling up its efforts to improve diagnosis and treatment of HCM. HCM is a thickening of the lower main pumping chamber of the heart (the left ventricle). ...

World COPD Day: Short of Breath, Think COPD Appropriate diagnosis of COPD can have a very significant public health impact.  For Immediate Release In support of World COPD Day on November 19, the Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease (GOLD), is drawing attention to the importance of correctly diagnosing COPD earlier - with the theme ‘Short of Breath, Think COPD’.   Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a preventable and treatable condition marked by breathlessness, chronic sputum ...

Research overview A research team led by Associate Professor Tomoko Matsumoto from the Institute of Arts and Sciences at Tokyo University of Science, Japan, along with Associate Professor Daiki Kishishita and Associate Professor Atsushi Yamagishi, both from Hitotsubashi University, Japan, has demonstrated that providing people with information about the universal benefits of public goods significantly increases support for higher taxation. This finding reveals a new mechanism that could contribute to reducing inequality by expanding government size while maintaining tax progressivity. The ...

Fossil fuels release pollutants into the air when extracted and burned, but there’s more to their production than massive oil rigs diving deep into the Earth and smoky power plants. Those processes are examples of only the first and last—and generally most visible—moments in a fossil fuel’s five-stage journey.   Between the initial extraction site and the final power-generating facility, oil and gas are also refined to remove impurities, held in storage facilities, and transported from ...

Mice pups conceived with in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the lab have slightly increased rates of DNA errors, or mutations, compared to pups conceived naturally, a new study on artificial reproductive technologies suggests. While the results do not directly apply to humans, they highlight the importance of understanding how fertility treatments affect an offspring’s DNA. The research is newly published in the journal Genome Research. “What we are seeing is a true biological signal, but we cannot make an apples-to-apples comparison relative to what happens in a clinic. Still, the fact that we see this trend ...

Researchers have taken a significant step toward creating a standardized language for describing the aromas of cannabis and hemp. “Aroma plays a key role in how consumers judge cannabis quality, yet until now there’s been no standardized language to describe it,” said Tom Shellhammer, professor of food science and technology at Oregon State University. “This research lays the groundwork for a shared vocabulary that benefits consumers, retailers and growers.” The study, recently published in PLOS ...

Some babies are born with early blindness due to dense bilateral congenital cataracts, requiring surgery to restore their sight. This period of several months without vision can leave a lasting mark on how the brain processes visual details, but surprisingly little on the recognition of faces, objects, or words. This is the main finding of an international study conducted by neuroscientists at University of Louvain (UCLouvain), in collaboration with Ghent University, KU Leuven, and McMaster University (Canada), published in the prestigious ...

Research Highlights: Chronic pain may be linked to the development of high blood pressure. The duration and location of pain was associated with the likelihood of developing high blood pressure. In addition, depression and inflammation explained some of the association between chronic pain and high blood pressure. These findings highlight the importance of pain management in the prevention and control of high blood pressure, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and death, researchers said. Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET Monday, ...

A new study has discovered a molecular signal that tumors exploit to exhaust the T cells meant to destroy them—and how silencing that signal could revive the body’s immunity. The study led by Weill Cornell Medicine researchers was published Nov. 17 in Nature Immunology and shows that tumors not only evade the immune system but can actively reprogram immune cells to stop fighting. “Our dream is to make immune-based therapies available to every patient. To overcome resistance, we must unlock the power of exhausted T cells, reviving them to destroy cancer. This discovery moves us closer to a future where the immune system itself defeats ...

The oceans have to play a role in helping humanity remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to curb dangerous climate warming. But are we ready to scale up the technologies that will do the job? The answer, according to an expert group reporting to the European Union, is no. At least, not yet – not until there are measures in place to ensure these technologies, called marine carbon dioxide removal technologies, are doing what they are supposed to do and won’t do more harm than good. Marine carbon dioxide removal technologies build on the ocean’s ability to ...

Each year, thousands of stroke survivors are left with hemianopia, a condition that causes loss of half of their visual field (the “vertical midline”). Hemianopia severely affects daily activities such as reading, driving, or just walking through a crowded space. There are currently no treatments that can restore lost visual function in hemianopia satisfactorily. Most available options focus on teaching patients how to adapt to loss of vision rather than recovering it. To achieve some degree of recovery, months of intensive neurorehabilitative training are required for only ...

A new study led by the University of St Andrews, has found that Critically Endangered African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) are significantly more likely to forage in the same areas as commercial fishing vessels during years of low fish abundance, increasing competition for food and adding pressure to a species already in crisis.  Published today (17 November) in the Journal of Applied Ecology, the research introduces a novel metric called “overlap intensity” ...

With an increasing intensity and severity of heat waves in the U.S., Rutgers Health researchers, in collaboration with the City University of New York (CUNY), found that older workers, particularly Black, Latino and low-income individuals, face an increased risk of work disability because of exposure to extreme heat. Their study, published in the journal Generations, explores how heat-sensitive occupations contribute to health-related work limitations among adults aged 50 and older. Using nationally representative data, the researchers found that workers ...

Physician responses to patient expectations can affect physician incomes and may help explain lower incomes for many women, racialized, and immigrant physicians, found a new study published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.250665. Researchers from McMaster University aimed to understand persistent identity-related income differences among physicians practising in Canada. They conducted a qualitative study that included interviews with 55 Ontario family physicians. “Pay disparities related to gender, race, and immigration status persist ...

In patients of reproductive age who have cancer, fertility preservation for potential children in the future should be a high priority. A practice article published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.250519 describes the successful preservation of ovarian tissue in a young woman undergoing urgent chemotherapy and demonstrates a novel model of care for Canada. “This case illustrates the complex challenges faced by young patients with cancer who desire biological children but require urgent treatment that threatens their reproductive potential,” ...

Generative Artificial Intelligence could result in a renewed emphasis on conversational approaches to teaching, researchers say, as chatbots make it easier to bypass recall-based learning and test the limits of traditional exams. In a new conceptual paper, researchers at the University of Cambridge argue that AI raises questions for aspects of traditional models of education which focus on absorbing and memorising information. The authors suggest that AI, like many earlier communications technologies, is forcing a rethink ...

Milestone results released by the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) on November 16 have solved a decades-old mystery about the cosmic ray energy spectrum—which shows a sharp decrease in cosmic rays above 3 PeV, giving it an unusual knee-like shape. The cause of the "knee" has remained unclear since its discovery nearly 70 years ago. Scientists have speculated that it is linked to the acceleration limit of the astrophysical sources of cosmic rays and reflects the transition of the cosmic ray energy spectrum from one power-law distribution to another.  Now, however, two recent studies—published in National ...

Researchers led by Keiya Hirashima at the RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS) in Japan, with colleagues from The University of Tokyo and Universitat de Barcelona in Spain, have successfully performed the world’s first Milky Way simulation that accurately represents more than 100 billion individual stars over the course of 10 thousand years. This feat was accomplished by combining artificial intelligence (AI) with numerical simulations. Not only does the simulation represent 100 times more individual stars than previous state-of-the-art models, but ...

Over 30 years in his lab at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory at MIT, Picower Professor Earl K. Miller has studied how the brain’s cortex produces thought. On Nov. 15, in an invited presidential lecture at the Society for Neuroscience annual meeting, he will tell the audience what reams of experimental evidence have led him to propose: Cognition and consciousness emerge from the dynamic organization of the cortex produced by traveling brain waves performing analog computations. Analog computing is an old ...

SAN DIEGO -- Veterans with Gulf War Illness experienced significant improvement in migraine symptoms after following a diet low in glutamate, a component of flavor enhancing food additives commonly found in processed foods, according to new research presented by Georgetown University and American University scientists. Brain scans also revealed decreased cortical thickness in patients on the diet — providing evidence, for the first time, that the improvement in symptoms was linked to measurable changes in the brain.  The findings point to a potential low-cost ...

Please note that each item in this release references a different embargo time! ROCKVILLE, Md. — Embargoed press materials are now available for the Association for Molecular Pathology 2025 Annual Meeting & Expo. Top clinicians, scientists and educators in the field will gather at the meeting Nov. 11–15 in Boston. Reporters are invited to attend an exciting lineup of in-person scientific sessions or access press materials electronically. See registration requirements. Featured research findings include: Using shelved DNA samples to understand the evolution of colorectal cancer Faster ...

Scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School have developed a targeted genetic test to improve diagnosis for X-linked dystonia-parkinsonism (XDP), a rare and disabling movement disorder that affects primarily men of Filipino ancestry. The work will be presented at the Association for Molecular Pathology (AMP) 2025 Annual Meeting & Expo, taking place Nov. 11–15 in Boston. XDP causes symptoms like those of Parkinson’s disease, such as muscle spasms, tremors and abnormal postures and movements. It usually first presents in the face, jaw or neck. As it progresses, speech, walking and independent ...