The future of sustained space habitation depends on our ability to grow fresh food away from Earth. The revolutionary new collaborative Moon-Rice project is using cutting-edge experimental biology to create an ideal future food crop that can be grown in future deep-space outposts, as well as in extreme environments back on Earth. Modern space exploration relies heavily on resupplies of food from Earth, but this tends to be largely pre-prepared meals that rarely contain fresh ingredients. To counteract the negative effects that the space ...

A new study, published in Addiction, shines a light on how industries associated with health harms—such as tobacco, fossil fuels, and in this case, alcohol—can distort the evaluation of scientific research through industry-friendly commentary.  A team of researchers led by UVic’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (CISUR), analyzed 268 critiques of alcohol and health studies published online since 2010 by the International Scientific Forum on Alcohol Research, or ISFAR.  ISFAR describes themselves as an international group of “invited physicians and scientists who are specialists in their fields and committed ...

Plastic waste pollutes oceans across all regions of the world. Marine animals may become entangled in larger plastic debris such as nets and bags or mistake smaller pieces for food. Ingested plastic can block or injure the gastrointestinal tract. The smallest plastic particles in the micro and nano range are mostly excreted, but a small proportion can pass through the intestinal wall and enter the bloodstream. So how much nanoplastic is actually present in the oceans? Most scientific attention has so far been focussed ...

Wild relatives of cultivated plants are a vital source of genetic diversity for improving crops and provide a valuable reservoir of resistance against biotic and abiotic stressors. Although their value has been recognised for decades, technological obstacles have long hindered their exploration. Thanks to advances in high-throughput genomic research, the same tools can now be used in crops and their wild relatives. An international research team led by the IPK Leibniz Institute studied structural genome evolution in barley (Hordeum vulgare) and Hordeum bulbosum. For this study, Dr. Frank Blattner collected H. bulbosum ...

Scientists have produced the first detailed characterisation of the changes that weight loss causes in human fat tissue by analysing hundreds of thousands of cells. They found a range of positive effects, including clearing out of damaged, ageing cells, and increased metabolism of harmful fats. The researchers say the findings help to better understand how weight loss leads to health improvements at a molecular level, which in the future could help to inform the development of therapies for diseases such as type 2 diabetes. The study, published in the journal Nature, compared samples ...

A new study from the University of Pittsburgh shows for the first time how exercise improves cancer outcomes and enhances response to immunotherapy in mice by reshaping the gut microbiome. The research, published in the journal Cell, found that these benefits are driven by a specific compound called formate, which is produced by gut bacteria in exercised mice and was also associated with better outcomes in patients with melanoma. “We already knew that exercise increases the effectiveness of cancer immunotherapies, and we separately knew that exercise changes the microbiome in mice and humans,” said ...

About The Study: In this randomized clinical trial of antihypertensive chronotherapy, bedtime dosing provided better control of nocturnal blood pressure and improved the circadian rhythm, without reducing the efficacy on mean daytime or 24-hour blood pressure, or increasing the risk of nocturnal hypotension. These findings support the potential advantages of bedtime administration and offer new evidence to guide future research on antihypertensive chronotherapy.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Xiaoping Chen, MD, email xiaopingchen15@126.com. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.19354) Editor’s ...

About The Study: This cross-sectional study including 426,000 children in Denmark found that body mass index (BMI) outcomes of COVID-19 pandemic–related control policies and restrictions were not exclusively observed among children with obesity, which suggests that pandemic-related mitigation policies targeting children and adolescents in all BMI categories are warranted. The findings of this study highlight differences among children of varying ages and BMI classes.  Corresponding Author: To contact ...

Picture juicy red tomatoes on the vine. What do you see? Some tomato varieties have straight vines. Others are branched. The question is why. New research from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) provides the strongest evidence to date that the answer lies in what are called cryptic mutations. The findings have implications for agriculture and medicine, as they could help scientists fine-tune plant breeding techniques and clinical therapeutics. Cryptic mutations are differences in DNA that don’t affect physical traits unless certain other genetic changes occur at the same time. CSHL Professor & HHMI Investigator Zachary Lippman has ...

Enzymes catalyze chemical reactions in organisms - without which life would not be possible. Leveraging AlphaFold2 artificial intelligence, researchers at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin have now succeeded in analyzing the laws of their evolution on a large scale. In the journal Nature*, they describe the parts of enzymes that change comparatively quickly and the parts that remain practically unchanged over time. These findings are relevant to the development of new antibiotics, for example. Enzymes resemble ...

A research team led by Eske Willerslev, professor at the University of Copenhagen and the University of Cambridge, has recovered ancient DNA from 214 known human pathogens in prehistoric humans from Eurasia. The study shows, among other things, that the earliest known evidence of zoonotic diseases – illnesses transmitted from animals to humans, like COVID in recent times – dates back to around 6,500 years ago, with such diseases becoming more widespread approximately 5,000 years ago. It is ...

The largest review of ‘gold standard’ antidepressant withdrawal studies to date has identified the type and incidence of symptoms experienced by people discontinuing antidepressants, finding most people do not experience severe withdrawal. In a systematic review and meta-analysis of previous randomised controlled trials relating to antidepressant withdrawal, a team of researchers led by Imperial College London and King’s College London concluded that, while participants who stopped antidepressants did experience an average of one more symptom than those who continued or were taking ...

Twisted materials—known as moiré structures—have revolutionized modern physics, emerging as today's "alchemy" by creating entirely new phases of matter through simple geometric manipulation. The term "moiré" may sound familiar—it describes the strange rippling patterns you sometimes see when photographing striped shirts or screens; in physics, the same underlying principle applies at the atomic scale.  Imagine taking two atomically thin sheets of either the same or different materials, stacking them up together, and rotating one layer slightly relative ...

The Moon's near and far sides exhibit striking asymmetry—from topography and crustal thickness to volcanic activity—yet the origins of these differences long puzzled scientists. China's Chang'e-6 mission, launched on May 3, 2024, changed this by returning 1,935.3 grams of material from the lunar farside's South Pole–Aitken Basin (SPA), the Moon's largest, deepest, and oldest known impact structure, measuring 2,500 kilometers in diameter. The samples arrived on Earth on June 25, 2024. Previous studies indicated that the SPA was formed by a colossal impact approximately 4.25 billion years ago, releasing energy greater than that of a trillion ...

In International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, a new laser machining method that dynamically adapts its beam shape is proposed to fabricate microgrooves with complex, highly precise cross-sections—some with a root mean square error decreased to less than 0.5 μm when processing microgrooves with a width of 10 μm. The technique, developed by researchers at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen, China, could advance the production of microfluidic devices, sensors, and heat dissipation systems by allowing for rapid and scalable manufacturing of custom microstructures. Laser micromachining has long been constrained by the fundamental ...

“By synthesizing current insights on both RTK and non-RTK mediated resistance against anti-EGFR therapies, this review aims to guide future research and improve therapeutic strategies for these cancers.” BUFFALO, NY – July 9, 2025 – A new review was published in Volume 16 of Oncotarget on June 25, 2025, titled “Challenges and resistance mechanisms to EGFR targeted therapies in head and neck cancers and breast cancer: Insights into RTK dependent and independent mechanisms.” Researchers from the University of Cincinnati and Cincinnati ...

(Toronto, July 9, 2025) JMIR Publications invites submissions to a new theme issue titled “Ambient AI Scribes and AI-Driven Documentation Technologies” in its open access journal JMIR Medical Informatics. The premier, peer-reviewed journal is indexed in MEDLINE, PubMed, PubMed Central, DOAJ, Scopus, and the Science Citation Index Expanded (SCIE). Recent developments in generative artificial intelligence (AI) offer a promising pathway for reducing long-standing administrative burdens for physicians and clinicians. Specifically, there is a rapidly evolving field of ambient AI ...

Background and Aims Acute hepatitis E (AHE) in the elderly can lead to severe complications including liver failure and mortality, yet the epidemiological landscape remains poorly characterized. This study aimed to assess the burden, trends, and health inequalities of AHE among the elderly over the past three decades, and to further predict its changes by 2030. Methods Data on AHE in the elderly were obtained from the Global Burden of Disease 2021. The burden of AHE was analyzed by trends, decomposition, cross-country inequalities, and predictive analysis. Results In 2021, the global incidence and Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) for AHE among the elderly ...

A research team led by Dr. Kee Young Koo from the Hydrogen Research Department at the Korea Institute of Energy Research (President: Yi Chang-Keun, hereafter referred to as KIER) has developed a novel and more cost-effective method for synthesizing ammonia decomposition catalysts. This new approach enables more efficient hydrogen production from ammonia and is expected to make a significant contribution to the realization of a hydrogen economy. Composed of three hydrogen atoms and one nitrogen atom, ammonia has a high hydrogen content, ...

Mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) are important coral ecosystems found between 30 and 150 meters deep in oceans worldwide including the Gulf of America. They support diverse marine life and important fisheries but remain poorly understood. Unlike shallow reefs, MCEs depend on nutrients from the deep ocean from upwelling or river plumes, like those from the Mississippi and Apalachicola rivers. These nutrient flows support growth of marine phytoplankton (i.e. tiny floating algae), which is an important source of organic matter (food) that sustains the corals and other marine species. However, scientists have ...

PULLMAN, Wash. -- Groundwater is declining across Eastern Washington’s complex, interconnected aquifer system, as people draw on it for irrigation, drinking and other uses at a pace that threatens its sustainability, according to a new study by a Washington State University researcher. In certain “hot spots” – such as the Odessa region and the Yakima Basin – the rates of decline are particularly significant, with groundwater levels dropping two to three feet a year or more. The data is built ...

Creatine is popularly known as a muscle-building supplement, but its influence on human muscle function can be a matter of life or death. “Creatine is very crucial for energy-consuming cells in skeletal muscle throughout the body, but also in the brain and in the heart,” said Chin-Yi Chen, a research scientist at Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC. Chen is part of a research team working to develop a technique that uses focused ultrasound to deliver creatine directly to the brain. The work, being conducted ...

CO2 concentrations vary widely depending on the source, ranging, for example, from about 0.04% in the atmosphere to about 10% in flue gases. Moreover, these gas streams contain a significant amount of O2 (about 10%), a potent oxidizing agent. To achieve carbon neutrality, it is necessary to develop a robust process that can convert CO2 over a wide concentration range, even in the presence of O2. However, current technology does not offer a single unified approach that can efficiently handle CO2 conversion from trace to high concentrations. To meet this challenge, researchers at Hokkaido University and collaborators ...

WASHINGTON—A new Scientific Statement released today by the Endocrine Society highlights potential research directions related to the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes (T1D) that should help with the development of new and improved treatment options. Type 1 diabetes is a chronic disease where the body's immune system attacks and destroys insulin-producing cells in the pancreatic islet. Type 1 diabetes requires lifelong insulin administration and may result in complications such as eye, kidney, nerve, and heart disease. ...

PITTSBURGH, July 9, 2025 — During the menopause transition, only 1 in 5 women have optimal scores using the American Heart Association’s health-assessment tool, known as Life’s Essential 8 (LE8). Among the tool’s eight components, four of them — blood glucose, blood pressure, sleep quality and nicotine use — are key in driving future cardiovascular risks, with sleep being particularly crucial for long-term cardiovascular health. The findings – published today in Menopause – were made by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Baylor University. “Previously ...