A groundbreaking technology developed by Heriot-Watt University has received over £475,000 in funding to revolutionise how eczema is diagnosed and treated, potentially ending years of suffering for millions of patients across the UK. The innovative vibroacoustic sensor, which measures material changes in each layer of skin using small vibrations on the surface, has received £275,000 from Scottish Enterprise and just over £200,000 from the Medical Research Council's Gap Fund to advance clinical ...

Commercial sunbeds should be banned in the UK, argue experts in The BMJ today. Using sunbeds causes melanoma and other skin cancers, particularly among young people, yet existing sunbed legislation is ineffective and there is little evidence that stricter rules would help protect the most vulnerable, say Professor Paul Lorigan and colleagues. Indoor tanning is experiencing a boom in popularity, particularly among Gen Z (born 1997-2012), with social media promoting sunbeds as integral to wellness, they explain. For example, a 2024 survey of 2,003 people in the UK by Melanoma Focus ...

The healthcare community has an important role in opposing the death penalty, argues an expert in The BMJ today. Bharat Malkani, reader in law at Cardiff University, says doctors must refuse to participate in the execution process and speak out against a practice that is antithetical to their commitment to promote health and wellbeing. Amnesty International reports that although the number of countries carrying out executions is decreasing, the number of executions in countries where it is legal has increased in recent years, he explains. At least 1518 executions took place globally in 2024, rising from 1153 recorded in 2023, making it the fourth ...

The most comprehensive mapping to date of the global risk of chikungunya suggests India could experience the greatest long-term impact from the mosquito-borne virus. Based on existing evidence of chikungunya transmission, the infectious disease model predicts 14.4 million people could be at risk of infections globally each year, with 5.1 million people at risk in India. It’s likely that chikungunya cases could also spread to regions not currently recording infections or considered at-risk, the analysis found, potentially increasing the number ...

  A new analytical method is revealing how conservationists can further boost breeding programmes dedicated to saving some of the world’s most threatened species, according to new research led by the University of Sheffield and ZSL.  Conservation zoos, and the global breeding programmes they facilitate, are vital to maintaining or restoring populations and boosting genetic diversity of threatened birds. But not every egg produced in ...

Four physicists from Rice University have received a $4.4 million grant over three years from the U.S. Department of Energy to establish the Rice Laboratory for Emergent Magnetic Materials (RLEMM). This new research center will investigate the fundamental interactions of magnetism and its role in next-generation technologies.  The award will support collaborative research led by principal investigator Pengcheng Dai along with co-investigators Ming Yi, Emilia Morosan and Qimiao Si. Their focus is on emergent phases of matter such as unconventional superconductivity, quantum ...

The WIN Symposium featured as the Oncology Track at the APM Annual Conference 2025 unites global leaders in oncology, translational science, and precision medicine. BUFFALO, NY – October 1, 2025 – Oncotarget is proud to announce that its Editor-in-Chief, Wafik S. El-Deiry, MD, PhD, FACP, will chair the WIN Symposium as the Oncology Track of the Advancing Precision Medicine (APM) Annual Conference held October 3–4, 2025, at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia. The WIN Consortium annual symposium featured as the Oncology ...

Large language models are more persuasive than humans, according to recent UBC research. Their vocabulary, perceived empathy and ability to provide tangible resources in seconds add to their persuasiveness, which has led to growing concerns and ongoing lawsuits about the potential for AI chatbots to cause harm to users. In this Q&A, Dr. Vered Shwartz, UBC assistant professor of computer science and author of the book Lost in Automatic Translation, discusses her findings as well as potential safeguards for the future of AI. Why does the persuasiveness of AI matter? VS: Large ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2025 Highlights: Long-term exposure to a common industrial chemical may be linked to a higher risk of Parkinson’s disease. Trichloroethylene (TCE) is a chemical used in metal degreasing and dry cleaning. Even though it has been banned for some uses, it remains in use today as an industrial solvent and lingers in air, soil and water across the U.S. Researchers estimated long-term TCE exposure for more than 1.1 million older adults by using ZIP+4 codes and air pollution data. Older adults living in areas with the highest TCE levels in outdoor air had a 10% higher ...

Forget the myth that exercise uses up your heartbeats. New Australian research shows fitter people use far fewer total heartbeats per day - potentially adding years to their lives. Athletes had an average heart rate of 68 beats per minute (bpm), while non-athletes had 76bpm. That translates to a total of 97,920 beats per day for athletes and 109,440 beats per day for non-athletes – around 10 percent less. “That’s an incredible saving of about 11,500 beats a day,” says Professor La Gerche, head of ...

Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes are vectors of multiple diseases including dengue, chikungunya and Zika, posing a public health risk to populations within their native range. A study published in PLOS Global Public Health by Colin Johnston at Centre for Climate and Health Security, UK Health Security Agency, Porton Down, Salisbury, United Kingdom and colleagues describes the detection of invasive mosquito eggs in the United Kingdom in 2023 and 2024, suggesting an increasing incidence of importation of these species. Historically, ...

New laboratory experiments show that a bacterium that lives on grape plants can break down guaiacol—an unpleasant-tasting substance which ruins wines made from grapes exposed to wildfire smoke. Claudia Castro of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on October 1, 2025. Wildfires are occurring increasingly often in wine-producing regions of the U.S. West Coast. Wine grapes can absorb substances from wildfire smoke that ultimately make ...

People with self-diagnosed ADHD report more negative self-image and more internalized stigma than clinically diagnosed individuals, and are more likely to seek social validation, per analysis of 450,000 ADHD sub-reddit posts Article URL: http://plos.io/4plEDJz Article title: Seeking validation in the digital age: The impact of validation seeking on self-image and internalized stigma among self- vs. clinically diagnosed individuals on r/ADHD Author countries: U.S., China Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Education appears to have a long-lasting protective effect in cognitive aging, even at 90+ years, according to a small, long-term cohort study Article URL: http://plos.io/4nrerv4 Article title: Midlife and old-age cardiovascular risk factors, educational attainment, and cognition at 90-years – population-based study with 48-years of follow-up Author countries: Finland Funding: This work was supported by the Finnish Brain Foundation [to A.V]; Orion Research Foundation [to P.I.M]; The Biomedicum Helsinki Foundation [to P.I.M]; Juho Vainio Foundation [to ...

England’s farms have significantly reduced their environmental footprint over the past decade, according to new modelling that suggests greenhouse gas emissions and other forms of pollution are on a downward trend. The study, which assessed intensive farming systems between 2010 and 2021 over 72,000 km² of farmland, found median reductions of 18% in both short- and long-term global warming potential, alongside a 21% drop in acidification potential. Eutrophication potential — the nutrient run-off ...

To the point Mammals vs birds: Among the 1,176 species studied, female mammals live on average 13 percent longer than males, while among birds, males live about five percent longer than females. Mating strategies play a role: In species with strong competition for mates – as is the case with most mammals – males die earlier. In monogamous species, such as many birds, males often live longer. Findings from zoos: Sex differences are more pronounced in wild populations than in zoos. This suggests that both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the discrepancy in life expectancy. Around the world, women on average live longer than ...

Have you ever forgotten about an upcoming doctor’s appointment—only to be reminded the day before by a text from your doctor’s office? People with legal obligations might also forget about upcoming court dates, but the consequences are more dire than a no-show fee. Across America, missed court dates routinely result in warrants and arrests. In a new study, published in the open-access journal Science Advances, researchers at NYU, Harvard, and Stanford created software that sent text messages to clients of public defenders in California, reminding them of upcoming court dates. They found that reminders significantly ...

New Haven, Conn. — Our solar system is a smashing success. A new study suggests that from its earliest period — even before the last of its nebular gas had been consumed — Earth’s solar system and its planets looked more like a bin of well-used LEGO blocks than slowly-evolving spheres of untouched elements and minerals. “Far from being made of pristine material, planets — including Earth — were built from recycled fragments of shattered and rebuilt bodies,” said Damanveer Singh Grewal, an assistant professor of Earth and planetary science in Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences and first author of a new study in the journal ...

Wildfire smoke causes more air pollution than current atmospheric models can predict. A new study by researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences explains why by revealing that, under sunlight, wildfire smoke particles act like tiny chemical factories, producing harmful oxidants such as peroxides, a group of highly reactive pollutants contributing to smog and haze. The new study helps explain why field measurements consistently detect ...

A new study, led by researchers at the University of Liverpool, has revealed how pathogenic bacteria construct tiny protein-based compartments, known as Eut microcompartments, which enable them to digest ethanolamine - a nutrient commonly found in the gut. Eut microcompartments are critical for bacterial growth and virulence. Understanding their assembly offers new insight into how bacteria survive and thrive in the gut and could help identify potential targets for antimicrobial therapies. The study, published in Science Advances, ...

In Africa, 150 million people live with hypertension, 54 million with diabetes, and over 40 million battle depression or bipolar disorder. “In Africa, the twin burden of mental illness and cardiometabolic disease is a silent crisis,” says Dr Vivien Chebii, a researcher at the Sydney Brenner Institute for Molecular Bioscience (SBIMB) who was awarded the prestigious Wellcome fellowship.   This dual burden of the diseases is particularly challenging, says Chebii, as one condition may exacerbate the other. Those who live with poor mental health face an increased risk of developing cardiometabolic diseases and vice versa. The Wellcome ...

Immunologist Chrysothemis Brown, MD, PhD, whose research has been shedding light on the development of the early life immune system and its relationship to autoimmunity, allergy, inflammation, and cancer, was among 30 early-career scientists nationwide selected for the 2025 class of Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Freeman Hrabowski Scholars. The prestigious honor supports outstanding basic researchers, including physician-scientists who have strong potential to become leaders in their fields and who have fostered ...

Broad public understanding of scientific discoveries has traditionally been shaped by mainstream media coverage. To better understand the process of communicating academic publications to popular media, a team from Harvard University analyzed 1,155 archaeology papers published in one specialist and six general science journals over six years and the resulting media coverage.   The team found that archaeology journal articles with news releases on EurekAlert!, a news release distribution platform operated by the non-profit American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), were about four times more likely to receive ...

Researchers find different genetic profiles related to two trajectories that autistic children tend to follow. One linked to early diagnosis, and communication difficulties in infancy. The other linked to later diagnosis, increased social and behavioural difficulties in adolescence, and higher rates of conditions like ADHD, depression, and PTSD. An international study led by researchers at the University of Cambridge has discovered that autism diagnosed in early childhood has a different genetic and developmental profile to autism diagnosed from late childhood onwards. The scientists say that ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- A diet rich in the amino acid cysteine may have rejuvenating effects in the small intestine, according to a new study from MIT. This amino acid, the researchers discovered, can turn on an immune signaling pathway that helps stem cells to regrow new intestinal tissue. This enhanced regeneration may help to heal injuries from radiation, which often occur in patients undergoing radiation therapy for cancer. The research was conducted in mice, but if future research shows similar results in humans, then delivering elevated quantities of cysteine, ...