As people age, structural brain changes influence their ability to adapt to the environment. New from eNeuro, Tatiana Wolfe and colleagues at the University of Arkansas characterized changes in the brain across two periods of adulthood that may correspond to changes in adaptive behavior.  The researchers identified brain areas associated with the ability to adapt to the environment by analyzing previous neuroimaging studies. They ...

The Society of Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS), announces the appointment of Madeline M. Farley, PhD, as its new Scientific Director, effective January 19. Farley joins SLAS after serving as Chief Scientific Officer, Biochemistry & Bioanalytical Division at Genesis Drug Discovery & Development (GD3) in Township, NJ, as well as Managing Director for PharmOptima, a GD3 subsidiary. As Chief Scientific Officer, she led teams across three U.S. laboratory sites, built the Ocular Center of Excellence and oversaw regulated and exploratory bioanalysis. “I’m excited ...

In 1982, cartoonist Gary Larson published a now-iconic Far Side comic entitled Cow Tools. In it, a cow stands proudly beside a jumble of bizarre, useless objects that are “tools” in name only. The joke hinged on a simple assumption: cows are not intelligent enough to make or use tools. Now, this assumption is being challenged by a real cow named Veronika, according to a new study published in the Cell Press journal Current Biology on January 19. This study is the first to describe tool use in a pet cow, suggesting that the cognitive abilities of cattle ...

When a rhinovirus, the most frequent cause of the common cold, infects the lining of our nasal passages, our cells work together to fight the virus by triggering an arsenal of antiviral defenses. In a paper publishing January 19 in the Cell Press journal Cell Press Blue, researchers demonstrate how the cells in our noses work together to defend us from the common cold and suggest that our body’s defense to rhinovirus—not the virus itself—typically predicts whether or not we catch a cold, as well as how bad our symptoms will be. “As the number one cause of common colds and a major cause of breathing problems in people with asthma and ...

A new study examines the potential impact of the Medicare Prescription Payment Plan (M3P) — an opt-in policy implemented in 2025 under the Inflation Reduction Act that allows beneficiaries to spread out of pocket (OOP) costs over the calendar year — on Medicare Part D beneficiaries with cancer who face high out-of-pocket (OOP) prescription drug costs. Many cancer patients enrolled in Part D incur thousands of dollars in OOP expenses at the start of the year to quickly reach the catastrophic coverage threshold, after which cost-sharing drops to zero. For patients living on fixed or limited incomes, these large upfront payments can be unmanageable, ...

Through a statewide partnership, hospitals in Michigan drastically increased the number of patients who receive follow up imaging after undergoing aortic aneurysm repair, according to a recent study. The rate of imaging in the year following endovascular aneurysm repair, or EVAR, improved from nearly 28% in 2017 to just below 80% in 2023. Patients who participated in surveillance imaging had a nearly 60% decrease in the likelihood of dying within one year of surgery, after controlling for other comorbidities. The results are published in Circulation: Population Health and Outcomes. “EVAR is now more common that open surgery, yet as many as 57% of patients were ...

Hydrogen, a clean energy source, requires a highly reliable and safe storage system, which is currently lacking. Layered hydrogen silicane (L-HSi) is a promising, safe, lightweight, and energy-efficient solid-state hydrogen carrier with potential for practical utility. This material releases hydrogen when irradiated with low-intensity visible-light sources like sunlight or LEDs. L-HSi represents a new direction for hydrogen carrier system research. Hydrogen is a promising fuel that can replace conventional fossil fuels as it emits no carbon dioxide during combustion or oxidation and can be produced from ...

One of the discoveries that fundamentally distinguished the emerging field of quantum physics from classical physics was the observation that matter behaves differently at the smallest scales. A key finding was wave-particle duality, the revelation that particles can exhibit wave-like properties. This duality was famously demonstrated in the double-slit experiment. When electrons were fired through two slits, they created an interference pattern of light and dark fringes on a detector. This pattern showed that each electron behaved like a wave, with its quantum wave-function passing through both slits and interfering with itself. The same phenomenon ...

Quantum key distribution (QKD) is an emerging communication technology that utilizes quantum mechanics principles to ensure highly secure communication between two parties. It enables the sender and receiver to generate a shared secret key over a channel that may be monitored by an attacker. Any attempt to eavesdrop introduces detectable errors in the quantum signals, allowing communicating parties to detect if communication is compromised via QKD protocols. Among the various parameters that influence the performance of QKD systems, ...

A new three-dimensional model of the fault beneath the Marmara Sea in Türkiye reveals where a future major earthquake could take place, as reported by researchers from Science Tokyo. Using electromagnetic measurements, the team mapped hidden structures that help explain how earthquakes initiate and where ruptures could occur in this region. The findings help improve earthquake forecasts and could guide disaster prevention strategies for millions living in Istanbul and nearby, where seismic risk is high. The Republic of Türkiye sits in one of the most seismically ...

What if you could create new materials just by shining a light at them? To most, this sounds like science fiction or alchemy, but to physicists investigating the burgeoning field of Floquet engineering, this is the goal. With a periodic drive, like light, scientists can ‘dress up’ the electronic structure of any material, altering its fundamental properties – such as turning a simple semiconductor into a superconductor. While the theory of Floquet physics has been investigated since a bold proposal by Oka and Aoki in 2009, ...

Researchers have developed a wearable, comfortable and washable device called Revoice that could help people regain the ability to communicate naturally and fluently following a stroke, without the need for invasive brain implants. The device, whose development was led by researchers at the University of Cambridge, uses a combination of ultra-sensitive sensors and artificial intelligence to decode speech signals and emotional cues to allow people with post-stroke speech impairment to communicate naturally. The Revoice device, worn as a soft and flexible choker, captures the wearer’s heart rate and tiny vibrations from throat muscles, and uses those signals ...

Media Contact: John Dudley (814) 490-3290 (cell) jjdudley@usf.edu Click here for images and a PDF of the journal article EMBARGOED UNTIL MONDAY, JAN. 19, 2026, AT 5 A.M. ET Key takeaways: AI analysis of 20 years of satellite data shows floating macroalgae blooms expanding worldwide, with rapid growth beginning around 2008–2010. Researchers used deep learning and high-performance computing to detect algae that often make up less than 1% of a satellite pixel — a task not possible without artificial intelligence. While floating algae can support marine life offshore, large blooms threaten coastal ecosystems, tourism and ...

Researchers at Mass General Brigham and Karolinska Institutet have identified a new method to predict asthma exacerbations with a high degree of accuracy. The study is published in Nature Communications. Asthma is one of the world's most common chronic diseases, affecting over 500 million people. Asthma exacerbations – commonly known as asthma attacks – are a major cause of disease morbidity and healthcare costs. Despite the prevalence of asthma, clinicians currently lack reliable biomarkers to identify which patients are at high risk for future ...

Comprehensive guidance about the design of permanent bamboo structures has been published by the Institution of Structural Engineers (IStructE). The detailed design manual draws on the expertise of four international authors from academia and industry. They are all members of the INBAR Bamboo Construction Task Force (BCTF), one of the leading international bodies on the structural uses of bamboo: Dr David Trujillo CEng, Assistant Professor in Humanitarian Engineering, School of Engineering at the University of Warwick; Kent Harries PEng, Professor of Structural Engineering and Mechanics, University of Pittsburgh; Sebastian Kaminski CEng, an IStructE Fellow ...

ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Today’s parents may be growing more relaxed about their children using curse words, according to a national poll. Only about half of parents say children should never swear, even as many acknowledge that their own kids sometimes do, according to the University of Michigan Health C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health. Meanwhile, more than a third of parents say whether it’s acceptable depends on the situation, while fewer say it depends on the specific word being used or that swearing is not a big deal. At the same ...

Dr Ibrahim Mohammed is a clinical psychologist and researcher specializing in trauma, somatic symptoms, and psychopathology in conflict-affected populations. He has worked for over a decade with survivors of massacres in the Kurdistan Region, integrating clinical practice with research. He is also a lecturer at the Institute of Psychotherapy and Psychotraumatology at the University of Duhok. His current research focuses on validating psychological instruments for Kurdish communities and exploring genetic and phenomic factors related to trauma-related ...

Peer reflection on microteaching plays a crucial role in teachers’ training programs as it equips novice teachers with opportunities to understand their peers’ practices. It enhances their reflective thinking, teaching awareness, and bridges the gap between theoretical and practical teaching practices. While structured activities such as journals, feedback forms, and appraisal sheet scaffolds are common, video-based peer reflection processes are also gaining prominence. The dialogic feedback sessions, based on video-recorded ...

Caregiving in the modern era is challenging for even the most prepared adults. So, what happens when this burden falls on children? As Japan's population ages, the number of children and young people responsible for caregiving is increasing. However, the impact of this on their health and daily lives remains not well understood. To gain better insight, Professor Bing Niu and Dr. Ziyan Wang from Osaka Metropolitan University’s Graduate School of Economics conducted two rounds of surveys, one in 2021 during the COVID-19 ...

Excitement is building for FIFA World Cup soccer games in Toronto and Vancouver in June and July, yet Canada’s overburdened health systems may buckle with any additional demand, cautions an editorial published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.252094. “Canada is increasingly vulnerable to events that may result in a surge in health care utilization, including climate emergencies, mass gathering events, infectious diseases outbreaks, and global defence escalations,” writes Dr. Catherine Varner, an emergency medicine physician ...

Autistic and non-autistic people express emotions differently through their facial movements, according to a new study, which may help to explain why emotional expressions are sometimes misinterpreted between the two groups.   In a landmark study mapping facial expressions among autistic and non-autistic individuals, researchers at the University of Birmingham used detailed facial motion tracking to create an extensive library of facial expressions linked to major emotions such as anger, happiness and sadness, with more than 265 million data points.   The study, published in Autism Research, involved 25 autistic and 26 non-autistic adults, who produced nearly 5000 expressions ...

There is no clear evidence that cannabis-based medicines provide pain relief for chronic neuropathic pain, an updated Cochrane review finds. Chronic neuropathic pain is caused by nerve damage. Existing medications help only a minority of patients, driving interest in alternatives, such as cannabis-based medicines. These can include herbal cannabis or isolated ingredients of the cannabis plant such as tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) by inhalation, mouth sprays, tablets, creams, and patches placed on the skin. Researchers reviewed 21 clinical trials involving more than 2,100 adults, comparing ...

Sum-frequency generation (SFG) is a powerful vibrational spectroscopy that can selectively probe molecular structures at surfaces and interfaces, but its spatial resolution has been limited to the micrometer scale by the diffraction limit of light. Here, we overcame this limitation by utilizing a highly confined near field within a plasmonic nanogap and successfully extended the SFG spectroscopy into nanoscopic regime with ~10-nm spatial resolution. We also established a comprehensive theoretical framework that accurately describes the microscopic mechanisms of this near-field SFG process. These experimental and theoretical achievements ...

A recent study from Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University found that while hydrogen production, storage and fuel cell technologies are advancing rapidly, the hydrogen distribution infrastructure is developing at half the speed, creating a critical bottleneck that could put billions in clean energy at risk.   The findings, published in the journal Sustainable Futures, are an important milestone in recognising that, while other hydrogen technologies improve and costs fall, distribution expenses could take up a large share of hydrogen system budgets, significantly limiting overall efficiency and growth of ...

After increasing for more than 25 years, lung cancer death rates are finally levelling off among women in European Union (EU) countries apart from Spain, according to predictions of mortality rates from the disease for 2026. In the UK, death rates from lung cancer have been falling among women for several years, although from a higher peak than those seen in the EU, but they have continued to rise among EU women during this time.   Now, in a new study published in the leading cancer journal Annals of ...