New research into the biomechanics of explosive seed dispersal in squirting cucumbers (Ecballium elaterium) reveals how these plants have adapted a suite of unique traits that help propel their high-speed seeds far and wide. Seed dispersal comes in many forms, and much is known about animal, wind and water-assisted dispersal – but less is known about the self-propelled dispersal mechanisms of plants. One of these is the ballistic dispersal of the squirting cucumber, which uses high-pressure explosions to eject its seeds at ...

Highlights: Human papillomaviruses, or HPVs, cause cutaneous and mucosal infections that may lead to cancer. To date, no antiviral treatment options exist for HPVs. Researchers have identified a promising new compound that inhibits cutaneous HPV. In lab studies, the compound inhibited viral replication genes in cutaneous HPVs without damaging host cells. Washington, D.C. — Human papillomaviruses, or HPVs, can cause dangerous infections in the skin and mucous membranes and may lead to cancer. Vaccines that prevent mucosal HPV infections aren’t effective against cutaneous infections, which can cause serious diseases, particularly ...

LOS ANGELES — City of Hope® Research Spotlight offers a glimpse at groundbreaking scientific and clinical discoveries advancing lifesaving cures for patients with cancer, diabetes and other chronic, life-threatening diseases. Each spotlight features research-related news, such as recognitions, collaborations and the latest research defining the future of medical treatment. To learn more about research at City of Hope, one of the largest and most advanced cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States with its National Medical Center named a Top 5 “Best Hospital” in the nation for cancer care by U.S. News & World Report, subscribe to City of ...

Background and Aims Gut dysbiosis has been reported in severe liver diseases. However, information on the impact of hepatitis E virus infection on the gut microbiota, and the association between enteric microbiota disturbances and acute hepatitis E (AHE), is limited, particularly in elderly patients with AHE (AHE-elderly). Our objective was to characterize the AHE-specific microbiome in elderly patients and evaluate its association with clinical outcomes. Methods Fecal samples and clinical data were collected from 58 AHE-elderly patients ...

The Three Gorges Region (TGR) of the Yangtze River spans Chongqing Municipality and Hubei Province, serving as a vital corridor connecting western and central China. The climate in the TGR features four distinct seasons with abundant precipitation and synchronized rain–heat periods. The climatic conditions in the TGR directly impact the safety of navigation in the Yangtze River, as well as the basin's agricultural production patterns and clean energy supply, all of which are crucial to regional socioeconomic development and ecological conservation. Therefore, ...

A combination of data from the FDA and two independent studies prompted a group of scientists to speak out on conversations surrounding 7-OH and its parent plant, kratom. The science confirms the strong safety profile of 7-OH and slams the door closed on continued efforts by industry competitors to push 7-OH out of the marketplace with public smears, unfounded science, and government overreach.  The Marwood Group recently completed an independent analysis of data from the FDA, CDC and other federal agencies that confirms 7-OH’s strong real-world safety profile. According to the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), there have ...

A study of the genetic basis of plague immunity in prairie dogs has broad implications for conservation. From white-nose syndrome in bats to avian malaria in Hawaiian birds, introduced pathogens are a major cause of population declines in native species. Many prairie dog populations in North America have been nearly wiped out by sylvatic plague, which is caused by the same bacteria that causes the Black Death in humans: Yersinia pestis. Loren Cassin-Sackett and colleagues studied an outbreak of plague in Boulder County, Colorado in 2006–2009 that hit the site of a long-term prairie dog ecology study. The authors trapped and sampled the ...

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (07/08/2025) — Should AI chatbots replace your therapist? New research says “no.”  The new study exposes the dangerous flaws in using artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots for mental health support. For the first time, the researchers evaluated these AI systems against clinical standards for therapists. The research, recently published and presented at the Association for Computing Machinery Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency (ACM FAccT), was a multi-disciplinary collaboration including researchers at the Stanford Institute for ...

As prices rose across the globe following the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, many expected the usual pattern, i.e., low-income households bearing the brunt of inflation. But in South Korea, they observed something exactly opposite to the usual scenario. A new study by Dr. Taiwon Ha from Pusan National University, South Korea, available online on 04 June 2025, in the journal Asian-Pacific Economic Literature shows that upper-middle-income households experienced a higher price increase than the poor, who were typically ...

Broiler chickens, bred for rapid growth, accumulate more fat under chronic heat stress, which reduces meat quality and production efficiency. In a recent study, researchers from Japan revealed that heat stress directly alters fat metabolism in adipose tissue, regulating genes that promote fat storage. Their findings suggest new strategies to mitigate heat stress-related losses in poultry production amidst global warming. The world’s growing population relies heavily on poultry as a source of protein, making the health and productivity of chickens critical for global food security. ...

San Francisco — Personalized CRISPR cures for children born with rare genetic diseases are now a step closer to being more widely available. Today, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) and the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) announced the funding of the Center for Pediatric CRISPR Cures (Center). The Center will use CRISPR-based editing technology to advance cures for severe pediatric genetic diseases and will bridge CRISPR cure design and testing at the University of California, Berkeley ...

Liquid biopsies are tests that detect signs of cancer through a simple blood draw. Unlike traditional biopsies, which require removing a piece of tissue, a liquid biopsy typically looks for mutations or modification changes in fragments of DNA from cancer cells circulating in the blood. While liquid biopsies are a promising, non-invasive way to detect and monitor cancer as it progresses, they aren’t as sensitive or accurate for the early stages of disease. Researchers at the University of Chicago have now developed a more sensitive liquid biopsy test that uses RNA instead of DNA for detecting cancer. Using blood samples from patients with colorectal cancer, the test was able to detect ...

On July 8, 2025, physicists from Aalto University in Finland published a transmon qubit coherence dramatically surpassing previous scientifically published records. The millisecond coherence measurement marks a quantum leap in computational technology, with the previous maximum echo coherence measurements approaching 0.6 milliseconds.  Longer qubit coherence allows for an extended window of time in which quantum computers can execute error-free operations, enabling more complex quantum computations and more quantum logic operations before errors occur. Not only does this allow for more calculations with noisy quantum computers, but it also decreases the resources needed for ...

The devastating floods that killed nearly 200 people in Germany four years ago this month could have been even more damaging, new research suggests.  The floods in July 2021 were among the worst disasters in German history. At least 196 people died in Germany, 43 people died in Belgium and the total damage to Central Europe amounted to €46 billion. The devastation of the floods was attributed to a climate change-driven shift in the jet stream that steered a huge storm that became “cut off” ...

University of Cincinnati Cancer Center researchers looked billions of years into the past to learn more about the potential future of precision medicine. Led by first author Bibek R. Karki and senior author Tom Cunningham, new research published July 8 in the journal Nature Communications traced the evolutionary origins of the PRPS enzyme complex and learned more about how this complex functions and influences cellular biochemistry. Study background The researchers focused on one of nature’s most important and evolutionarily ...

Researchers have discovered a strategy to neutralise two highly lethal viruses for which there is currently no approved vaccine or cure. A team led by Professor Daniel Watterson and Dr Ariel Isaacs at The University of Queensland has identified the first ever nanobody to work against Nipah and Hendra, henipaviruses which have jumped from animals to people in Asia and Australia. “A nanobody is one-tenth the size of an antibody and being that small it can access hard-to-reach areas of a virus to block infection,” Dr Isaacs said. “Nanobodies are also easier to produce and more stable at higher temperatures than traditional antibodies, so we are very excited about the potential ...

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have uncovered how to manipulate electrical flow through crystalline silicon, a material at the heart of modern technology. The discovery could lead to smaller, faster, and more efficient devices by harnessing quantum electron behavior. At the quantum scale, electrons behave more like waves than particles. And now, scientists have shown that the symmetrical structure of silicon molecules can be fine-tuned to create, or suppress, a phenomenon known as destructive interference. The effect can turn conductivity “on” or “off,” functioning as a molecular-scale ...

Ongoing research into the effect of environmental change on the buzzing of bees reveals that high temperatures and exposure to heavy metals reduces the frequency (and audible pitch) of non-flight wing vibrations, which could have consequences on the effectiveness of bee communication and their role as pollinators. “People have been long interested in how insect flight muscles work, as these muscles power the most efficient flight systems in nature,” says Dr Charlie Woodrow, a post-doctoral researcher at Uppsala University. “However, many do not know that bees use these muscles for functions other than flight.” These ...

A new paper in BJS, published by Oxford University Press, indicates that early-onset gastrointestinal cancer rates are rising dramatically across the globe. In the United States, the age-standardized rate of colorectal cancer decreased from 66.2 cases per 100,000 people in 1985 to 35.7 cases per 100,000 people in 2018. In contrast, early-onset colorectal cancer has shown a marked increase in both men and women in the United States since the mid-1990s, with the age-adjusted incidence rising from 5.9 cases per 100,000 in 2000 to 8.4 cases per 100,000 in 2017. Compared with adults born in 1950, those born in 1990 have twice the risk of ...

CAGLIARI, Sardinia, Italy, 8 July 2025 – In a comprehensive Genomic Press Interview published today in Genomic Psychiatry, Dr. Mirko Manchia opens up about his transformative journey from a small Sardinian city to becoming a leading voice in psychiatric pharmacogenomics, revealing how personal family experiences with mental illness sparked a lifelong quest to understand why psychiatric medications work brilliantly for some patients while failing others. The Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Cagliari has spent decades unraveling one of psychiatry's most perplexing puzzles: why does lithium, psychiatry's oldest mood stabilizer, ...

SÃO PAULO, São Paulo, Brazil, 8 July 2025 – In a comprehensive Genomic Press Interview, postdoctoral researcher Dr. Mateus Vidigal de Castro shares his contributions to longevity research at the University of São Paulo. Working under the supervision of Professor Mayana Zatz at one of Brazil's leading genetics research centers, Dr. de Castro studies induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from centenarians, particularly those who demonstrated recovery from COVID-19. Research ...

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania, USA – July 8, 2025 – Genomic Press today published in Genomic Psychiatry an in-depth interview with Dr. Xuyu Qian, Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, whose pioneering research in brain organoid technology and spatial transcriptomics is transforming our understanding of human brain development and neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr. Qian's recent landmark study, published in Nature (2025), represents one of the ...

SAN FRANCISCO, California, USA, 8 July 2025 – In a comprehensive Genomic Press Interview published in Brain Medicine, Dr. Michael C. Oldham shares his unconventional journey from advertising executive to computational neuroscientist and his groundbreaking contributions to understanding the human brain's cellular and molecular architecture through gene coexpression analysis. From Madison Avenue to molecular neuroscience Dr. Oldham's path to neuroscience was anything but direct. After graduating from Duke University at age 20 ...

MORGANTOWN, West Virginia, USA, 8 July 2025 – In a comprehensive Genomic Press Innovators & Ideas interview published today, distinguished neuroscientist Dr. Randy J. Nelson shares insights from his pioneering research on how disrupted circadian rhythms affect brain function and overall health. The interview, published in Brain Medicine, traces Dr. Nelson's unconventional path from farm work and autopsy assistant to becoming one of the world's leading authorities on biological rhythms. Dr. Nelson, who chairs the Department of Neuroscience at West Virginia University, has spent the ...

Osaka Metropolitan University researchers have solved a long-standing mystery in the field of sonochemistry: why do chemical reactions slow down when ultrasonic power becomes too strong? Their findings allow for smarter use of ultrasound in science and industry, such as for environmental cleanup or the creation of useful nanoparticles. Although ultrasound is inaudible to the human ear, it plays a powerful role in sonochemistry. When ultrasonic waves are applied to a liquid, they generate microscopic bubbles that rapidly ...