(BERGEN, Norway) – Today, the Holberg Prize—one of the largest international prizes awarded annually to an outstanding researcher in the humanities, social sciences, law or theology—named Australian scholar Lyndal Roper as its 2026 Laureate. Roper is the Regius Chair of History at the University of Oxford emeritus. She will receive the award of NOK 6,000,000 (approx. GBP 466,00 / USD 630,000) during a 4th June ceremony at the University of Bergen, Norway. Professor Roper is internationally recognized as one of the leading scholars of early modern European history. Her pioneering ...

Reconnecting Kidney Plumbing, the Zebrafish Way MDI Bio Lab scientists discover how the fish solves a basic challenge in regenerative biology—insights in their newest publication in the journal Development could one day guide human repair. When the human kidney is damaged by conditions such as high blood pressure or the elevated blood sugar levels that accompany diabetes, it can lose some of its nephrons – the kidney’s basic waste-filtering units. Lose enough of them and kidney function falters, leading to the hallmarks ...

Tsukuba, Japan—Noncontact vibration measurement is essential for ensuring the safety and reliability of structures such as buildings, bridges, aircraft, and railway systems. Laser-based systems such as laser Doppler violometers provide accurate results but require expensive equipment and elaborate setup procedures. Camera-based vibration measurement has gained attention as a more affordable alternative. However, conventional cameras generate images by integrating light over a finite exposure time. To capture high-speed vibrations, the exposure time must be shortened, which reduces the amount of detectable light. Accordingly, the illumination must be significantly increased, ...

IgA nephropathy (IgAN) is the most common primary glomerulonephritis worldwide. For decades, the “gut-kidney axis” hypothesis has suggested that the disease begins not in the kidneys, but in the gut mucosa, where an abnormal immune response produces pathogenic galactose-deficient IgA1 (Gd–IgA1). However, current treatments mostly focus on suppressing inflammation in the kidney, failing to stop the production of harmful antibodies at their source. The precise cellular mechanisms within the gut of IgAN patients have remained a black box due to the challenges of obtaining and analyzing intestinal tissue.   In ...

We have identified a macrophage population “Mrep” that plays an essential role in muscle repair. However, in Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva (FOP), Mrep functions as a pathogenic cell that triggers heterotopic ossification. These research findings would contribute not only to muscle regeneration therapy but also to the development of novel therapeutic approaches for FOP. Musculoskeletal disorders are a primary cause of disability worldwide, especially in aging societies like Japan. As individuals age, reductions in muscle mass ...

Tsukuba, Japan—Waterpipe tobacco smoking—also known as shisha, hookah, or narghile—is a method in which tobacco is heated with charcoal and the resulting smoke passes through water before being inhaled. Although the practice originated in the Middle East during the late Middle Ages, it poses a significant risk of carbon monoxide exposure because the charcoal used for heating produces CO through incomplete combustion. Within the jurisdiction of Tokyo's Third Fire District Headquarters, which covers three southwestern wards of Tokyo, emergency services recorded approximately one case of acute CO poisoning related to waterpipe ...

Tsukuba, Japan—To reduce the adverse health effects associated with exposure to second-hand smoke, Japan fully enforced the Revised Health Promotion Law in April 2020, introducing a nationwide indoor smoking ban in restaurants and similar hospitality establishments. However, the law includes temporary exemptions that permit pre-existing small-scale restaurants and bars to allow indoor smoking, provided that individuals under the age of 20 are not exposed. To mitigate the potential public health impact of these exemptions, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and Chiba City simultaneously implemented stricter passive smoking prevention ordinances designed to further ...

Herdon, VA, March 17, 2026 — Listeria is the third-leading cause of death among bacterial foodborne pathogens in the U.S. and pregnant individuals bear a disproportionate share of that burden. Yet the scientific models used to set food safety policy have rarely been designed with pregnant people specifically in mind. A new study to be published in Risk Analysis aims to change that.  Each year, approximately 1,250 Americans contract listeriosis, the illness caused by Listeria monocytogenes. The disease carries a staggering 86% hospitalization rate and is fatal in approximately 14% of cases. For pregnant individuals, the stakes are even higher: ...

WASHINGTON—Early-life exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) may influence how children’s bones develop during adolescence, according to new research published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society. PFAS are synthetic chemicals found in water, food and everyday products. These “forever chemicals,” many of which persist in the environment and in the human body, may interfere with normal development, including ...

CLEVELAND—Finding an effective treatment for osteosarcoma, the most common type of bone cancer in children and young adults, has puzzled medical researchers for 40 years. Now, a new study by researchers at Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals show some promising results. The study, published in BMC Medicine, found that a specially engineered immune-cell treatment, called OSM CAR-T, successfully attacks osteosarcoma tumors in mouse models. Osteosarcoma mainly strikes children, teenagers and young adults ...

During the winters of 2024 and 2025, widespread “spinning fish” events swept through the Florida Keys, impacting more than 80 marine fish species and likely killing hundreds of endangered large juvenile and adult smalltooth sawfish (Pristis pectinata). This mysterious phenomenon caused fish to swim in tight circles, lose balance and sometimes die, likely due to environmental stressors or neurotoxins from algae. These losses dealt a major blow to a species that has already suffered one of the most severe ...

Selective hydrogenation is a key reaction in the chemical industry, playing an essential role in petrochemical refining, fine chemical synthesis, pharmaceutical manufacturing, and environmental applications. The ability to precisely control hydrogenation selectivity is particularly critical for reactions involving multifunctional molecules, where over-hydrogenation or undesired side reactions can significantly reduce product value. In recent years, single-atom catalysts (SACs) have emerged as a promising class of catalytic materials capable of addressing these challenges. A recent review provides a systematic ...

Amyloid beta and tau proteins compete for the same binding sites on microtubules in neurons, suggesting that displacement of tau by amyloid beta, rather than aggregation of either protein, may be the primary driver of Alzheimer's disease pathology. Ryan R. Julian and colleagues used fluorescence polarization to measure the binding affinities of fluorescently labeled amyloid beta 1-40 and 1-42 to both individual tubulin proteins and microtubules. The authors found binding affinities comparable to those reported for tau. Sequence homology analysis across three alignment algorithms confirmed structural similarity between amyloid beta and the microtubule-binding domains of tau. Competitive ...

People who consumed over nine servings of ultra-processed foods per day on average were 67% more likely to suffer a major cardiac event than people consuming about one serving of such foods per day, in a study being presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session (ACC.26). Ultra-processed foods include many packaged and convenience foods, such as chips, crackers, frozen meals, processed meats, sugary drinks, breakfast cereals and breads. With each additional daily serving, the risk of adverse events such as heart attacks, strokes and death from coronary ...

Measures of blood vessel health derived from routine blood pressure readings may help identify adults at increased risk for dementia, according to research being presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session (ACC.26). The findings from two studies that tracked patterns of arterial stiffness over time align with growing evidence that uncontrolled hypertension contributes to the development of dementia by accelerating the aging and stiffening of blood vessels. Rates of dementia and ...

People with heart disease who received a shingles vaccine had nearly half the rate of serious cardiac events a year later compared with those who did not get the vaccine, according to a study being presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session (ACC.26). The study analyzed over 246,822 U.S. adults with atherosclerotic heart disease, a condition caused by plaque buildup in arteries. Its findings add to mounting evidence that the shingles vaccine not only protects against shingles, but may also reduce the risk of other health issues such as heart problems and dementia. “This ...

An island bird species discovered in Japan looks just like a similar species from 1,000 km away, but has been genetically isolated for millions of years. Takema Saitoh, Per Alström, and colleagues report the existence of the Tokara Leaf Warbler, a small insectivorous songbird with an olive-green back and a silvery gray breast from the Tokara Islands in Japan. The Tokara Leaf Warbler is a cryptic species that looks identical to Ijima’s Leaf Warbler (Phylloscopus ijimae) from the Izu Islands. However, genetic analysis reveals that the lineages diverged around 2.8–3.2 ...

American politics is increasingly characterized by high levels of polarization and divisive rhetoric, despite stated preferences among voters for civility and substantive debate. Sean J. Westwood and colleagues sought to understand what might incentivize a politician to use divisive rhetoric by analyzing 2.2 million public statements from the 118th US Congress. Using a large language model, the authors broke floor speeches, press releases, newsletters, and posts on X into roughly two-sentence chunks and classified a chunk as a personal attack if it targeted a specific individual or group and criticized personal characteristics, motivations, or integrity rather ...

A study clarifies the date of an important technological milestone: the adoption of the bow and arrow in western North America. The replacement of older weapons by bows and arrows occurred independently in several prehistoric cultures. Briggs Buchanan and colleagues explore this transition in western North America, where the bow replaced the atlatl and dart as the primary hunting technology. The authors focused on 136 radiocarbon-dated, well-preserved organic weapons, which provide evidence of when and where the weapons ...

MINNEAPOLIS / ST. PAUL (03/17/2026) — New paired studies from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities show that machine-learning can improve the prediction of floods. The studies, published in Water Resources Research and the Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Data Mining, demonstrate how "knowledge-guided" artificial intelligence can assist forecasters in saving lives and protecting infrastructure as the frequency of extreme weather increases.  The research was a collaboration among the University of Minnesota’s College of Science and ...

The skin is far more than a simple physical barrier. These two researches address a fundamental question in immunology: How does a localized skin infection or injury generate a powerful, systematic antibody response to protect against pathogen spread? The teams, including collaborators from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences Institute of Dermatology and Tsinghua's School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, provide a compelling answer centered on the keratinocyte. In the first study, published on March 5, 2026, Beijing time, in the journal Nature, the researchers demonstrate that upon skin infection or ultraviolet exposure, ...

To handle increasing wastewater loads, sewage treatment plants are adopting more advanced treatment processes. However, many of these approaches require additional space and energy, highlighting the need for more efficient alternatives. Chemical-enhanced primary treatment (CEPT), which uses chemicals, instead of microorganisms, to promote flocculation and coagulation of sewage, has attracted significant attention for reducing energy consumption and operation costs in sewage treatment plants. The sewage sludge produced during treatment can be further processed through pyrolysis, a high-temperature process that can reduce sludge volume, degrade pollutants, and produce value-added materials. ...

Obesity is widely known for increasing the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, but its damaging effects on the skeleton are often overlooked. Excess body fat can disrupt bone metabolism, weaken bone quality, and impair fracture repair. In individuals with metabolic disorders, bone marrow can accumulate fat cells that interfere with the activity of bone-forming cells and damage the vascular networks that support skeletal tissue. These changes increase fracture risk and reduce the body’s ...

As the global burden of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome continues to rise, fatty liver disease has become one of the most prevalent chronic liver conditions worldwide. Its progressive forms, including metabolic dysfunction‐associated steatohepatitis (MASH), cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma, now represent a major public health challenge. Within this expanding spectrum of MASLD, accurate quantification of hepatic steatosis is no longer an option but is important for diagnosis and monitoring therapeutic response. Traditionally, ...

These food safety measures and ultra-sensitive tests may drive edible food being thrown away, excessive packaging, and extra costs for consumers.  The international team of researchers make it clear that food safety is an important concern, as foodborne pathogens account for approximately 420,000 deaths and 600 million cases of illness each year. However, the authors argue that food systems will be more sustainable, while continuing to protect public health, if “zero-detection” expectations are replaced with evidence-based targets for “sufficiently ...