A new study offers hope that kidney transplant patients could one day have a monthly treatment instead of multiple pills every day. The new treatment also may reduce side effects and increase the lifespan of the donor organ.  Currently, patients who have had a kidney transplant must take a cocktail of pills every day for the rest of their lives. These standard immunosuppressants prevent the immune system from attacking the new organ, but over time may damage kidney function and become less effective.  Standard immunosuppressants also are associated with diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and cause side effects that lead most transplant ...

Florida’s Indian River Lagoon (IRL), one of the state’s most ecologically productive estuaries, is facing a growing but invisible threat that could reshape its marine ecosystems. Over the past decade, the lagoon has suffered severe degradation caused by nutrient pollution, excessive freshwater runoff, harmful algal blooms (HABs), and declining water quality. These changes have led to the loss of tens of thousands of acres of seagrass and have negatively impacted shellfish, fish, dolphins, manatees and other key species. A new study from Florida Atlantic University’s ...

Photos and b-roll package available for download here. LOS ANGELES — Keck Medicine of USC radiologists use computed tomography (CT) scanners to diagnose and treat patients’ diseases and injuries.   Recently, however, this advanced technology was put to a far more novel use: examining the bodies of two ancient Egyptian mummies.  Radiologists conducted full-body CT scans of two Egyptian priests, Nes-Min, circa 330 BCE, and Nes-Hor, circa 190 BCE, whose bodies had been preserved for more than 2,200 years.   The ...

Life-saving antibiotics that could treat severe infections in babies and children aren’t accessible due to a lack of data around safety and dosage, new research shows. Two wide sweeping reviews, led by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) and the Australasian KIDS DOSE consortium, have discovered the barriers children are experiencing in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands when accessing treatment for the antimicrobial resistant (AMR) infections deemed the highest priority by the World Health Organization. The ...

A federally funded study of more than 500 people living with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and their caregivers, co-led by researchers at Mass General Brigham, found that survey participants viewed the ability to regain basic communication as the minimum acceptable outcome after severe brain injury. The study, published in Critical Care Medicine, shows that many individuals living with TBIs consider outcomes involving significant disability to be acceptable. These results challenge longstanding assumptions by TBI researchers ...

Insilico Medicine (“Insilico”), a clinical-stage, generative artificial intelligence (AI)-driven biotechnology company, today announced that it has received USD 5 million from Menarini Group (“Menarini”) as an additional milestone payment, following the completion of first-in-patient dosing in a Phase 1 study of MEN2501, whose license-out agreement with Menarini was disclosed in January 2025. MEN2501 (previously known as ISM9682) is a highly differentiated small molecule inhibitor of kinesin KIF18A motor protein with potent activity in ...

As we shift toward more sustainable fuels, natural gas and biogas, which mainly contain methane (CH4), have become important sources of energy and raw materials for chemical production. However, these gases also contain impurities that must be removed before use. One major contaminant is carbon dioxide (CO2), which reduces the energy content of the gas and can cause corrosion in pipelines. One promising method for efficiently separating CO2 from these gases is filtration using graphene membranes containing ...

Thermoelectric conversion devices offer a promising route for sustainable heat-to-energy conversion. They are particularly attractive for recovering energy from waste heat, such as that produced by conventional fossil fuel-based engines, improving their overall energy efficiency. Around 20–50% of the input energy is lost as waste heat in industries. This could be used as source by thermoelectric conversion devices. These devices also have the potential to enable portable power generation, for example, to run small sensors in remote locations. Currently, most thermoelectric devices rely on the longitudinal thermoelectric effect in which electricity ...

International labor migration plays a vital role in supporting families across low- and middle-income countries, often providing a critical source of income for families back home. However, when mothers migrate abroad for work, young children may be left without steady parental care during important developmental stages. While this concern is widely discussed, there has been limited real-world evidence showing how policies that restrict maternal migration affect children’s outcomes.   A new study made available online ...

This winter’s brutal flu season isn’t over, and COVID-19 cases have risen recently too. But a new poll taken in recent weeks shows that vaccination against both viruses lags among people 50 and over, and the national survey reveals key reasons why. In all, the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging shows, 42% of people over 50 haven’t gotten either flu or COVID-19 vaccines in the past six months, though 29% have gotten both and 27% have gotten just the updated flu shot. The poll also asked about COVID-19 vaccination since it became available in 2021: 49% of people over 50 said ...

For a long time, most scientists believed that early human hunter-gatherer societies were mostly equal, with little hierarchy or leadership, and that strong inequalities only emerged later with farming and complex societies.  However, new research out of Arizona State University is challenging this. Archaeological finds, ethnographic studies and now psychological research suggest that inequality in influence — who people listen to, copy, and follow — may have been part of human societies deep into our evolutionary past. “At some point in our past, humans became reliant on culture,” ...

People from the Outer Hebrides and north-west Ireland have the highest risk of developing a genetic disease that causes a dangerous build-up of iron in the body, a study suggests. The study marks the first time the genetic risk for haemochromatosis – also known as the ‘Celtic curse’ – has been mapped across the UK and Ireland, despite a high incidence of the condition among Scottish and Irish populations. Targeting genetic screening for the condition to priority areas could help identify at-risk individuals earlier and avoid future health ...

Exploring Earth’s deep interior is a far bigger challenge than exploring the solar system. While we have travelled 25 billion km into space, the deepest we have ever gone below our feet is just over 12 km. Consequently, little is known about the conditions at the base of the mantle and the top of the core – the most significant interface in the Earth’s interior and the region where new research has now uncovered exciting magnetic activity. In a study published in Nature Geoscience, research led by the University of Liverpool ...

Sexual dysfunction is a reality for many women, but the subject remains taboo. A large percentage of women remain untreated, a problem that is exacerbated by the shortage of treatment options for female sexual dysfunction. A research team from GAIA in Hamburg, in cooperation with the Institute for Sexual, Psycho- and Trauma Therapy in Munich, the University of Lübeck, and the Medical School Hamburg, has now investigated the digital therapy “mylovia” The results of the randomized controlled trial (RCT) were published today in the peer-reviewed journal npj Digital Medicine and show a statistically significant and clinically relevant effect of mylovia. mylovia ...

PHILADELPHIA — (TUESDAY, FEB. 3, 2026) — Scientists at The Wistar Institute have developed an HIV vaccine candidate that achieves something never before observed in the field: inducing neutralizing antibodies against HIV after a single immunization in nonhuman primates. The innovative approach, published in Nature Immunology, could significantly shorten and simplify HIV vaccination protocols, making them more accessible worldwide. The research, led by Amelia Escolano, Ph.D., assistant professor in Wistar’s Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center and the senior author of the study, ...

Medical artificial intelligence is a hugely appealing concept. In theory, models can analyze vast amounts of information, recognize subtle patterns in data, and are never too tired or busy to provide a response. However, although thousands of these models have been and continue to be developed in academia and industry, very few of them have successfully transitioned into real-world clinical settings. Marinka Zitnik, associate professor of biomedical informatics in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical ...

CLAYTON, Victoria, AUSTRALIA, 3 February 2026 -- Researchers led by Dr. Claire Foldi at Monash University have discovered that psilocybin, the psychoactive compound found in magic mushrooms, produces subtle but distinct effects on social behavior and inflammation that depend critically on metabolic and exercise context in female mice. The peer-reviewed study, published in Psychedelics, represents the first systematic investigation of how this compound influences sociability in female mice exposed to activity-based anorexia (ABA), a widely ...

NEWTON, Massachusetts, USA, 3 February 2026 -- In a comprehensive Genomic Press Interview published today in Genomic Psychiatry, Dr. Ronald C. Kessler, the McNeil Family Professor of Health Care Policy at Harvard Medical School, reflects on a career that fundamentally altered how researchers and policymakers across the globe understand the prevalence, distribution, and treatment of mental disorders. With secondary appointments as Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Program Director at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, and at the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Precision Psychiatry, Dr. Kessler has built an unparalleled ...

A major step towards simpler drug development has been taken at the University of Gothenburg. In a new study, researchers have developed stable boron-fluorine compounds that make it possible to increase the effect or reduce side effects without breaking down the medicine. Chemical compounds based on the element boron are central tools in modern chemistry and are used, among other things, to build drugs, advanced materials, and molecules for medical diagnostics. Some types of boron compounds are still difficult to produce, especially when the boron atom must be placed very precisely in a complex molecule. This limits the possibilities for ...

Cats – unlike humans – are true carnivores: they must eat meat to survive because their bodies can’t draw some essential nutrients from plants. By looking at tissues, researchers can get a good understanding of what foods animals ate. Now, researchers at the Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science at the University of Vienna measured nitrogen and its stable isotopes 15N and 14N in the fur and whiskers of domestic cats as well as in cat food available in supermarkets. They then compared nitrogen isotope values to those found in the hair of humans ...

A patient with complete blindness caused by irreversible optic nerve damage partially recovered natural vision after participating in a clinical trial of electrical stimulation of the visual cortex conducted by researchers from the Universidad Miguel Hernández de Elche (UMH) and the CIBER in Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Nanomedicine (CIBER-BBN). The unexpected improvement was spontaneous, sustained over time, and independent of the implanted device. The case was observed during a study designed to evaluate the safety and feasibility of a cortical visual prosthesis. Although the goal of the trial was to generate artificial visual ...

Before plants evolved, vegetative life consisted of primitive green algae living in the sea. Like plants, these algae survived by performing photosynthesis, turning sunlight into energy. However, little light reaches the ocean where algae live; therefore, they evolved specialized organs to grab what little is available. Among these tiny ocean algae are prasinophytes, which are among the earliest photosynthetic life forms on Earth. Like all photosynthetic organisms, they rely on a pigment–protein complex called LHC to capture sunlight. How efficiently LHC performs photosynthesis in different environments depends on the pigments ...

Nearly two million children in the UK are affected by early language delays. New research will examine whether noise in nurseries is a hidden factor.  An estimated 1.9 million children across the UK are affected by early language delays, with rates doubling among children from disadvantaged backgrounds. A major new research project led by The Institute for the Science of Early Years (ISEY) at the University of East London supported by the Nuffield Foundation, will explore how background noise in nurseries affects early language development. The study ...

Doctors have found that metformin, an everyday medicine for diabetes, is associated with less progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the commonest cause of blindness in western countries. People with diabetes over the age of 55 years taking metformin were 37% less likely to develop the intermediate stage of AMD over a five year period compared to those not taking metformin. AMD is a disease which affects the central retina or macular at the back of the eye. It eventually causes the light-sensitive tissue to die off (geographic atrophy, a form of ‘dry’ ...

New York, February 2, 2026 — The invention of tiny devices capable of precisely controlling the direction and behavior of light is essential to the development of advance technologies. Researchers at the Advanced Science Research Center at the CUNY Graduate Center (CUNY ASRC) have taken a significant step forward with the developed of a metasurface that can turn invisible infrared light into visible light and aim it in different directions—without any moving parts. The details of their work are explained in a new paper published in the journal eLight. The novel metasurface is constructed of an ultra-thin chip patterned with ...