ESMT Berlin has been selected as a Pioneer Innovation Partner by the European Central Bank (ECB) to develop innovative functionalities related to the digital euro. As part of this collaboration, the business school will establish the Digital Euro Hub platform. Beyond simple consumer payments, the ECB initiative aims to explore the potential of the digital euro for businesses across industries and trade sectors. The newly created Digital Euro Hub will serve as a platform for simulating programmed payments with the digital euro and testing smart contracts. Companies interested in leveraging ...

Physically punishing children in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) has exclusively negative outcomes—including poor health, lower academic performance, and impaired social-emotional development—yielding similar results to studies in wealthier nations, finds a new analysis published in Nature Human Behaviour. In 2006, the United Nations Secretary General called for a ban on corporal punishment—acts of physical force to inflict pain that includes smacking, shaking, and spanking—for children. To date, 65 countries worldwide have instituted full or partial ...

Clouds form upon existing particles in the atmosphere and extreme weather events like flooding and snowstorms are related to production of large amounts of ice in clouds. Biological particles like pollen, bacteria, spores and plant matter floating in the air are particularly good at promoting ice formation in clouds, and EPFL climate scientists show that these particles concentrations evolve as temperatures rise and fall. The results are published in the Nature Portofolio Journal Climate and Atmospheric Sciences. “Biological particles are very effective at forming ice in clouds, and the formation of ice is responsible for most of the precipitation the planet ...

SAN DIEGO, CA. (MAY 5, 2025) — People with celiac disease have reported anxiety about ingesting gluten through a kiss, but a new study concludes that they can indulge without worry — even if their partner just had a gluten-filled snack, according to a study to be presented today at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2025. To be extra safe, the study recommends drinking water before smooching. “Everyone worries about whether gluten is getting into their food at a restaurant, but no one really looked at what happens when you kiss afterwards,” said Anne ...

SAN DIEGO, CA. (MAY 6, 2025) — Cancer related studies were among nearly 6,000 abstracts presented at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2025, including research on AI in patient communication, polyp detection, and colonoscopy prep. Oncologists Prefer AI Responses to GI Cancer Questions Over Physicians’ SAN DIEGO — Artificial intelligence outperformed physicians in answering gastrointestinal cancer questions, with oncologists preferring ChatGPT’s responses nearly 80% of the time, according to a study presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) ® ...

Leuven, 05 May 2025 – A group of researchers in the lab of Prof. Lucía Chávez Gutiérrez (VIB-KU Leuven) have unraveled the genetic contributions to familial Alzheimer’s Disease development and revealed how specific mutations act as a clock to predict the disease age of onset. These insights, published in Molecular Neurodegeneration, could aid clinicians to improve early diagnosis and tailor treatment strategies. Alzheimer's disease remains one of the most challenging and prevalent neurodegenerative ...

New York, NY and Anchorage, AK — On May 12, 2025, at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the American Aging Association (AGE) in Anchorage, Alaska, the American Federation for Aging Research (AFAR) will host an award ceremony to present the 2025 Vincent Cristofalo Rising Star Award in Aging Research to Daniel W. Belsky, PhD. The event will be held from 1-2pm AKDT in the Tikahtnu Ballroom of the Dena'ina Civic and Convention Center. The award will be presented by AFAR Scientific Director Steven N. Austad, PhD.  The Vincent Cristofalo Rising Star Award in Aging Research is ...

New research in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.241506 found an increase in asthma-related emergency department (ED) visits across Ontario following heavy smoke in early June 2023. Canada experienced the most destructive wildfire season to date in 2023, with difficult-to-control fires across the country, including 29 mega-fires. One fire in Quebec, the province’s largest-ever wildfire, extended 1.2 million acres. Smoke from fires blanketed Canada and the United States, causing substantial damage, loss, and displacement. “The ...

A team of researchers from the University of Waterloo have created a method that makes virtual reality (VR) more accessible to people with mobility limitations.  VR games like Beat Saber and Space Pirate Trainer usually require large and dramatic movements, such as raising one’s arms above the head or quickly side-stepping, which can be difficult or impossible for people who use wheelchairs or have limited mobility. To decrease these barriers, the researchers created MotionBlocks, a tool that lets users customize ...

AAAS CEO, Sudip S. Parikh, testified as a bipartisan witness before the Senate Appropriations Committee Wednesday, April 30, for a hearing discussing biomedical research in America. Dr. Parikh was joined by three other executives and one patient advocate to express the importance of American support and funding for biomedical research. In Dr. Parikh’s written testimony, he cites the biomedical research ecosystem developed in the United States as the “greatest engine for discovery in the service of health that the world has ever known,” while ...

Vienna, Austria – Endometrial cancer is the most common gynecological cancer in high-developed countries, most often affecting women after menopause. The majority of women are diagnosed at an early stage, when treatment outcomes are generally favorable.* For women with high-intermediate risk disease, adjuvant radiotherapy — particularly vaginal brachytherapy (a form of internal radiotherapy delivered directly to the vaginal area) — is commonly used after surgery to reduce the risk of recurrence. However, patients don’t need it equally, and some may receive more treatment than necessary, exposing ...

Learning from Every Patient: New Radiotherapy Technique Aims to Protect the Heart During Lung Cancer Treatment Vienna, Austria – A new study presented at ESTRO 2025 introduces the RAPID-RT study, which uses an innovative rapid-learning approach to evaluate the impact of treatment modifications in radiotherapy. Traditional clinical trials are often lengthy and are not representative of real-world patient populations due to complex consent processes and strict eligibility criteria. In contrast, RAPID-RT offers a more inclusive, real-world alternative. Researchers at The Christie NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester, UK, have applied this method in lung cancer patients to assess ...

Vienna, Austria – Rectal cancer is a type of bowel cancer that develops in the last several centimetres of the large intestine, just before the anus. It’s one of the most common cancers in Europe, with over 125,000 people diagnosed annually*. Treatment traditionally involves surgery to remove the tumour—a major operation that can permanently affect sexual function, continence, and quality of life.   While radiotherapy and chemotherapy are already used to shrink tumours before surgery, there is growing momentum behind treatment strategies that avoid surgery ...

WASHINGTON— The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI) has announced its new leadership for 2025–26, with Srihari S. Naidu, MD, MSCAI, assuming the role of President during SCAI Scientific Sessions 2025, held May 1–3 in Washington, DC. Dr. Naidu is Professor of Medicine at New York Medical College and System Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories and Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) National Center of Excellence at Westchester Medical Center in Valhalla, NY. A leading interventional cardiologist, he is internationally recognized for his work in hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and ...

SAN DIEGO, CA. (MAY 3, 2025) Stomach cancers are increasingly being diagnosed at less advanced, more treatable stages — a shift that marks major progress in detecting one of the deadliest forms of cancer, according to a study to be presented today at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2025. “These trends suggest that advancements in endoscopic imaging, along with more widespread use of upper endoscopy, may be helping doctors find stomach cancer earlier,” said Mohamed Tausif Siddiqui, MD, the study’s ...

SAN DIEGO, CA. (MAY 3, 2025) — Anal cancer has been steadily increasing in the United States, with the biggest jumps among older women, especially white and Hispanic women — a shift that challenges assumptions about high-risk groups and who should be screened, according to a study to be presented today at Digestive Disease Week® (DDW) 2025. “Rates of anal cancer are rising fastest among white and Hispanic women over 65 — groups not traditionally considered high risk,” said lead author Ashley Robinson, MD, a second-year internal medicine resident at Advocate Lutheran General Hospital. “While the exact reasons behind ...

Tokyo, Japan – Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have discovered that impaired glucose metabolism in glial cells, a type of cell in our nervous system, plays a key role in the degeneration caused by Alzheimer’s disease. Using fruit fly retinas, they showed that promoting glucose metabolism in glial cells with tau protein build-up, like in Alzheimer’s patients, helps relieve inflammation and photoreceptor degeneration. Their findings present an exciting new therapeutic target for treating neurodegenerative conditions.   Alzheimer’s ...

Two-Week Radiotherapy Proven as Safe and Effective as Eight-Week Course for Prostate Cancer, After 10-Year Follow-Up in Phase III Trial Vienna, Austria — Prostate cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer in men worldwide, accounting for more than 1.4 million new cases each year [1]. For many patients, radiotherapy is a standard treatment option that offers outcomes comparable to surgery, particularly for localised disease [2]. As an outpatient procedure, it allows men to maintain much of their daily ...

The Columbia University Fertility Center, which has cared for families and advanced the field of reproductive medicine for over 40 years, was ranked #1 on Newsweek’s list of America’s Best Fertility Clinics for 2025.  The ranking was determined through a nationwide survey of reproductive medicine professionals, performance criteria and success rates, clinic accreditations and certifications, and patient satisfaction. "It is a tremendous honor to be recognized as the top fertility center in the country,” says Zev Williams, MD, PhD, director of the Columbia University Fertility ...

The National Academy of Sciences has elected two of Boston Children Hospital's most preeminent scientists to join their ranks - George Daley, MD, PhD, and Jeffrey Holt, PhD.  Established by an Act of Congress signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is committed to furthering science nationally, and to contributing to the international scientific community. Elected by their peers for outstanding contributions to research, members of the NAS are charged with providing independent, objective advice to the ...

New research reveals that shifts in plant life played a key role in speeding up major climate changes during the late Miocene, a period spanning 11.6 to 5.3 million years ago. During this time, Earth’s climate shifted from the warm conditions of the middle Miocene to conditions closer to what we experience today, turning forests into grasslands and forcing animals like horses and elephants to evolve tougher teeth for eating gritty plants. At the same time, predators like big cats adapted to hunting in open plains, reshaping life on ...

Swarms of earthquakes have been jolting southern Italy with increasing intensity since 2022, threatening hundreds of thousands of people living atop a volcanic area known as Campi Flegrei, where the land experiences slow vertical movements. While authorities debate disaster responses and evacuation protocols, researchers may have found a way to thwart the cyclic unrest altogether: by managing water runoff or lowering groundwater levels, thus reducing fluid pressure within the geothermal reservoir.  Through subsurface ...

Viruses are known to use the genetic machinery of the human cells they invade to make copies of themselves. As part of the process, viruses leave behind remnants throughout the genetic material (genomes) of humans. The virus-like insertions, called “transposable elements,” are snippets of genetic material even simpler than viruses that also use host cell machinery to replicate. Nearly all these inserted elements have been silenced by our cells’ defense mechanisms over time, but a few, nicknamed “jumping genes,” can still move around the ...

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) announced Bill Gropp, director of the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, was one of six researchers to receive the 2024 ACM Software System Award for their innovative work on MPICH, a high-performance and widely portable implementation of the Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard. The ACM Software System Award is presented to an institution or individual(s) recognized for developing a software system that has had a lasting influence, reflected in contributions to concepts, commercial acceptance or both. Created more than three decades ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The future of electroencephalography (EEG) monitoring may soon look like a strand of hair. In place of the traditional metal electrodes, a web of wires and sticky adhesives, a team of researchers from Penn State created a hairlike device for long-term, non-invasive monitoring of the brain’s electrical activity. The lightweight and flexible electrode attaches directly to the scalp and delivers stable, high-quality recordings of the brain’s signals. EEG is critical for diagnosing and assessing neurological conditions like epilepsy and brain injuries. In some cases, clinicians need to monitor brain waves for longer periods ...