FRANKFURT. In the shallow waters of the Lighthouse Reef Atoll, located 80 kilometers off the coast of the small Central American country of Belize, the seabed suddenly drops steeply. Resembling a dark blue eye surrounded by coral reefs, the “Great Blue Hole” is a 125-meter-deep underwater cave with a diameter of 300 meters, which originated thousands of years ago from a karst cave located on a limestone island. During the last ice age, the cave’s roof collapsed. As ice sheets melted and global sea level started to rise, the cave ...

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL MONDAY, MARCH 24, 2025 (3:00 PM U.S. Eastern time) Pedestrian crossings generally showcase the best in pedestrian behaviour, with people naturally forming orderly lanes as they cross the road, smoothly passing those coming from the opposite direction without any bumps or scrapes. Sometimes, however, the flow gets chaotic, with individuals weaving through the crowd on their own haphazard paths to the other side. Now, an international team of mathematicians, co-led by Professor Tim Rogers at the University of Bath in the UK and Dr Karol Bacik at MIT in ...

The longest organic molecules identified to date on Mars have recently been detected by scientists from the CNRS1, together with their colleagues from France, the United States of America, Mexico and Spain. These long carbon chains, containing up to 12 consecutive carbon atoms, could exhibit features similar to the fatty acids produced on Earth by biological activity2. The lack of geological activity and the cold, arid climate on Mars have helped preserve this invaluable organic matter in a clay-rich sample for the past 3.7 billion years. It therefore dates from the period during which life first emerged on Earth. These findings ...

Next time you cross a crowded plaza, crosswalk, or airport concourse, take note of the pedestrian flow. Are people walking in orderly lanes, single-file, to their respective destinations? Or is it a haphazard tangle of personal trajectories, as people dodge and weave through the crowd?  MIT instructor Karol Bacik and his colleagues studied the flow of human crowds and developed a first-of-its-kind way to predict when pedestrian paths will transition from orderly to entangled. Their findings may help inform the design of public spaces that promote safe and efficient thoroughfares.  In a paper appearing in the Proceedings of the National Academy ...

New Haven, Conn. — Most job candidates know to dress nicely for Zoom interviews and to arrange a professional-looking background for the camera. But a new Yale study suggests they also ought to test the quality of their microphones. A tinny voice caused by a cheap mic, researchers say, could sink their chances. Through a series of experiments, the study demonstrates that tinny speech — a thin, metallic sound — during video conferences can have surprisingly deep social consequences, leading listeners to lower their judgments of a speaker’s intelligence, credibility, and romantic desirability. ...

A team of biologists at Queen Mary University of London has discovered that a neurohormone controlling appetite in humans has an ancient evolutionary origin, dating back over half a billion years. The findings, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, reveal that this satiety-inducing molecule, known as bombesin, is not only present in humans and other vertebrates but also in starfish and their marine relatives.  Bombesin, a small peptide, plays a key role in regulating hunger by signalling when we’ve had enough to eat. But its story doesn’t start with humans or even mammals. New research shows that ...

By Leah Shaffer The cells in human bodies are subject to both chemical and mechanical forces. But up until recently, scientists have not understood much about how to manipulate the mechanical side of that equation. That’s about to change. “This is a major breakthrough in our ability to be able to control the cells that drive fibrosis,” according to Guy Genin, the Harold and Kathleen Faught Professor of Mechanical Engineering in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, speaking of research recently published in Nature Materials. Fibrosis is an affliction wherein ...

Imagine trying to listen to a friend speak over the commotion of a loud party. It is difficult to detect and process sounds in noisy environments, especially for those with hearing loss. Previous research has typically focused on how competing sounds influence cortical brain activity, with the end goal of informing treatment strategies for people who are hard of hearing. But in a new eNeuro study, Melissa Polonenko and Ross Maddox, from the University of Rochester, explored a lesser-studied influence of competing sounds on subcortical brain ...

The high comorbidity of type 2 diabetes (T2D) with psychiatric or neurodegenerative disorders points to a need for understanding what links these diseases. A potential link is the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). The ACC supports behaviors related to cognition and emotions and is involved in some T2D-associated diseases, like mood disorders and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). James Hyman and colleagues, from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, used a rat model of T2D that affects only males to explore whether diabetes affects ACC activity and behavior. Their work is featured in JNeurosci’s ...

Embargoed for release: Monday, March 24, 12:00 PM ET Key points: Maintaining a healthy diet rich in plant-based foods, with low to moderate intake of healthy animal-based foods and lower intake of ultra-processed foods, was linked to a higher likelihood of healthy aging—defined as reaching age 70 free of major chronic diseases, with cognitive, physical, and mental health maintained—according to a 30-year study of food habits among more than 105,000 middle-aged adults. All the eight dietary patterns studied were associated with healthy aging, suggesting that there is no one-size-fits-all healthy diet.  The study is among the ...

Mass General Brigham and MIT investigators have developed a long-acting contraceptive implant that can be delivered through tiny needles to minimize patient discomfort and increase the likelihood of medication use.   Their findings in preclinical models provide the technological basis to develop self-administrable contraceptive shots that could mimic the long-term drug release of surgically implanted devices.   The new approach, which would reduce how often patients need to inject themselves and prove valuable for patients with less access to hospitals and other medical care ...

Motion sickness is a very common condition that affects about 1 in 3 people, but the brain circuits involved are largely unknown. In the current study published in Nature Metabolism, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and the Jan and Dan Duncan Neurological Research Institute at Texas Children’s Hospital describe a new brain circuit involved in motion sickness that also contributes to regulating body temperature and metabolic balance. The findings may provide unconventional strategies ...

      MEDIA INQUIRES   WRITTEN BY Laura Muntean   Adam Russell laura.muntean@ag.tamu.edu     601-248-1891     FOR ...

About The Study: This study found a disproportionate spike in firearm homicide among children and adults older than age 30 after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, indicating a change in the association between age and firearm victimization risk. This trend moved the peak victimization risk from age 21 to 19, and rates for children up to age 16 were markedly elevated. These age-specific patterns were most pronounced in later post-onset years.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jonathan ...

About The Study: This study found that avoidable mortality (comprising both preventable deaths related to prevention and public health and treatable deaths related to timely and effective health care treatment) has worsened across all U.S. states, while other high-income countries show improvement. The results suggest poorer mortality is driven by broad factors across the entirety of the U.S. While other countries appear to make gains in health with increases in health care spending, such an association does not exist across U.S. states, raising questions regarding U.S. health spending efficiency.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Irene ...

About The Study: Exclusive or longer duration of breastfeeding was associated with reduced odds of developmental delays and language or social neurodevelopmental conditions in this cohort study. These findings may guide parents, caregivers, and public health initiatives in promoting early child development. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Inbal Goldshtein, PhD, email inbal@kinstitute.org.il. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.1540) Editor’s Note: Please see the ...

Among the many marvels of life is the cell’s ability to divide and thus enable organisms to grow and renew themselves. For this, the cell must duplicate its DNA – its genome – and segregate it equally into two new daughter cells. To prepare the 46 chromosomes of a human cell for transport to the daughter cells during cell division, each chromosome forms a compact X-shaped structure with two rod-like copies. How the cell achieves this feat remains largely unknown. Now, for the first time, EMBL scientists have directly observed this process in high resolution under the microscope ...

After every meal, the intestines perform an action called peristalsis — moving food through their hollow interiors with coordinated contractions and relaxations of the smooth muscle. For more than a century, scientists have known that nerve cells in the gut propel the colon to move, allowing the organ to perform its life-sustaining function. But exactly how these intestinal nerve cells do their job has remained elusive. Now a new NIH-funded study led by researchers at Harvard Medical School and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has identified ...

A moiré pattern appears when you stack and rotate two copies of an image with regularly repeating shapes, turning simple patterns of squares or triangles into a groovy wave pattern that moves across the combined image in an optical delight.  Similarly, stacking single layers of sub-nanometer-thick semiconductor materials known as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) can generate a moiré potential, and novel electronic and optoelectronic properties may emerge between the layers.  A moiré potential is a “seascape” of potential energy with regularly repeating peaks and valleys. They were previously thought to be stationary. But a team of ...

AI tools are transforming how we observe the world around us — and even the stars beyond. Recently, an international team proved that deep learning techniques and large language models can help astronomers classify stars with high accuracy and efficiency. Their study, “Deep Learning and Methods Based on Large Language Models Applied to Stellar Light Curve Classification,” was published Feb. 26 in Intelligent Computing, a Science Partner Journal. The team introduced the StarWhisper LightCurve series, a trio of AI models, and evaluated their performance ...

Background and Aims General transcription factor IIIC subunit 2 (GTF3C2) is one of the polymerase III transcription-related factors. Previous studies have revealed that GTF3C2 is involved in regulating cell proliferation. However, the role of GTF3C2 in hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) remains unclear. This study aimed to determine its expression, biological function, and mechanism in HCC. Methods The expression of GTF3C2 in HCC and non-tumor tissues, along with its clinical significance, was investigated using public databases and clinical samples. Reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase ...

A recent article in BioScience, the journal of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, challenges conventional conservation wisdom, suggesting that protected areas such national parks and designated wilderness areas must embrace natural landscape dynamics rather than trying to preserve static conditions and landscape features. Dr. Gavin M. Jones (USDA Forest Service) and colleagues contend that current conservation models often resist natural ecosystem processes such as wildfire, leading to a "backfire effect" that makes ecosystems more vulnerable ...

WASHINGTON – A depression prevention program that has helped white youth wasn’t effective for Black youth, raising concerns about the need for more research to help racially diverse groups, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association.  “I was very surprised that we couldn’t help Black youth as much as white youth, and we don’t know why there was such a profound difference in the outcomes.” said lead researcher Patrick Pössel, Dr. rer. soc., a professor of counseling psychology ...

People convicted of federal white-collar crimes come from different social and demographic backgrounds compared to those convicted of other offenses. Typically older and from the middle class, white-collar offenders face unique challenges during reentry into society. Yet, research on how social class influences their reintegration remains scarce. A study by Florida Atlantic University, in collaboration with the University of Cincinnati, explores these challenges, focusing on how stigma, social background and emotional factors impact white-collar offenders as they transition into society ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- MIT engineers have devised a new way to deliver certain drugs in higher doses with less pain, by injecting them as a suspension of tiny crystals. Once under the skin, the crystals assemble into a drug “depot” that could last for months or years, eliminating the need for frequent drug injections. This approach could prove useful for delivering long-lasting contraceptives or other drugs that need to be given for extended periods of time. Because the drugs are dispersed in a suspension before injection, they can be administered through a narrow needle that is easier for patients to tolerate. “We showed that we can have very controlled, sustained delivery, ...