A new comprehensive review highlights how converting biomass into gaseous fuels such as hydrogen, methane, and syngas could play a critical role in the global transition to low-carbon energy systems. By combining techno-economic analysis with life-cycle assessment, the study provides one of the clearest pictures to date of when and where biomass-based gaseous fuels can be both climate-friendly and economically viable. The review, published in Energy & Environment Nexus, examines thermochemical conversion pathways that transform agricultural residues, forestry waste, and other ...

  Climate change is not only warming the planet and disrupting rainfall, it is also quietly rewiring the way nitrogen moves through the world’s croplands, forests, and grasslands. This hidden shift in the global nitrogen cycle carries major consequences for food security, water quality, biodiversity, and climate policy. Nitrogen is a basic building block of proteins and DNA, and healthy terrestrial ecosystems depend on a steady but balanced flow of nitrogen through soils, plants, and microbes. When that balance is disturbed, harvests can fall, rivers can turn green with algae, and more greenhouse gases can escape into the atmosphere.​ “In a warming world, nitrogen ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 5 January 2026    Follow @Annalsofim on X, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and Linkedin              Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing ...

EVANSTON, Ill. --- A groundbreaking new study reveals that changes to the gut microbiome can change the way the brain works. Humans have the largest relative brain size of any primate, but little is known about how mammals with larger brains evolved to meet the intense energy demands required to support brain growth and maintenance. A new study from Northwestern University provides the first empirical data showing the direct role the gut microbiome plays in shaping differences in the way the brain functions across different primate species. “Our study shows that microbes are acting on traits ...

Public health researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health used computer modeling to reconstruct how the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic and the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic unfolded in the U.S. The findings highlight the rapid spread of pandemic respiratory pathogens and the challenges of early outbreak containment. The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the first to comprehensively compare the spatial transmission of the last two respiratory pandemics in the U.S. at the metropolitan scale.  In the U.S., the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic was responsible for 274,304 hospitalizations ...

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Researchers at Northwestern University and the University of Bern in Switzerland have conducted the first cross-temporal, multinational study to compare views of gender using data collected 30 years apart. An international study reveals that people’s beliefs about the attributes of women and men follow from the differing social roles that they typically occupy in homes and workplaces in their respective societies. The goal driving the research was to understand the sources of stereotypes of men as assertive and ambitious and of women as the kinder and more caring gender. The study showed that these stereotypes reflect the differing social ...

A study by researchers at Mass General Brigham highlights the opportunity for orthopedic surgeons to play a critical role in identifying patients who have experienced intimate partner violence (IPV). While orthopedic surgeons are experts in musculoskeletal injuries, screening patients to identify IPV is not routine. This is highlighted by the findings that only 0.3% of referrals for IPV from orthopedic surgeons compared to 29% from the emergency department. Correcting misperceptions about the prevalence of IPV, ...

When observing small worms under a microscope, one might observe something very surprising: the worms appear to make a sweeping motion to clean their own environment. Physicists at the University of Amsterdam, Georgia Tech and Sorbonne Université/CNRS have now discovered the reason for this unexpected behavior. Brainless sweeping When centimeter-long aquatic worms, such as T. tubifex or Lumbriculus variegatus, are placed in a Petri dish filled with sub-millimeter sized sand particles, something surprising happens. Over time, the worms begin to spontaneously clean up their surroundings. They sweep particles ...

When researchers studying spiders and scorpions at the Zoological Collections Laboratory of the Butantan Institute in São Paulo, Brazil, came across a few-millimeter-long spider wearing something resembling a pearl necklace, they knocked on the door of a colleague specializing in mites. Ricardo Bassini-Silva, a researcher and curator of the Acarological Collection at the same laboratory, quickly identified the “necklace” as mite larvae. Previously, there had only been one record of spider-parasitic mites ...

WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 5, 2026 — The latest issues of four American Psychiatric Association journals (The American Journal of Psychiatry, Psychiatric Services, American Journal of Psychotherapy and Psychiatric Research and Clinical Practice) are now available online. The January issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry brings together research on externalizing disorders, pediatric anxiety, autism, and inflammation-related depression. Highlights of the issue include:   The effect of anti-inflammatory treatment on depressive symptom severity ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Private equity firms have acquired more than 500 autism therapy centers across the U.S. over the past decade, with nearly 80% of those acquisitions occurring over a four-year span, according to a new study from researchers at the Brown University Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research. Study author Yashaswini Singh, a health economist at Brown’s School of Public Health, said the work highlights how financial firms are rapidly moving into a sensitive area of health care without much public scrutiny or data on where this is happening or why. “The big takeaway is ...

About The Article: This Viewpoint discusses past cervical cancer screening guidelines and presents new Women’s Preventive Services guidelines issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Ann M. Sheehy, MD, MS, email asheehy@hrsa.gov. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2025.26456) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study, despite declining from the first (October 2022 to September 2023) to the second (October 2023 to September 2024) surveillance period, the COVID-19 burden continued to have a large impact in the U.S., particularly among adults 65 years and older, underscoring the ongoing importance of prevention measures.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Emilia H. A. Koumans, MD, email ekoumans@cdc.gov. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2025.7179) Editor’s ...

About The Study: This study found that U.S. adolescents, on average, spent more than an hour using smartphones during school, with social media use accounting for most of that time. These objective findings from a large sample extend those of a prior smaller study based on self-report, which similarly demonstrated 1 hour of smartphone usage per school day. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jason M. Nagata, MD, MSc, email jason.nagata@ucsf.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2025.23235) Editor’s Note: Please see the ...

Mass General Brigham researchers looked at data on 4,584 participants across 52 U.S. sites from the federally funded RECOVER-Pediatrics study Results identified social risk factors associated with greater odds of prolonged SARS-CoV-2 symptoms New research led by Mass General Brigham investigators suggests that long COVID is more prevalent in school-aged children and adolescents who experience economic instability and adverse social conditions. The multi-center, observational study found that the risk of long COVID was significantly higher in households that faced food insecurity and challenges such ...

An international team of astronomers led by Canadian researchers has found something the universe wasn’t supposed to have: a galaxy cluster blazing with hot gas just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang, far earlier and hotter than theory predicts.  The result, published today in Nature, could upend current models of galaxy cluster formation, which predict such temperatures occur only in more mature, stable galaxy clusters later in the universe’s life.  “We didn’t ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The first study from GreenDrill — a project co-led by the University at Buffalo to collect rocks and sediment buried beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet — has found that the Prudhoe Dome ice cap was completely gone approximately 7,000 years ago, much more recently than previously known. Published today (Jan. 5) in Nature Geoscience, the findings suggest that this high point on the northwest section of the ice sheet is highly sensitive to the relatively mild temperatures of the Holocene, the interglacial period that began 11,000 years ago and continues today.  “This is a ...

New York, NY, Birmingham, AL, & Sassari, Italy — A new peer-reviewed paper published in The Gerontologist  provides the most comprehensive scientific response to date addressing recent critiques of the so-called “blue zones,” regions of the world known for unusually high concentrations of people living long, healthy lives. In the article, “The validity of blue zones demography: a response to critiques,” authors Steven N. Austad, PhD (Scientific Director, American Federation for Aging Research/AFAR and Distinguished Professor, Protective Life Endowed Chair in Healthy Aging Research at the University ...

Removing part or all of the breast during breast cancer treatment is a potential outcome for some people. Reconstructive surgical procedures often involve prosthetic implants or transplanted tissue from elsewhere in the body. So, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Bio Materials developed a prototype injectable paste derived from human skin cells that could help restore breast volume after tumor removal, with less scarring and shorter healing time than current options. “By promoting blood vessel growth and tissue remodeling ...

More than half of the world’s population speaks more than one language—but there is no consistent method for defining “bilingual” or “multilingual.” This makes it difficult to accurately assess proficiency across multiple languages and to describe language backgrounds accurately.  A team of New York University researchers has now created a calculator that scores multilingualism, allowing users to see how multilingual they actually are and which language is their dominant one.  The work, which uses innovative ...

The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology has launched a randomized phase III clinical trial called RECIPROCAL (Alliance A032304) to explore whether doctors can optimize the timing of targeted radiation therapy to minimize side effects while preserving efficacy in men with advanced prostate cancer. “Our goal in this trial is to strategically improve both survival and quality of life for men living with advanced prostate cancer,” said Alliance study chair Thomas Hope, MD, a nuclear medicine physician and Professor in Residence at the University of California, San Francisco. “We hope to prove we can safely adjust the ...

Life begins with a single fertilized cell that gradually transforms into a multicellular organism. This process requires precise coordination; otherwise, the embryo could develop serious complications. Scientists at ISTA have now demonstrated that the zebrafish eggs, in particular their curvature, might be the instruction manual that keeps cell division on schedule and activates the appropriate genes in a patterned manner to direct correct cell fate acquisition. These insights, published in Nature Physics, could help improve the accuracy of embryo assessments in IVF. Nikhil Mishra ...

An international research team identified hundreds of genes essential for the development of brain cells, including one gene linked to a severe neurodevelopmental disorder not previously described. The study published in Nature Neuroscience offers a new approach to identifying genes involved in neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. [Hebrew University] Which genes are required for turning embryonic stem cells into brain cells, and what happens when this process goes wrong? In a new study published today in Nature Neuroscience, researchers led by Prof. Sagiv Shifman from The Institute ...

A drug mimicking the hormone progesterone has anti-cancer activity when used together with conventional anti-oestrogen treatment for women with breast cancer, a new Cambridge-led trial has found. A low dose of megestrol acetate (a synthetic version of progesterone) has already been proven as a treatment to help patients manage hot flushes associated with anti-oestrogen breast cancer therapies, and so could help them continue taking their treatment. The PIONEER trial has now shown that the addition of low dose megestrol to such treatment may ...

The new EU-funded SHASAI project (Secure Hardware and Software for AI systems) will tackle this challenge. Funded under the Horizon Europe programme, SHASAI aims to strengthen the security, resilience and trustworthiness of AI-based systems. The project will address cybersecurity risks from the initial design and development stages through to deployment and real-world operation.  “With SHASAI, we aim to move beyond fragmented security solutions and address AI cybersecurity as a lifecycle challenge. By combining secure hardware and software, risk-driven ...