Our sun rotates around its axis once every 28 days. From earth, therefore, active regions of the sun can only be observed for up to two weeks at a time. After this, they rotate beyond our field of view, remaining hidden from us for two weeks. “Fortunately, the Solar Orbiter mission, launched by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 2020, has broadened our perspective,” says Ioannis Kontogiannis, solar physicist at ETH Zurich and the Istituto ricerche solari Aldo e Cele Daccò (IRSOL) in Locarno. The Solar Orbiter ...

Self-harming and self-sabotaging behaviours, from skin picking to ghosting people, all stem from evolutionary survival mechanisms, according to a compelling new psychological analysis. Clinical psychologist Dr Charlie Heriot-Maitland, in his new book Controlled Explosions in Mental Health, explores the biological necessities behind harmful behaviours. He argues that although these behaviours seem counterintuitive, the brain uses these small harms as a protective dose to prevent further harms. For example, someone may procrastinate starting a project, causing themselves harm, but trying to prevent a higher-stakes harm of failure ...

The meninges act as a key mechano-biological interface—dissipating external forces, supporting neuroimmune homeostasis, and dynamically regulating the brain microenvironment—yet they remain comparatively underexplored despite their importance. Within the three-layer meningeal system, the pia–arachnoid complex (PAC, i.e., leptomeninges) interfaces closely with the subarachnoid space that contains cerebrospinal fluid, vasculature, and immune cells, making it central to both mechanical safeguarding and broader physiological/immune functions. With the growing burden of traumatic brain injury (TBI), understanding force transmission across the brain–skull ...

Healthcare and therapy systems face a worsening workforce shortage, creating an urgent need for technologies that can support or augment human roles. However, much existing work emphasizes functional-task support while overlooking the emotional impact humans contribute—an omission that is especially critical in care contexts where empathy and emotional support are central to patient well-being. In rehabilitation, for example, robots can deliver highly repeatable, standardized training, yet still fall ...

The human brain is constantly processing information that unfolds at different speeds – from split-second reactions to sudden environmental changes to slower, more reflective processes such as understanding context or meaning.   A new study from Rutgers Health, published in Nature Communications, sheds light on how the brain integrates these fast and slow signals across its complex web of white matter connectivity pathways to support cognition and behavior.   Different regions of the brain are specialized ...

This year’s coveted Tao Li Award has gone to Jundong Li, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and computer science at the University of Virginia. Li, feeling “genuinely grateful and a bit overwhelmed,” accepted the award on Nov. 14 at the IEEE International Conference on Data Mining in Washington, D.C. “The ICDM Tao Li Award is deeply meaningful to me, and I have long admired the scholars who received it in prior years, all of whom are leaders in the data mining and machine learning community,” Li ...

Mircea Stan was already feeling good owing to the Thanksgiving holiday when an email arrived saying he is a newly elected fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. “The timing was great. It added to the natural happiness and gratitude I already felt at the time,” said Stan, the Virginia Microelectronics Consortium Professor and director of the computer engineering program in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Virginia. “The other obvious reaction was of course satisfaction that contributions I made over my entire career ...

LOGAN, UTAH, USA -- Algae is a ubiquitous feature in waterways throughout the globe, including western North America. Slippery, green epilithic algae is a familiar sight on river rocks. Toxic blue-green algae – cyanobacteria – is a visually interesting, yet worrisome phenomenon. Increasingly prevalent filamentous algae, with its long, voluminous green strands joins the picture, and is presenting new questions for scientists, recreationalists and land managers. “In recent years, people have noted very large filamentous algae blooms ...

Highlights: A new study has found circadian rhythm, the body’s internal clock, may affect a person’s risk of dementia. More than 2,000 people wore monitors for an average of 12 days to track their rest and activity rhythms. Researchers found people with weaker or more irregular body clocks had a higher risk of developing dementia. Being most active later in the day, instead of earlier, was linked to a 45% increased risk of dementia. Future studies of circadian rhythm interventions, such as light therapy or lifestyle changes, could help determine if they can lower a person’s ...

In recent decades, scientists have debated whether a seven-million-year-old fossil was bipedal—a trait that would make it the oldest human ancestor. A new analysis by a team of anthropologists offers powerful evidence that Sahelanthropus tchadensis—a species discovered in the early 2000s—was indeed bipedal by uncovering a feature found only in bipedal hominins. Using 3D technology and other methods, the team identified Sahelanthropus’s femoral tubercle, which is the point of attachment for the largest and most powerful ligament in the human body—the iliofemoral ligament—and ...

Every day, millions of people use thermal paper without thinking about it. Receipts, shipping labels, tickets, and medical records all rely on heat‑sensitive coatings to make text appear. More specifically, heat triggers a reaction between a colorless dye and a “developer,” producing dark text where the paper is warmed. Thermal paper is a small object with a large footprint. It is produced at scale, handled daily, and often recycled, which allows its chemicals to spread into water and soil. For decades, the most common developers have been bisphenol A (BPA) and, more recently, bisphenol S (BPS). Both can affect living organisms by disrupting hormone signaling, ...

Angiosperms, also known as flowering plants, represent the most diverse group of seed plants, and their origin and evolution have long been a central question in plant evolutionary biology. Whole-genome duplication (WGD), or polyploidization, is widely recognized as a key driver of the origin and trait evolution of both seed plants and angiosperms. Detecting these ancient WGD events, however, is technically challenging, as their genomic signatures are often obscured by subsequent gene loss, chromosomal rearrangements, and synonymous substitution ...

For the first time, scientists have reconstructed ancient genomes of Human betaherpesvirus 6A and 6B (HHV-6A/B) from archaeological human remains more than two millennia old. The study, led by the University of Vienna and University of Tartu (Estonia) and published in Science Advances, confirms that these viruses have been evolving with and within humans since at least the Iron Age. The findings trace the long history of HHV-6 integration into human chromosomes and suggest that HHV-6A lost this ability early on. HHV-6B infects about 90 percent of children by the age of two and is best known as the cause of roseola infantum – or "sixth disease" – the leading cause ...

New study reveals that bacteria can survive antibiotic treatment through two fundamentally different “shutdown modes,” not just the classic idea of dormancy. The researchers show that some cells enter a regulated, protective growth arrest, a controlled dormant state that shields them from antibiotics, while others survive in a disrupted, dysregulated growth arrest, a malfunctioning state marked by vulnerabilities, especially impaired cell membrane stability. This distinction is important because antibiotic persistence is a major cause of treatment failure ...

Placenta accreta spectrum (PAS) used to be a rare pregnancy condition, but it now affects roughly 14,000 pregnancies annually, posing a major cause of maternal death. Yet why it happens is still not well understood. Placenta accreta occurs when the placenta grows too deeply into the uterine wall, and doesn’t detach after birth, often resulting in life-threatening bleeding and a need for a hysterectomy. The strongest and most common risk factor is a previous cesarean delivery, as scarring from prior cesarean births can change how the placenta attaches in future pregnancies. New research led by UCLA Health suggests that how this scar tissue heals could be the key to better understand ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – January 02, 2026) Scientists and physicians can better assess precision genome editing technology using a new method made public today by St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Significant amounts of time and resources spent improving CRISPR gene editing technology focus on identifying small off-target sites that pose a safety risk, which is also technically challenging. St. Jude researchers addressed the problem by creating Circularization for High-throughput Analysis of Nuclease Genome-wide Effects by Sequencing Base Editors (CHANGE-seq-BE), an unbiased, sensitive ...

Reston, VA (January 2, 2026)—New research has been published ahead-of-print by The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM). JNM is published by the Society of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, an international scientific and medical organization dedicated to advancing nuclear medicine, molecular imaging, and theranostics—precision medicine that allows diagnosis and treatment to be tailored to individual patients in order to achieve the best possible outcomes. Summaries of the newly published research ...

About The Study: In this cohort study of children with regular access to care, most received their measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine on time, but the proportion not receiving the MMR vaccine by 2 years of age has increased since the COVID-19 pandemic. Children who did not receive their 2- and 4-month vaccines on time were significantly more likely to not receive any MMR vaccine by 2 years, highlighting opportunities for intervention. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Nina B. Masters, PhD, MPH, email ninam@truveta.com. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.51814) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In this population-based cross-sectional study, household income disparities in preterm birth widened over time. Black race moderated the association between income and preterm birth, underscoring the need to examine the role of racism in preterm birth disparities. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Erika G. Cordova-Ramos, MD, email gabriela.cordovaramos@bmc.org. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.50664) Editor’s ...

A new University of Toronto-led study has discovered a possible biomarker linked to multiple sclerosis (MS) disease progression that could help identify patients most likely to benefit from new drugs. The findings were published today in Nature Immunology and validated in both mouse models and humans.  “We think we have uncovered a potential biomarker that signals a patient is experiencing so-called ‘compartmentalized inflammation’ in the central nervous system, a phenomenon which is strongly liked ...

In a new study, Christine Agdestein has surveyed several aspects of the postnatal check-up. Agdestein is a specialist in general practice and a general practitioner, and is currently a PhD candidate at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). The research project is part of her PhD. "An important finding is that the majority are satisfied with the 6-week check-up with their GP. This is an important offer for those who have recently given birth. GPs have an important role in postnatal care," says Christine Agdestein. "Not much research has been done on the postnatal check-up before, and therefore it is extra rewarding that we can ...

Quick clay is actually an old seabed. The clay thus formed under water, but came to the surface when the landscape rose after the last ice age. However, this clay was not so dangerous, because it was full of salt from the sea. Only when the salt in the clay was washed out of fresh water from rain and groundwater did it turn into quick clay. But what exactly makes quick clay so unstable? "We have made very detailed and careful simulations of the friction between clay particles," says researcher and doctor Ge Li at PoreLab and the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Production at the Norwegian University of Science ...

When quantum particles work together, they can produce signals far stronger than any one particle could generate alone. This collective phenomenon, called superradiance, is a powerful example of cooperation at the quantum level. Until now, superradiance was mostly known for making quantum systems lose their energy too quickly, posing challenges for quantum technologies. But a new study published in Nature Physics turns this idea on its head— revealing that collective superradiant effects ...

Cleveland: Cleveland Clinic researchers have discovered that bacteria inside cancerous tumors may be key to understanding why immunotherapy works for some patients but not others. Two new studies, published simultaneously in Nature Cancer, reveal that elevated levels of bacteria in the tumor microenvironment suppress immune response, driving resistance to immunotherapy in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. “These studies shift the focus of immunotherapy resistance research beyond tumor genetics ...

The first Editorial of the year at Science always gives the Editor-in-Chief an opportunity to reflect on notable developments for the Science journals. In this Editorial, Holden Thorp focuses on AI, discussing how it “will allow the scientific community to do more if it picks the right ways to use it.” He revisits the journals’ policies and approaches related to AI. The journals do use select AI tools. Over the past year for example, Science has collaborated with DataSeer to evaluate adherence to its policy mandating the sharing of underlying data and code for all published ...