LA JOLLA, CA—Air pollution contributes to nearly 7 million premature deaths each year, and its effects go far beyond the lungs. Breathing in wildfire smoke or automobile-related city smog doesn’t just increase the risk of asthma and heart disease—it may also contribute to brain diseases as diverse as Alzheimer’s and autism. Scientists at Scripps Research have discovered how a chemical change in the brain—which can be triggered by inflammation and aging as well as toxins found in air pollution, pesticides, wildfire smoke and processed meats—disrupts normal brain cell function. Known as S-nitrosylation, ...

A University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist is participating in  a U.S. government effort to design a satellite and instruments capable of detecting space debris as small as 1 centimeter, less than one-half inch. Debris that small, which cannot currently be detected from the ground, can damage satellites and other spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. The idea is to outfit future satellites, such as those vital for communication systems, with technology to avoid space debris collisions. Space debris travels ...

Clinical research has long focused on ways to harness the actions of the immune system. From vaccines to immunotherapies, researchers have used their knowledge of the immune system to develop therapies to treat or prevent diseases from influenza to autoimmune disease and cancer. Now, researchers from Penn’s School of Dental Medicine and international collaborators have investigated the effects of training the innate immune system in experimental models of two chronic inflammatory diseases, periodontitis and arthritis. They found that this “trained” immunity, or TRIM, led to increased bone loss in these models. This ...

A vast search of natural diversity has led scientists at MIT’s McGovern Institute and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard to uncover ancient systems with potential to expand the genome editing toolbox. These systems, which the researchers call TIGR (Tandem Interspaced Guide RNA) systems, use RNA to guide them to specific sites on DNA. TIGR systems can be reprogrammed to target any DNA sequence of interest, and they have distinct functional modules that can act on the targeted DNA. In addition to its modularity, TIGR is very compact compared to other RNA-guided systems, like ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic has again received the No. 1 ranking in Newsweek's list of the "World's Best Hospitals." This is the seventh straight year Mayo Clinic has received the top ranking. "This continued recognition is a tribute to our dedicated staff who consistently deliver unparalleled, compassionate care to our patients," says Gianrico Farrugia, M.D., president and CEO of Mayo Clinic. "We remain committed to delivering Category-of-One experiences for each patient who seeks our care while simultaneously working to transform healthcare to ...

An NYU Tandon School of Engineering-led research team has developed a way for self-driving vehicles to share their knowledge about road conditions indirectly, making it possible for each vehicle to learn from the experiences of others even when they rarely meet on the road. The research, presented in a paper at the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence Conference on February 27, 2025, tackles a persistent problem in artificial intelligence: how to help vehicles learn from each ...

New York— A new study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health reveals that Medicaid extension policies, which cover all immigrants in the post-COVID era, have led to a notable reduction in postpartum uninsurance, particularly in New York City. However, the study highlights that awareness gaps may have hindered the full benefit for Hispanic immigrants. The results are published in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH). Continuous Medicaid enrollment during the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) was associated with a 4 percentage-point decrease in postpartum uninsurance among immigrant populations in New York City. This led to a reduction, though not ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4 P.M. ET, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2025 Media Contacts: Renee Tessman, rtessman@aan.com, (612) 928-6137 Natalie Conrad, nconrad@aan.com, (612) 928-6164 Physical activity linked to lower risk of dementia, sleep disorders, other diseases MINNEAPOLIS – People who get moderate to vigorous physical activity may be less likely to develop dementia, stroke, anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders, according to a preliminary study released today, February 27, 2025, that will be presented at the American Academy of Neurology’s 77th Annual Meeting taking place April 5–9, 2025, in San Diego and online. The study ...

In response to the worsening climate crisis, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health is launching the Center for Achieving Resilience in Climate and Health (C-ARCH) to be a global solutions lab for responding to and mitigating the manifold detrimental health impacts of climate change while building adaptive capacity. C-ARCH’s team of climate and health scientists will forge partnerships with governments and communities worldwide to pursue rigorous research to identify the specific ways climate extremes harm health; design, deploy, and evaluate ...

SAN ANTONIO, Feb. 27, 2025 – Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio and their collaborators at Emory University have received a $4.9 million grant aimed at significantly improving treatment and recovery rates for individuals suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. The project was recently selected for funding by the U.S. Department of Defense through a call for studies to evaluate psychedelics as a treatment for PTSD in hopes of pushing the field forward. In this effort, the innovative clinical trial will use 3,4-methylenedioxy-methamphetamine hydrochloride, or MDMA, commonly ...

The Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF) invites the public to a free webinar, “Emerging Treatments for Social Disconnection in Psychiatric Illness” on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, at 2:00 pm ET. Register Now to explore groundbreaking research on the mental health issue: social disconnection. Defined as social isolation and loneliness, social disconnection is a major health comparable to smoking, according to the National Institutes of Health. Social disconnection is widespread in psychiatric illness, and social dysfunction ...

From laptops to electric vehicles, lithium-ion batteries power everyday life. However, as demand for longer-lasting devices threatens to outstrip the energy that lithium-ion supplies, researchers are on the hunt for more powerful batteries. A team led by Kelsey Hatzell, an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, has uncovered insights that could help power a new type of battery, called an anode-free solid-state battery, past lithium-ion’s limitations. By understanding how ...

Widespread use of genetically engineered Bt maize, designed to combat rootworm pests, has led to overplanting and pest resistance, jeopardizing the crop’s long-term effectiveness, according to a new study. The findings – informed by data from ten U.S. “Corn Belt” states – estimate that this overuse has cost U.S. farmers $1.6 billion in economic losses, emphasizing the need for improved seed diversity, transparency, and farmer decision-making to sustain transgenic crop benefits. “If current and future related innovations are managed as Bt maize hybrids have been,” say the authors, “we risk entering ...

The ebb and flow of Pleistocene glacial cycles is not random; it follows a predictable pattern dictated by the distinct and deterministic influence of Earth’s orbital geometry, according to a new study. The findings highlight the roles of precession, obliquity, and eccentricity – factors influencing the tilt and movement of Earth's axis, and the shape of Earth's orbit around the Sun – in glacial transitions. They also establish a predictive model for past and future glacial cycles based ...

From octopuses to snails, the complicated molluscan family tree has now been mapped in unprecedented detail, researchers report. This includes sequences for 13 new complete genomes from across the phylum. The genome-based phylogeny helps to resolve long-standing evolutionary debates and provides new insights into how the extraordinary diversity of species emerged from a single common ancestor. The phylum Mollusca is highly diverse with myriad morphological, ecological, and behavioral adaptions spanning both terrestrial and aquatic environments. The most well-known groups – bivalves, ...

A study of locusts navigating in a novel virtual reality (VR) environment challenges traditional models of collective swarming behavior, researchers report. The findings show that the insects don’t just follow their neighbors like self-propelled particles but instead rely on internal cognitive decision-making processes to navigate as a collective. Collective motion, a phenomenon found widely in nature, has traditionally been described using "self-propelled particle" theoretical models from physics. These “classical” models of collective behavior, like ...

The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association today released an updated clinical practice guideline for managing individuals experiencing acute coronary syndrome (ACS). The guideline incorporates new evidence and updated recommendations to improve quality of care and outcomes. The 2025 ACC/AHA/ACEP/NAEMSP/SCAI Guideline for the Management of Patients With Acute Coronary Syndromes is published simultaneously today in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology, and in the American Heart Association’s flagship journal Circulation. ACS includes a ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Beginning around 2.5 million years ago, Earth entered an era marked by successive ice ages and interglacial periods, emerging from the last glaciation around 11,700 years ago. A new analysis suggests the onset of the next ice age could be expected in 10,000 years’ time. An international team, including researchers form UC Santa Barbara, made their prediction based on a new interpretation of the small changes in Earth’s orbit of the sun, which lead to massive shifts in the planet’s climate over periods of thousands of years. The study tracks the natural cycles of the planet’s climate over a period ...

The quantum rules shaping molecular collisions are now coming into focus, offering fresh insights for chemistry and materials science. When molecules collide with surfaces, a complex exchange of energy takes place between the molecule and the atoms composing the surface. But beneath this dizzying complexity, quantum mechanics, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, governs the process. Quantum interference, in particular, plays a key role. It occurs when different pathways that a molecule can take overlap, resulting ...

The discovery of a powerful “weapon” used by many disease-causing fungi to infect and destroy major food crop staples, such as rice and corn, could offer new strategies to bolster global food security, according to researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) in collaboration with scientists in Germany and the United States.  Like humans, many fungi rely on plants as a food source. This impacts the yield of food crops. It’s estimated farmers lose between 10 to 23 per cent of their crops to fungal disease every year.  The global research team discovered that an enzyme known as a ‘NUDIX hydrolase’ is ...

NORMAN, OKLA. – In an increasingly data-saturated world, computing infrastructure innovations are needed to make sense of new types of information. Richard Veras, a professor in the School of Computer Science at the University of Oklahoma, has received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award to develop such an innovation by creating more efficient infrastructure for the computation of sparse and irregular data. Big data – datasets that are challenging to manage using traditional processing tools due to size and complexity, such as social ...

Located 2.5 million light-years away, the majestic Andromeda galaxy appears to the naked eye as a faint, spindle-shaped object roughly the angular size of the full Moon. What backyard observers don't see is a swarm of nearly three dozen small satellite galaxies circling the Andromeda galaxy, like bees around a hive. These satellite galaxies represent a rambunctious galactic "ecosystem" that NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is studying in unprecedented detail. This ambitious Hubble Treasury Program used observations from more than a whopping 1,000 Hubble orbits. Hubble's optical stability, clarity, and efficiency ...

Scientists based at the AWS Center for Quantum Computing on Caltech's campus have made a leap forward in figuring out how to suppress errors in quantum computers, a pesky problem that continues to be the greatest hurdle to building the machines of the future.   Quantum computers, which are based on the seemingly magical properties of the quantum realm, hold promise for use in many different fields, including medicine, materials science, cryptography, and fundamental physics. But while today's quantum computers can be useful for ...

The Association for Computing Machinery’s Technology Policy Council (TPC) has announced the publication of “TechBrief: Technology Policy Can Curb Domestic Violence, Human Trafficking, and Crimes Against Children,” a new issue brief which explains how intimate partner violence, human trafficking, and child exploitation are facilitated by computing technologies. The term “tech abuse” pertains to a wide variety of abuse in this context. The ACM policy experts contend that tech abuse is being addressed inconsistently, ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA – One large metropolis might have several different train systems, from local intercity lines to commuter trains to longer regional lines. When designing a system of train tracks, stations, and schedules in this network, should rail operators assume each entity operates independently, seeking only to maximize its own revenue? Or that they fully cooperate all the time with a joint plan, putting their own interest aside? In the real world, neither assumption is very realistic. Researchers from MIT and ETH Zurich have developed a new planning ...