What: In a massive scientific effort funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), hundreds of researchers have helped to map the connections between hundreds of thousands of neurons in the mouse brain and then overlayed their firing patterns in response to visual stimuli. This breakthrough is a critical piece of foundational science to build toward understanding how our brains process visual information to reconstruct the images we see every day.   Information processing in the human brain occurs ...

In 1962, when environmentalist and author Rachel Carson penned Silent Spring, alerting the world to the dangers of the pesticide DDT, it was the reproductive threat to birds – the bald eagle in particular – that spurred people to action. Six decades later, Rutgers University–New Brunswick researchers are taking the measure of another global environmental pollutant by drawing parallels to the crisis Carson identified. This time, the pollutant is mercury, and the sentinels are penguins living in the farthest reaches of the Antarctic Peninsula. “With mercury, there’s an analogy to DDT,” said John Reinfelder, a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences ...

Before humans can colonize the moon or Mars, scientists and engineers must first develop techniques for building permanent structures and pressurized habitats in harsh, thin-atmosphere and low-gravity environments. Dr. Wei Li, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Texas at Dallas, is developing a virtual lunar welding platform to troubleshoot assembling large structures in such conditions. “As we try to return to the ...

Higher firearm violence in neighborhoods is linked to lower rates of people going to the dentist and higher rates of total tooth loss, known as edentulism, according to Rutgers researchers. Their study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for dental care utilization and complete loss of teeth and data from the American Violence Project for firearm violence incidents. The researchers examined 20,332 census tracts within the 100 largest cities in the United States from 2014 to ...

A new approach to streaming technology may significantly improve how users experience virtual reality and augmented reality environments, according to a study from NYU Tandon School of Engineering. The research — presented in a paper at the 16th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference on April 1, 2025 — describes a method for directly predicting visible content in immersive 3D environments, potentially reducing bandwidth requirements by up to 7-fold while maintaining visual quality. The technology is being applied in an ongoing NYU Tandon National Science Foundation-funded project to bring point cloud video to dance education, making ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2025 MINNEAPOLIS — Heavy drinkers who have eight or more alcoholic drinks per week have an increased risk of brain lesions called hyaline arteriolosclerosis, signs of brain injury that are associated with memory and thinking problems, according to a study published on April 9, 2025, online in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study does not prove that heavy drinking causes brain injury; it only shows an association. Hyaline arteriolosclerosis is a condition that ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2025 MINNEAPOLIS — While some studies have suggested that having a mother with Alzheimer’s disease may put you more at risk of developing the disease, a new study finds that having a father with the disease may be tied to a greater spread of the tau protein in the brain that is a sign of the disease, according to a study published on April 9, 2025, online in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study does not prove that having a father with Alzheimer’s results in these brain changes; it only shows an association. The study also showed ...

Why this matters: Arsenic levels in brown rice were found to be higher for U.S. consumers than in white rice, despite people often looking to brown rice as a healthier alternative. There is significant arsenic risk for U.S. children under 5 who consume brown rice, as arsenic is a toxic chemical element that can lead to health problems. Arsenic levels in U.S.-grown rice were found to be considerably lower than rice grown outside the country, suggesting there is concern to U.S. consumers who eat rice grown outside the country. EAST LANSING, Mich. – Whether you buy rice at the grocery store or order a side of it while ...

A new, exploratory study has revealed statistical links between the performance of medical detection dogs and their scores on behavioral and affective tests, finding that more “optimistic” dogs tended to perform better overall on detection tasks, but “pessimistic” dogs had higher scent detection specificity. Sharyn Bistre Dabbah of the University of Bristol, U.K., and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on April 9, 2025. Animal researchers commonly use a method called judgment bias testing to help assess animals’ emotional states. For example, dogs may first be trained to associate a specific location in a room ...

In a new study, wastewater surveillance for multiple pathogens at five different sites identified local trends that were not captured in larger surveillance programs, and some sites used the data to inform efforts to prevent disease spread. Jay Bullen of Untap Health in London, U.K., Charlotte Hammer of the University of Cambridge and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS Global Public Health. People with viral infections produce waste containing viral RNA that ends up in wastewater ...

Scientists from Yale University report that in addition to participation in school-based extracurricular activities, U.S. adolescents who participate in faith-based or community-based extracurricular activities may be more likely to identify the risks of binge-drinking behavior, which could be an important consideration when developing preventions for excessive alcohol consumption. ### Article URL: https://plos.io/4jHh7Dd Article Title: Adolescent extracurricular activities and perception of risk of harm from binge drinking Author Countries: United States Funding: This study was financially supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (https://nida.nih.gov) ...

Tulane University researchers have developed a first-of-its-kind handheld diagnostic device that can deliver rapid, accurate tuberculosis diagnoses in under an hour, according to a study published in Science Translational Medicine. The smartphone-sized, battery-powered lab-in-tube assay (LIT) provides a cost-effective tool that can improve TB diagnoses, particularly in resource-limited rural areas where health care facilities and lab equipment are less accessible. Over 90% of new TB cases occur in low- and middle-income countries. This point-of-care device is the first to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) DNA in saliva, in addition to blood and sputum samples. Saliva is ...

Recently, a team of researchers from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has consecutively removed the innermost atom and the outermost electron of a gold nanoparticle—without disturbing its overall structure. This precise manipulation allowed them to probe how the magnetic spin of the material influences its catalytic activity. The work, led by Prof. WU Zhikun in collaboration with Prof. YANG from the Institute of Process Engineering, CAS and Prof. TANG from Chongqing University, ...

New research has uncovered more about the complexity of human gene regulation by identifying certain sequences of proteins called transcription factors that bind to DNA and regulate the expression of human genes.   Published today (9 April) in Nature, researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the University of Cambridge and their collaborators explored how DNA-guided transcription factors interact with each other. This research adds to the groundwork of understanding the complex language of the gene regulatory code, and how DNA sequence patterns located close to our genes influence human development and disease risk. Each ...

An international team of agronomists is calling for a new approach to estimate crop yield potential and gaps — information that is critical in planning how to meet growing food demand.  University of Nebraska–Lincoln researchers made major contributions to the study, published online April 8 in the journal Nature Food.  “We are in a race to feed the world and to try to feed the population with the available agricultural land that we have,” said Patricio Grassini, Sunkist Distinguished Professor of Agronomy and one of the paper’s authors. To ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA – The process of discovering molecules that have the properties needed to create new medicines and materials is cumbersome and expensive, consuming vast computational resources and months of human labor to narrow down the enormous space of potential candidates. Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT could streamline this process, but enabling an LLM to understand and reason about the atoms and bonds that form a molecule, the same way it does with words that form sentences, has presented a scientific stumbling block. Researchers ...

San Diego—April 9, 2025– In a manuscript published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry titled Long-Read Genome Sequencing in Clinical Psychiatry: RFX3 Haploinsufficiency in a Hospitalized Adolescent With Autism, Intellectual Disability, and Behavioral Decompensation, authors describe how they leveraged long-read genomic sequencing (LRS) to make a genetic diagnosis in a17-year-old male with autism spectrum disorder, intellectual disability, and acute behavioral decompensation that would not have been possible by standard methods. Through the use of LRS, a cutting-edge technology ...

Background: Thoracic autonomic nervous system surgery is mainly used for hyperhidrosis/facial flushing, whereas cardiac and vascular indications are limited. The literature remains controversial regarding the correct indications and surgical technique, with the lack of homogeneous data being a major limitation. We designed a survey to investigate current practice among members of the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons (ESTS). Methods: A 29-question ad hoc questionnaire was available to all ESTS members from December 2022 to February 2023. ...

Urbanization has a huge impact on the ecosystem and poses enormous challenges to animals and plants. The ongoing, worldwide increase in urbanization is considered one of the main causes of the steady decline in biodiversity. Urban ecology is the field of research that focuses on the effects of urbanization on different organisms. For example, many studies have investigated how urban noise affects communication in birds. However, little is still known about the relationship between urbanization and plumage colour in birds. Plumage colour serves many important functions: it can play a role in ...

How do apps improve? For some of today’s most popular applications, it’s by listening to their customers. Instagram responded to requests for in-app editing tools by offering filters, brightness, and contrast adjustments. Offline maps, by Google Maps, answered users who wanted to use the tool when they couldn’t get online. But listening to user feedback isn’t an easy task. The Apple App Store alone offers 3.8 million appswith as many as 1.8 million reviews apiece. New research from ...

The Saharo-Arabian Desert experienced repeated wetter periods over the past eight million years. Wetter conditions favoured the exchange of mammals between Africa and Eurasia. Fossilised rain water reveals monsoon rains reached Arabia in such wet periods. The Saharo-Arabian Desert is one of the largest biogeographic barriers on Earth, hindering the dispersal of animals between Africa and Eurasia, and is at least eleven million years old. How did water-dependent mammals, including our early ancestors, manage to cross this inhospitable desert in ...

Background: Pulmonary mucosa-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT) lymphoma is a rare, indolent subtype of non-Hodgkin lymphoma with distinct radiological and pathological characteristics. Clinically, patients may present with nonspecific symptoms such as cough or dyspnea, and the disease can mimic other pulmonary conditions. High-resolution computed tomography (HRCT) imaging plays a critical role in identifying characteristic lung patterns, such as nodules, consolidation, or ground-glass opacities, which help in differentiating pulmonary MALT lymphoma from other pulmonary disorders. The ...

Generations are already seen as unique in terms of values and beliefs. These differences may stretch into the realm of finance, according to a new study from the University of Georgia. Financial well-being reflects a person’s ability to hold out against financial troubles and achieve their goals. If financial well-being is low, there can be negative impacts on a person’s mental health. The researchers looked at data from the 2016 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s National ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Researchers at Cornell University have developed a new type of smart clothing that can track a person’s posture and exercise routine but looks, wears – and washes – just like a regular shirt. The new technology, called SeamFit, uses flexible conductive threads sewn into the neck, arm and side seams of a standard short-sleeved T-shirt. The user does not need to manually log their workout, because an artificial intelligence pipeline detects movements, identifies the ...

Background: Chest drains are routinely used after video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS) lung resections to evacuate fluid and air from the pleural space. We compared the impact of coaxial silicone (SIL) drains vs. standard polyvinyl chloride (PVC) drains on postoperative pain, drainage efficacy, and short-term treatment outcome following VATS lobectomy. Methods: The prospective randomized study included 80 patients who underwent VATS lobectomy for lung cancer between September 2020 and June 2023. Patients were randomized into two groups based on the type ...