Key Findings:  Syria's civil war cannot be traced to a single environmental cause but is deeply rooted in policy and socioeconomic failures that increased agricultural vulnerability.  The 2007-2009 drought caused a temporary spike in fallow land, but the agricultural sector rebounded quickly the following year.  19% of Syrian cropland was abandoned between 2001 and 2016 due to a mix of political, socioeconomic, and environmental changes rather than drought ...

A new paper in The BMJ from researchers at the University of Chicago and Harvard University is among the first to examine what happens when hospitals sell their buildings to Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and lease them back. The researchers previously documented how roughly 20 REITs have quietly accumulated a large share of U.S. health care real estate. Globally, REITs, often in partnership with private equity, have been buying medical office buildings, nursing homes, and hospitals. Some experts are raising the alarm that these financial entities have become major, ...

WASHINGTON — Researchers have developed a new compact Raman imaging system that is sensitive enough to differentiate between tumor and normal tissue. The system offers a promising route to earlier cancer detection and to making molecular imaging more practical outside the lab. The new Raman system is designed to detect very faint signals from special surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) nanoparticles that bind to tumor markers. After the particles are applied to a sample or the area being ...

Boston Children’s Hospital today announced that it has received a grant of $7.5 million from Aligning Research to Impact Autism (ARIA) to support its role in the Clinical Coordinating Center (CCC) for the Innovative Medicine and Precision Approaches to Clinical Trials (IMPACT) Network, an international network of sites designed to accelerate clinical trials for individuals with autism, both with a known rare high-penetrance genetic etiology and those with profound autism without a genetic cause identified. Selection of Boston Children’s Hospital as a co-lead for this major clinical research program is a testament to the Hospital’s decades-long ...

Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a spray-on polymer coating that could help plants resist harmful bacterial infections and survive drought. The advance, published in ACS Materials Letters, could help strengthen global food security as increased environmental stresses continue to intensify plant disease pressures. Bacterial infections are a growing threat to agriculture as they contribute to major crop losses worldwide. These infections, which are driven by both Gram-negative and Gram-positive ...

For decades, researchers and practitioners have debated whether it is better to make the first offer in a negotiation or to wait. A new meta-study now provides a comprehensive and clear answer. The researchers analyzed 90 studies with a total of 374 experiments and more than 16,000 participants. Their conclusion: Those who make the first offer and come well prepared generally achieve better outcomes. The study “The Power and Peril of First Offers in Negotiations” was conducted by Martin Schweinsberg, associate professor of organizational behavior at ESMT Berlin, as part of an international research team led by Hannes M. Petrowsky (Leuphana University). ...

Paranal, Chile, 17 December 2025 — Representatives from the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO), the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and governmental authorities gathered today to celebrate the official groundbreaking of the CTAO’s southern site, CTAO-South. After years of successful site preparations, the event marked the beginning of construction on the telescope foundations, paving the way for the first telescopes to be completed by the end of 2026. The CTAO will be the world’s largest and most powerful observatory for gamma-ray astronomy, ...

Letting out a swear word in a moment of frustration can feel good. Now, research suggests that it can be good for you, too: Swearing can boost people’s physical performance by helping them overcome their inhibitions and push themselves harder on tests of strength and endurance, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. “In many situations, people hold themselves back – consciously or unconsciously – from using their full strength,” said study author Richard Stephens, PhD, of Keele University in the U.K.  “Swearing is an easily available way to help yourself feel focused, ...

CWRU Contact: Patty Zamora, patty.zamora@case.edu UH Contact: Jeannine Denholm, Jeannine.denholm@uhhospitals.org CLEVELAND—A study by Case Western Reserve University and University Hospitals researchers has overturned long-held assumptions about why more cancer patients don’t enroll in clinical trials that could potentially save their lives. They found that financial factors—not race or demographics—are the strongest predictors of participation in cancer research studies. “Clinical trials save lives, but financial barriers prevent too many patients from participating,” said Weichuan Dong, adjunct assistant ...

British policymakers planning for climate change now have detailed worst-case scenarios at their disposal, filling a gap that left the UK unprepared for extreme outcomes.  Scientists from the University of Reading have mapped out the most serious plausible climate threats facing the UK, including year-round cooling of up to 6°C if the Atlantic's currents collapse, temperature rises well above 4°C, or rapid sea level rises of over 2 metres by 2100.    The team's research, published today (Thursday, 18 December) in the journal Earth's Future, ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A decline in religious participation among middle-aged, less educated white Americans may have played a role in the widely noted increases in “deaths of despair,” a new study finds.   Researchers found that states that had the largest declines in churchgoing from 1985 to 2000 also had larger increases in death by drug overdoses, suicide and alcoholic liver disease – what have been called deaths of despair.   While the increase in deaths of despair has often been ...

TAMEST (Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science and Technology) has announced Maralice Conacci-Sorrell, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Department of Cell Biology at UT Southwestern Medical Center, as the recipient of the 2026 Mary Beth Maddox Award and Lectureship in cancer research. She was chosen for her pioneering research revealing how cancer cells harness nutrients to drive their growth and for creating targeted strategies to suppress otherwise untreatable cancers. The Mary Beth Maddox Award and Lectureship recognizes women scientists in Texas bringing new ideas and innovations to the fight against cancer. It was established in 2022 in honor of Mary Beth Maddox, former ...

Thousands of dengue forecasting models have been published, but few have been tested in real public-health settings. Now, researchers from the US and Australia are launching a field evaluation in Vietnam to see whether a new early-warning platform can support earlier interventions against a disease that WHO says puts nearly half the world’s population at risk.  Southern Cross University (Aus) is leading the second phase of this multi-year collaboration, working alongside the University of Queensland (Aus), Yale University (USA) and Vietnam’s National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology. This ...

Single-phase power factor correction (PFC) circuits—a kind of front-end AC/DC converters—are ubiquitous in a variety of consumer electronic devices, including laptop adapters, LED driver power supplies, and portable chargers. They enhance the current quality drawn from the source, delivering stable DC voltage with high efficiency. However, current sensors in traditional boost PFC converters introduce issues such as noise susceptibility, signal delays, increased hardware complexity, and potential sensor failures that ...

In 2001, chemists K. Barry Sharpless, Hartmuth C. Kolb, and M. G. Finn introduced click chemistry, a concept in which organic molecules can be rapidly and reliably joined to form more complex structures. They recognized that many natural compounds are assembled through efficient carbon–heteroatom (C–X) bond formation, particularly with nitrogen, oxygen, and sulfur, and they sought to replicate this in the laboratory. Since its introduction, click chemistry has transformed the field and was later recognized with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. One of its most influential reactions is the copper-catalyzed azide–alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC), ...

Altermagnets are a newly recognized class of antiferromagnets whose magnetic structure behaves very differently from what is found in conventional systems. In conventional antiferromagnets, the sublattices are linked by simple inversion or translation, resulting in spin-degenerate electronic bands. In altermagnets, however, they are connected by unconventional symmetries such as rotations or screw axes. This shift in symmetry breaks the spin degeneracy, allowing for spin-polarized electron currents even in the absence of net magnetization. This unique property makes altermagnets exciting candidates for spintronic technologies, a field of electronics that ...

The University of Texas at San Antonio has received a $7 million gift commitment from longtime philanthropic supporter and former AT&T CEO Ed Whitacre and his wife Linda Whitacre to advance research, student success and athletics. The Whitacres have made a transformational $5 million commitment to honor the late William L. Henrich, MD, former president of UT Health San Antonio, whose visionary leadership and unwavering compassion shaped the university for more than a decade. The gift will advance the institution’s nationally recognized expertise in metabolic health — an area of research and clinical care that includes diabetes, ...

An experimental drug developed at Northwestern University has demonstrated further promise as an early intervention for Alzheimer’s disease. In a new study, Northwestern scientists identified a previously unknown highly toxic sub-species of amyloid beta oligomers — toxic clusters of peptides — that appear to drive several of the brain’s earliest changes, including neuronal dysfunction, inflammation and activation of immune cells. The experimental drug, a small-molecule compound called NU-9, decreased this toxic amyloid beta oligomersubtype and dramatically reduced the damage it causes in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease. ...

Embargoed for release: Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025, 5:30 AM ET Key points: Real estate investment trust (REIT)-acquired hospitals were associated with a greater risk of bankruptcy or closure than non-REIT-acquired hospitals. REIT-acquisition of hospitals was not associated with any significant changes in quality of care or outcome indicators. The study is the first national examination of the consequences of REIT acquisitions of hospitals. According to the researchers, its findings suggest the need for greater regulatory oversight over these acquisitions.  Boston, MA—Real estate investment ...

LOS ANGELES — Scientists at City of Hope®, one of the largest and most advanced cancer research and treatment organizations in the U.S. and a leading research center for diabetes and other life-threatening illnesses, have unraveled how citrin deficiency (CD), a rare genetic disorder that prevents the liver from converting food into energy efficiently, can trigger fat buildup in the liver — even in lean individuals. Their landmark study, published in Nature Metabolism, also reveals how the liver turns on a hormone that reduces cravings for sweets and alcohol. The findings could lead to new therapies for a variety of health conditions, including fatty liver disease ...

Your "roommate's" genes could be influencing the bacteria living in your gut, and vice versa, according to a study of rats published today in Nature Communications.  The research, carried out by studying more than four thousand animals, reveals that the composition of the rat gut microbiome is shaped not only by an individual’s own genes but also by the genes of the individuals they share a living space with.  The discovery reveals a new way genes and social life intertwine: through the exchange ...

Researchers have developed the first scientifically validated ‘personality test’ framework for popular AI chatbots, and have shown that chatbots not only mimic human personality traits, but their ‘personality’ can be reliably tested and precisely shaped – raising implications for AI safety and ethics. The research team, led by the University of Cambridge and Google DeepMind, developed a method to measure and influence the synthetic ‘personality’ of 18 different large ...

Global food systems driving twin crises of obesity and global heating  A major review in Frontiers in Science highlights how tackling unsustainable food systems—reflected by our changing food environment—is urgent for both health and climate.  The paper reviews evidence that both obesity and environmental harms result from a profit-led food system that encourages high intake and poor health. The authors say that our food ...

In a groundbreaking study, researchers have captured real-time "molecular movies" showing how an enzyme changes shape during catalysis. Using an advanced technique called mix-and-inject serial crystallography at Japan's SACLA X-ray free-electron laser facility, the team observed domain movements and structural changes in the enzyme, copper amine oxidase enzyme over millisecond timescales, revealing dynamics that are nearly impossible to observe by other methods. Enzymes are nature's catalysts, that speed up biochemical reactions ...

The gut microbiome — made up of trillions of microbes in the digestive tract — is vital for digestion and overall health. Diet and medication shape these microbial ecosystems, but the contribution of genetics has been more difficult to ascertain. Now, a new study of rats — a model organism for understanding the human gut — has found that the composition of the rat gut microbiome is shaped not only by a rat’s own genes but also by the genes of  those it lives with.  The discovery reveals a novel way in which genes and social interactions intertwine: through the exchange of commensal ...