Astronomers from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), the National Centre of Competence in Research PlanetS, and the Trottier Institute for Research on Exoplanets (IREx) at the University of Montreal (UdeM) have made a striking discovery using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). For the very first time, scientists have continuously monitored the atmosphere escaping from an exoplanet throughout a complete orbit. The result: the gas giant WASP-121b is surrounded not by one, but by two immense helium tails ...

Much remains to be known about the chemical composition of small asteroids. Their potential to harbour valuable metals, materials from the early solar system, and the possibility of obtaining a geochemical record of their parent bodies makes them promising candidates for future use of space resources. A team led by the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC) has analyzed samples of C-type asteroids, carbon-rich minor bodies of the Solar System, progenitors of the carbonaceous chondrites. Their findings, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, support the idea that these asteroids ...

One in five young people in the UK now access specialist mental health care by age 18 – a four-fold increase in under two decades, new research suggests.  Figures from Wales – which researchers say serve as an accurate indicator for the whole of the UK – indicate a consistent year-on-year rise in service use, with a sharp acceleration after 2010.   Experts warn that existing services may no longer meet the needs of today’s young people, with many treatment decisions based on decades-old evidence.  Rates of mental ill health among young people have been rising across the world. Despite this, there has been a lack of evidence on the proportion ...

A new paper in Rheumatology Advances in Practice, published by Oxford University Press, indicates that Tik Tok videos about gout are commonly misleading, inconsistent, or inaccurate. Gout is a painful inflammatory arthritis caused by high urate in the blood that crystallizes and deposits in the joints. An estimated forty-one million people worldwide suffer from gout, with physicians diagnosing about seven million new cases a year. There are persistent gaps in awareness and understanding about gout among patients and the public. Although rheumatology guidelines recommend long-term urate-lowering therapy for ...

In a new publication, Professor José-María Martín-Olalla, from the Department of Condensed Matter Physics at the University of Seville, has described the direct link between the vanishing of specific heats at absolute zero—a general experimental observation established in the early 20th century—and the second law of thermodynamics. The study, published in Physica Scripta, reinterprets a 100-year-old problem and completes the consequences of the principle of increasing entropy in the universe. The new study follows another published in the European Physical Journal Plus in ...

Natural killer (NK) cells are the bodyguards of our immune system. As a first line of defense, they destroy invading pathogens, foreign bodies, and infected cells in early stages, thereby preventing them from spreading. NK cells can circulate within the blood stream (circulatory) or reside in tissue and organs. Having too few NK cells can lead to immune system dysfunction and increase susceptibility to disease. Anxiety disorder and insomnia are two conditions that can disrupt the normal functioning of the immune system. Given these disorders ...

There are plants that are neither green nor sexually reproductive, but precisely because of that they teach us a lot about what it means to be a plant. New research with Kobe University participation took a close look at Balanophora to learn how such non-green, asexual plants evolve and live. “My long-standing aim is to rethink what it truly means to be a plant,” says Kobe University botanist SUETSUGU Kenji. He continues, “For many years I have been fascinated by plants that have abandoned photosynthesis, and I want ...

Naoise Mac Giollabhui, PhD, of the Department of Psychiatry at Mass General Brigham, is the lead author of a paper published in American Journal of Psychiatry, “Effect of anti-inflammatory treatment on depressive symptom severity and anhedonia in depressed individuals with elevated inflammation: Systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.” Richard Liu, PhD, of the Department of Psychiatry at Mass General Brigham, is the senior author. Q: How would you summarize your study ...

Artificial intelligence and machine learning could become dramatically more efficient, thanks to a new type of computer component developed by researchers at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Tohoku University, in collaboration with the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). The technology is based on "probabilistic bits," or "p-bits", which are hardware elements that naturally fluctuate between 0 and 1. Unlike conventional digital bits, which are fixed in value, p-bits can efficiently explore many possibilities. This makes them well-suited for solving problems such as optimization and inference, tasks that ...

Research Background Hydrogen energy is vital for renewable energy storage and "dual carbon" goals, but 95% of global hydrogen production relies on fossil fuel reforming (emitting ~1.3 billion tons of CO₂ yearly), driving demand for green hydrogen via water electrolysis. Anion exchange membrane water electrolysis (AEMWE) combines the advantages of alkaline water electrolysis (noble-metal-free, low cost) and proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (high current density, compact structure), but its industrialization is limited by traditional ...

Background and Motivation The United States debt ceiling—the legal limit on federal borrowing—has been a recurring source of political and economic uncertainty, especially as U.S. national debt has nearly doubled over the past decade. While existing research has explored how broad economic policy uncertainty affects financial markets, little attention has been paid to the specific impact of debt ceiling uncertainty on commodity markets, particularly crude oil. Given oil’s central role in the global economy, understanding ...

University of Sydney marine biologists have identified a devastating combination of coral bleaching and a rare necrotic wasting disease that wiped out large, long-lived corals on the Great Barrier Reef during the record 2024 marine heatwave. The study, led by Professor Maria Byrne and Sydney Horizon Fellow Dr Shawna Foo, found that bleaching triggered by extreme ocean temperatures was followed by an unprecedented outbreak of black band disease that killed massive Goniopora corals, also known as flowerpot or daisy coral, at One Tree Reef on the southern Great Barrier ...

Background Producing fusion energy requires heating plasma to more than one hundred million degrees and confining it stably with strong magnetic fields. However, plasma naturally develops fluctuations known as turbulence, and they carry heat outward and weaken confinement. Understanding how heat and turbulence spread is therefore essential.   Conventional theory has assumed that heat and turbulence move gradually from the center toward the edge. Yet experiments have sometimes shown heat and turbulence spreading much faster, similar to American football players passing a ball quickly across long distances so that a local change influences the entire field almost at once. Clarifying ...

Humans are far closer to meerkats and beavers for levels of exclusive mating than we are to most of our primate cousins, according to a new University of Cambridge study that includes a table ranking monogamy rates in various species of mammal. Previous evolutionary research has used fossil records and anthropological fieldwork to infer human sexual selection. While in other species, researchers have conducted long-term observations of animal societies and used paternity tests to study mating systems. Now, a new approach by Dr Mark Dyble from Cambridge’s Department ...

A remarkably preserved horseshoe crab fossil from North America offers rare insight into some of the earliest known cases of animal disease in a Late Carboniferous swamp – more than 300 million years before the age of dinosaurs. The specimen, uncovered from the mass-burial fossil deposit at the famous Mazon Creek Lagerstätte in Illinois in the US, shows more than 100 small pits across the front of its shell, representing one of the earliest documented examples of microbial or algal infection killing groups of these ancient aquatic animals. “Ancient ...

Doctors treating seriously ill patients in an emergency setting may want to give the sedative etomidate, rather than ketamine, while placing a breathing tube, according to a randomized trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The Randomized Trial of Sedative Choice for Intubation (RSI) is the first multicenter trial to demonstrate significant cardiovascular risks of high doses of ketamine (low blood pressure, arrhythmia), side effects that have not been well studied in the past. “We know that patients receive treatments every day in hospitals around the world that have never been evaluated in a rigorous study ...

If quantum computing is going to become an every-day reality, we need better superconducting thin films, the hardware that enables storage and processing of quantum information. Too often, these thin films have impurities or other defects that make them useless for real quantum computer chips. Now, Yuki Sato and colleagues at the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science (CEMS) in Japan have discovered a way to make a superconducting thin film from iron telluride, which is surprising because it is not normally superconducting. The fabrication process reduces distortion in the crystal structure, ...

Computer simulations revealed the detailed mechanism of how the protein "dynamin" works to form small vesicles within cells. While dynamin uses GTP hydrolysis energy to change shape, it was unclear how this leads to membrane constriction. Simulations showed that instead of simply tightening, dynamin "loosens" (expands) at a certain stage to generate the force needed to narrow the surrounding membrane tube. This study provides a clearer explanation for membrane deformation and vesicle formation processes in cells, offering insights ...

At any one time, nearly 1 in 5 emergency department patients in the UK is being cared for in corridors, waiting rooms, and other non-standard ‘overflow’ spaces—an approach known as escalation area care—suggest the results of a large observational study, published online in Emergency Medicine Journal.   Almost all emergency departments in the UK are routinely deploying this approach, which contravenes national guidance, the findings indicate.   Amid the high prevalence of emergency department overcrowding in the UK, escalation area care is reported to be widespread, but there is no high quality evidence describing ...

Downing several strong energy drinks every day may pose a serious stroke risk, doctors have warned in the journal BMJ Case Reports, after treating an otherwise fit and healthy man in his 50s with a daily 8-can habit and exceedingly high blood pressure.   The findings prompt the authors to call for tighter regulation of the sales and advertising of these drinks, particularly given their popularity among young people.   The man in question had a stroke in his thalamus—the part of the brain involved in sensory perception and movement. His symptoms included left-sided ...

Globally, among women aged 15-49, intimate partner violence (IPV) and sexual violence against children (SVAC) ranked fourth and fifth, respectively, among all health risks for premature death and disability; among men, SVAC ranked 11th. New evidence links exposure to violence to a large range of health conditions that include and extend well beyond mental health disorders. SVAC is linked to 14 health conditions, including suicide, substance use disorders, and diabetes; IPV is linked to eight negative health outcomes, including mental health conditions, physical injuries, and HIV. Estimates indicate that IPV is responsible for over 20% of health loss due to anxiety, ...

A test using genetics to predict who is at the highest risk of developing type 1 diabetes could one day be applied to largescale health studies, to identify adults who could benefit from new drugs, new research shows. Known as a genetic risk score, the test uses all genetic information to predict risk of going on to develop type 1 diabetes. This genetic risk score also feeds into an online clinical calculator, previously developed by the team led by the University of Exeter and now available to clinicians, which helps identify children at high risk of developing type 1 diabetes. Clinicians ...

University of South Australia scientists have developed a powerful new way to uncover the genetic interactions that fuel cancer progression, paving the way for earlier and more precise treatments. The AI-driven method, published today in Royal Society Open Science, reveals that tumour progression is driven by cooperating groups of genes, rather than mutated genes acting alone. Lead researcher Dr Andres Cifuentes-Bernal says his team used AI tools to identify groups of genes working in concert to push cancer forward. “The system assesses how genes influence each other over time, providing a clearer picture of the underlying ...

New research reveals how the speed of ocean currents and the shape of the seabed influence the amount of heat flowing underneath Antarctic ice shelves, contributing to melting. Scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) used an autonomous underwater vehicle to survey beneath the Dotson Ice Shelf in the Amundsen Sea, an area of rapid glacial ice loss largely due to increasing ocean heat around and below ice shelves. The circulation of warm water and the heat transport within ice shelf cavities - significant areas beneath ice shelves - remains mostly unknown. To address this the team collected data ...

A new report warns Deaf women experiencing domestic abuse in Scotland remain “effectively invisible” due to the chronic absence of specialist services and a lack of coordinated national support. Researchers say this gap leaves deaf victim-survivors without meaningful access to safety and advocacy.   Led by Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh, the British Academy-funded Sign LOUD report highlights that Scotland currently has no national dedicated British Sign Language (BSL) support services ...