Key take-aways    New research finds that low fitness levels and older age are strong and independent risk factors for heartbeat irregularities, or arrhythmias*, in healthy adults. These arrhythmias were previously thought to be harmless, but are now considered to be an indicator of future cardiovascular risk (1,2)  The results support the introduction of age-based arrhythmia screening in over 50s, to allow for early intervention before symptoms arise to alter the trajectory of disease   There was a particularly strong association between lower aerobic fitness and risk of frequent and complex atrial arrythmias, ...

Sharks can famously replace their teeth, with new ones always growing as they’re using up the current set. As sharks rely on their teeth to catch prey, this is vital to the survival of one of the oceans’ top predators. But the ability to regrow teeth might not be enough to ensure they can withstand the pressures of a warming world where oceans are getting more acidic, new research has found. Researchers in Germany examined sharks’ teeth under different ocean acidification scenarios and showed that more acidic oceans lead to more brittle and weaker teeth. “Shark teeth, despite being composed of highly mineralized phosphates, are still vulnerable to corrosion under ...

Amsterdam, August 27, 2025 – A novel study investigating how physical activity and diet quality interact with different levels and patterns of alcohol consumption shows that healthy eating and increased levels of physical activity significantly lower the risk of alcohol-attributable liver-related mortality. The findings from this comprehensive new study in the Journal of Hepatology, published by Elsevier, use data from a large multi-ethnic US cohort and highlight the importance of considering other lifestyle behaviors when estimating the risk of death from alcohol-related liver disease at a population level. In the US, more than half (53%) of adults over 18 years of age regularly ...

Kyoto, Japan -- Periodical cicadas have one of the strangest life cycles in the animal kingdom. The 17-year cicadas spend 99.5% of their lives underground in an undeveloped nymph state, which is the longest strictly regulated juvenile period among insects. Then in the spring of their 17th year, they simultaneously emerge and the males scream above ground for their four to six week-long adult life. Exactly how these insects are able to control when they mature and emerge has remained a mystery. The long life cycle of periodical cicadas makes rearing nymphs for study extremely difficult. Recently, however, a collaborative team of researchers from both Japan and the ...

A new review published in Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems（AIAS） highlights how artificial intelligence can tackle the pervasive problem of missing traffic data in intelligent transportation systems. The study categorizes and compares leading data imputation methods, offering a clear roadmap for researchers and city planners to improve traffic management and smart city operations. As cities worldwide deploy more sensors and intelligent systems to manage traffic, a hidden problem is undermining their efforts: missing data. Sensor failures, communication dropouts, and harsh environmental conditions often lead to ...

An internationally joint research group between Singapore and Japan has unveiled a blueprint for arranging exotic, knot-like patterns of light into repeatable crystals that extend across both space and time. The work lays out how to build and control “hopfion” lattices using structured beams at two different colors, pointing to future systems for dense, robust information processing in photonics.   Hopfions are three-dimensional topological textures whose internal “spin” patterns weave into closed, interlinked loops. They have been observed ...

Move over gym rats. Bumble bees are now the true masters of macros. In the first long-term, community-level field study of wild bumble bee nutrition, a team of ecologists led by Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden discovered that wild bees aren’t just flitting from flower to flower, collecting pollen at random. Instead, they are strategically targeting flowers that enable them to carefully balance their protein, fat and carbs. Focusing on pollen consumption, the study revealed that coexisting bee species occupy two distinct nutrient niches. Larger bodied bees with longer tongues prefer pollen that’s ...

A relatively new class of insecticide that can be disseminated on something the size of a sheet of paper offers protection for up to a year against mosquitoes that spread malaria, as well as dengue, West Nile, yellow fever, and Zika, UC San Francisco researchers have found. In a systematic review of more than 25 years of data on some 1.7 million mosquitoes, researchers concluded that this form of repellent — called a “spatial emanator” because it distributes chemicals through the air — can prevent more than ...

Psychotherapy leads to measurable changes in brain structure. Researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the University of Münster have demonstrated this for the first time in a study in “Translational Psychiatry” by using cognitive behavioural therapy. The team analysed the brains of 30 patients suffering from acute depression. After therapy, most of them showed changes in areas responsible for processing emotions. The observed effects are similar to those already known from studies on medication. Around ...

New research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London, in partnership with the University of Bath, has found that the reasons why a person chooses to use cannabis can increase their risk of developing paranoia.  The use and potency of cannabis is increasing worldwide, and dependence and cannabis-induced psychosis are also greatly increasing as a result, especially in North America. Two new research papers, both using data from Cannabis & Me - the largest survey of its kind - have identified key risk factors associated ...

Nearly 80% of US neurologists prescribing drugs for multiple sclerosis (MS) received at least one pharma industry payment, with higher volume prescribers more likely to be beneficiaries, finds a 5 year analysis of Medicare database payments, published in the open access journal BMJ Open. And those in receipt of these payments were more likely to prescribe that company’s drugs, especially if the sums involved were larger, sustained, and recent, the findings indicate. Because of the lifelong nature of MS, effective therapies are usually continued indefinitely unless a patient’s clinical response changes, explain the researchers. And MS drug prescriptions are ...

A team of astronomers has detected for the first time a growing planet outside our solar system, embedded in a cleared gap of a multi-ringed disk of dust and gas. The team, led by University of Arizona astronomer Laird Close and Richelle van Capelleveen, an astronomy graduate student at Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands, discovered the unique exoplanet using the University of Arizona's MagAO-X extreme adaptive optics system at the Magellan Telescope in Chile, the U of A's Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona and the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile. ...

Making a smoothie, going for an evening walk, or having empathy for a loved one are all examples of executive functions that are controlled by the brain’s frontal cortex. This area of the brain goes through profound change throughout adolescence, and it is during this time that abnormalities in maturing circuits can set the stage for neurodevelopmental disorders, such as schizophrenia and ADHD. Researchers at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester have discovered that microglia, the brain’s immune cells, ...

Recently, defect detection systems using artificial intelligence (AI) sensor data have been installed in smart factory manufacturing sites. However, when the manufacturing process changes due to machine replacement or variations in temperature, pressure, or speed, existing AI models fail to properly understand the new situation and their performance drops sharply. KAIST researchers have developed AI technology that can accurately detect defects even in such situations without retraining, achieving performance improvements ...

Alcohol-associated liver disease (ALD) is a major cause of liver transplantation and death worldwide, and its impact is only growing. In 2022, the annual cost of ALD in the United States was $31 billion. By 2040, this number could be as high as $66 billion. ALD has limited therapeutic options, so scientists are looking for new ways to target the molecular biology of ALD to help prevent its occurrence or reduce its severity. Now, scientists at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have found that chronic alcohol use impairs the production of a key cellular signaling ...

Palo Alto, CA and Bethesda, MD (Aug. 26, 2025) – American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) is proud to announce a new collaboration with, Latica, a leader in real-world clinical data and artificial intelligence-driven research solutions, to support a real-world evidence initiative: the IBD Living Guidelines Real-World Evidence Study. The study will be powered by Latica’s proprietary data platform and robust clinical datasets, in partnership with Latica’s GI Network, starting with data from Gastro Health and Allied Digestive Health, two of the largest and most respected community gastroenterology practices ...

Faculty members from the Min H. Kao Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at University of Tennessee are involved in two collaborative National Science Foundation grants that aim to address health disparities research and enhance the performance and productivity of AI science. Tabitha Samuel, the interim director and operations group leader for UT’s National Institute for Computational Sciences (NICS), is the principal investigator for UT on both projects. AI Advancement in Health ...

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Aug. 16, 2025 — In a quest for ever-more-effective treatments for pancreatic cancer, HonorHealth Research Institute is combining the power of targeted drugs and ultra-sound technology to shrink the tumors of patients whose cancer has not spread to other parts of the body but is too advanced to allow safe surgical removal. Acoustic Cluster Therapy (ACT) uses tiny clusters of gas bubbles and oil droplets that make up PS101, which is combined with a modified version of FOLFIRINOX, an FDA-approved combination of four ...

August 26, 2025 Companies 'dumbed down' cryptocurrency disclosures in good markets prior to reporting standardization, Rotman research finds Toronto - In the run-up to the introduction of accounting standards for the reporting of cryptocurrency, companies took various approaches to disclosing their involvement with the novel exchange medium. Investors had to rely more on contextual narrative explanations about a company's crypto involvement instead of getting it from numerical data. An analysis of reporting ...

Why this matters: Obituaries function as time capsules that reflect what people, at any given moment in history, understand to be a life well-lived. By studying how obituaries evolve across time and context, we can gain deeper insight into how societies define a worthy life, express loss and pass on values across generations. New MSU-led research takes a novel approach to the psychological study of legacy by focusing on how individuals are actually remembered by others instead of how they wish to be remembered. Legacy motivations influence a range of real-world ...

Key takeaways: Storm surge and rainfall — not wind — cause the majority of hurricane deaths, yet are absent from the current warning system. Researchers developed and tested the Tropical Cyclone Severity Scale, which incorporates all three hazards and can rate storms up to Category 6. Study shows people are more likely to correctly identify risks and evacuate when informed using the new scale. TAMPA, Fla. (Aug. 26, 2025) – Wind alone does not account for all hurricane-related fatalities. Storm surge and rainfall do as well. Yet the current warning system – the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane ...

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences confirms that fossilized remains of marine invertebrates can accurately reflect the functional diversity of past ecosystems—offering a powerful tool for understanding long-term ecological change and informing modern conservation. UNLV geoscience professor Carrie Tyler, in collaboration with Michał Kowalewski from the University of Florida, compared living marine communities with their corresponding skeletal remains and the fossil record across 51 coastal sites in ...

Simon Fraser University is breaking new ground in legal education with an exclusive international partnership that offers students a faster route to becoming a lawyer. The new SFU-Exeter Accelerated Law Program gives students the opportunity to graduate in only six years with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) from SFU and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the University of Exeter, qualifying them to pursue legal careers in Canada and the UK. The University of Exeter is a member of the elite Russell Group, a collection of the UK’s most distinguished research-intensive universities. ...

There’s more than one way to build a honeybee hive, depending on the needs of the bees, according to a study published August 26th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Golnar Gharooni-Fard of the University of Colorado Boulder, USA, and colleagues. Honeybees are renowned for their ability to build intricate hives where they can store their food and raise their larvae. Hive construction is the collaborative effort of thousands of hard-working bees, which also demonstrate a knack for adjusting their honeycomb structures to account for available space and resources. In this study, Gharooni-Fard and colleagues ...

A deep sea worm that inhabits hydrothermal vents survives the high levels of toxic arsenic and sulfide in its environment by combining them in its cells to form a less hazardous mineral. Chaolun Li of the Institute of Oceanology, CAS, China, and colleagues report these findings in a new study published August 26th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. The worm, named Paralvinella hessleri, is the only animal to inhabit the hottest part of deep sea hydrothermal vents in the west Pacific, where hot, mineral-rich water spews from the seafloor. ...