Since the dawn of agriculture around 10,000 years ago, our ancestors have saved seeds from the tastiest, largest, and most resilient crops to plant in the following season. Today, most fruits and vegetables we buy are the result of hundreds to thousands of years of selective breeding. Now, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) plant biologists may have found a “shortcut” to this tedious breeding process using the gene-editing tool CRISPR on a tiny tomato relative called goldenberry. This method could make the fruit easier to grow, opening it up for large-scale farming in the U.S. ...

Mass General Brigham is announcing the spinout of AIwithCare, a company founded by researchers from the health system who developed an artificial intelligence (AI) screening tool that significantly outperformed manual screening for determining a patient’s eligibility and enrolling them in a clinical trial. The tool, RECTIFIER (RAG-Enabled Clinical Trial Infrastructure for Inclusion Exclusion Review), was first developed and studied by researchers at Mass General Brigham’s Accelerator for Clinical Transformation. Since the publications of a proof-of-concept study in June 2024 and ...

Vienna, Austria – 12 December 2025: Increased volume of epicardial adipose tissue, detected by cardiovascular imaging, was found to be associated with greater myocardial injury after a myocardial infarction.1 These findings were presented today at EACVI 2025, the flagship congress of the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging (EACVI), a branch of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death globally, accounting for around one-third of all deaths, of which 85% are due to myocardial infarction (MI) and ...

The evolving global order, intense geopolitical competition, and anxiety over supply chain vulnerabilities in this century have led to urgent concerns over supply chain resilience as well as national security. Amidst these upheavals, governments across the globe are making substantial efforts to reaffirm control over strategic sectors, especially in the field of critical minerals. Notably, lithium has become strategically highly important owing to its use in lithium–ion batteries for technologies aimed at decarbonization, including electric vehicles (EVs) and renewable energy storage systems. The demand for lithium in EV production ...

Over the past few decades, advances in hematology have illuminated how a delicate balance between stem cell self-renewal and differentiation sustains healthy blood formation. In myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS), however, this balance collapses, leading to abnormal blood cell development and a heightened risk of progression to acute myeloid leukemia. Despite major progress in genetics, the molecular events that trigger this transformation within stem cells have remained unclear. To address this, a research team led by Professor Atsushi Iwama and Senior Assistant Professor Motohiko Oshima from the Division of Stem Cell and Molecular Medicine, Center for Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine, ...

Normal, regulated growth of skeletal bones is a crucial part of the growth of mammals. This is a complex process involving the growth of cartilaginous cells or chondrocytes, their transformation into bone-building cells or osteoblasts, and the formation of new blood vessels to supply the newly formed bone tissue. While osteoblasts evolve from a variety of progenitor cells, over 60% of osteoblasts in mammals originate from one class called hypertrophic chondrocytes (HCs). HCs are versatile cells involved in a variety of bone growth and maintenance tasks, ...

Researchers have found a way to control protein levels inside different tissues of a whole, living animal for the first time. The method lets scientists dial protein levels up or down with great precision during the animal’s entire life, a technological advance which can help them study the molecular underpinnings of ageing and disease. Scientists at the Centre for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona and the University of Cambridge successfully tested the technique by controlling how much protein was present in the intestines ...

Bacteria are among the most diverse and ancient forms of life on Earth. Yet, much of what we know about them comes from a small group of species, mostly studied for their roles in human health. “The vast majority of bacterial species remain unexplored, and this really limits our understanding of how bacteria shape ecosystems and have evolved to thrive in different environments,” says Joel Hallgren, lead author of the study. Most bacteria reproduce through simple, symmetrical cell division. However, members of one ...

URBANA, Ill. — International humanitarian aid organizations rely on analyses from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system, a global partnership that monitors and classifies the severity of food insecurity to help target assistance where and when it is most needed. Those analyses are multifaceted and complex – often taking place in regions where data is scarce and conditions are deteriorating – and stakeholders tend to assume they overestimate need. However, a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and collaborators, published in Nature Food, finds the opposite is the case: global food insecurity analyses systematically ...

UCL Press Release Under embargo until Friday 12 December 2025, 10:00 UK time / 05:00 US Eastern time   Hidden patterns of isolation and segregation found in all American cities A comprehensive analysis of 383 U.S. cities reveals a striking pattern: most have rings of isolation in suburban areas and segregated pockets of near the urban core, that are shaped by race, wealth, and proximity to downtown, finds a new study by UCL researchers. Published in Nature Cities, the paper analyses the daily movements of people in cities right ...

A new study finds just 6% of clinical trials used to approve new drugs in the U.S. reflect the country’s racial and ethnic makeup, with an increasing trend of trials underrepresenting Black and Hispanic individuals. The findings arrive amidst a push for personalized medicine, which creates treatments designed specifically for an individual’s genetic makeup.  Researchers at UC Riverside and UC Irvine examined data from 341 pivotal trials—the large, final-stage studies used to gain FDA approval for new drugs—between ...

Mosasaurs, giant marine reptiles that existed more than 66 million years ago, lived not only in the sea but also in rivers. This is shown by new research based on analyses of a mosasaur tooth found in North Dakota and believed to belong to an animal that could reach a length of 11 metres. The study, conducted by an international team of researchers led from Uppsala University, shows that mosasaurs adapted to riverine environments in the final million years before they became extinct. In 2022, palaeontologists found a large tooth from a mosasaur in North Dakota. It was ...

Canine induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells possess the ability to differentiate into any type of cell, making them a useful tool for investigating common canine diseases and disease states, including those of humans. When culturing iPS cells, a culture substrate is required to serve as a scaffold for the cells, which adhere to it and proliferate. Without the scaffold, the cells die or fail to differentiate. Currently, recombinant proteins derived primarily from humans are used as culture substrates for canine iPS cells. However, these human-derived ...

Vegetarian and vegan diets can support healthy growth when carefully planned with appropriate supplementation, finds a major new meta-analysis – the most comprehensive study to-date of plant-based diets in children. A team of researchers, from Italy, USA and Australia, analysed data from over 48,000 children and adolescents worldwide who followed different dietary patterns, examining health outcomes, growth and nutritional adequacy. They found that vegan and vegetarian diets can be nutrient-rich and support healthy growth, but also carry a risk of deficiencies if key nutrients are not obtained through fortified ...

Background Ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs), with their exceptional high-temperature stability, oxidation resistance, and ablation resistance, have become key materials for the thermal protection systems of hypersonic vehicles. However, ceramic materials constructed from traditional polycrystalline boride powders exhibit inherent defects under extreme service environments: grain boundaries, acting as preferential active regions for oxidation reactions and rapid diffusion channels for oxygen atoms, tend to trigger localized oxidation that spreads inward, ultimately leading to material structural damage and functional failure. ...

When gas falls onto a compact object, such as a neutron star or black hole, due to its strong gravity (a process called accretion), it emits electromagnetic waves. High-sensitivity observations have discovered objects with extremely high X-ray luminosities. One possible explanation for the ultraluminosity is that an extraordinary amount of gas falls onto a compact object through a process called supercritical accretion. However, the mechanism of supercritical accretion remains unclear. The research team focused on NGC 7793 P13 (hereafter, P13), which is a neutron star in supercritical accretion, ...

A strategy for advance care planning (ACP) that included automated outreach from staff who contacted patients to offer assistance significantly boosted the number of patients who completed documentation outlining their wishes in times of serious illness, new research finds. People with serious illnesses should discuss their medical care wishes with families and doctors, said Dr. Neil Wenger, professor of medicine in the division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the study’s senior author. But these conversations are not always easy, particularly for primary care doctors who are busy with other clinical ...

A 66-million-year-old tooth discovered in North Dakota, USA, suggests that some mosasaurs — extinct lizard-like reptiles that could grow up to 12 metres long — may have hunted in rivers as well as seas. The authors suggest that the findings, which are published in BMC Zoology, may represent the first evidence of a mosasaur hunting freshwater prey in Hell Creek at this time. Melanie During, Nathan Van Vranken, and colleagues examined the tooth after it was discovered in 2022 in the Hell Creek Formation in North Dakota, USA, in a river-like area formerly connected to an ancient sea known as the Western Interior ...

New research reveals a link between rising temperatures and changes in polar bear DNA, which may be helping them adapt and survive in increasingly challenging environments.  The study by scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) discovered that some genes related to heat-stress, aging and metabolism are behaving differently in polar bears living in southeastern Greenland, suggesting they might be adjusting to their warmer conditions.  The finding suggests that these genes play a key role in how different polar bear populations are adapting or evolving in response to their changing local climates ...

New research from the University of Vermont reveals exposure to smoke from Canadian wildfires in the summer of 2023 led to worsening asthma symptoms in children in Vermont and upstate New York.  The study, published today [12/11] in the journal Environmental Health, is the first to examine the relationship between wildfire smoke and asthma in the Northeast—which in recent years has seen a marked increase in poor air quality days due to wildfires.  “In 2023 when we couldn’t see New York across the lake, a lot of Vermonters began to worry about wildfire smoke,” says Anna Maassel, a Ph.D. candidate at the Rubenstein School of Environment ...

The old proverb “it takes a village to raise a child” also applies to preventing youth suicide, according to UBC Okanagan researchers who found that community support is essential. In Canada, suicide is the fourth leading cause of death among children under 14 and the second for youth and young adults between 15 and 34 years old. The UBCO Faculty of Health and Social Development researchers say governments, schools and community agencies need to rethink how youth suicide prevention efforts are designed. And work together on the issue. “Suicide among young people is a major public health issue and is among the leading causes of death among children ...

Words reflecting diversity language have appeared less frequently in grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since the 2024 US presidential election, with a 25% relative decrease between January 2024 and June 2025, finds a study in the Christmas issue of The BMJ. News reports have indicated that US federal agencies have recently limited or discouraged use of words related to diversity, health inequities, and other scientific subjects commanding political attention in NIH research grants.  News reports also suggest that researchers may be modifying their language or research topics to align with federal ...

AI chatbot systems, such as ChatGPT, Claude, and Copilot, are used increasingly as confidants of choice, but turning to AI chatbots for companionship and emotional support is a cause for concern, especially in younger people, say experts in the Christmas issue of The BMJ. They warn that “we might be witnessing a generation learning to form emotional bonds with entities that lack capacities for human-like empathy, care, and relational attunement” and say evidence based strategies for reducing ...

Authors in biomedical journals frequently describe cited evidence as “recent,” yet the actual age of the references behind these phrases has rarely been measured.  To measure how recent the "recent" studies really are, researchers based in Spain analysed 1000 biomedical articles containing 20 predefined “recent” expressions directly linked to a citation.  Their findings in the Christmas issue of The BMJ show that the citation lag ranged from 0 to 37 years, with a median of 4 years and a mean of 5.5 years.   The most frequent ...

A single-dose oral medication called zoliflodacin shows promise as a new treatment for antibiotic-resistant gonorrhoea, according to a phase 3 clinical trial published in The Lancet. The study found that one dose of zoliflodacin was as effective as the current standard treatment, which combines two antibiotics: an injection of ceftriaxone followed by an oral dose of azithromycin. Gonorrhoea is one of the most common sexually transmitted infections, affecting over 82 million people globally each year. However, it is increasingly difficult to treat as the bacteria that cause ...