CAMBRIDGE, MA -- For people with Type 1 diabetes, developing hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, is an ever-present threat. When glucose levels become extremely low, it creates a life-threatening situation for which the standard treatment of care is injecting a hormone called glucagon. As an emergency backup, for cases where patients may not realize that their blood sugar is dropping to dangerous levels, MIT engineers have designed an implantable reservoir that can remain under the skin and be triggered to release glucagon when blood sugar levels get too low. This approach could also help in cases ...

When the Empire State Building was constructed, its 102 stories rose above midtown one piece at a time, with each individual element combining to become, for 40 years, the world’s tallest building. Uptown at Columbia, Oleg Gang and his chemical engineering lab aren’t building Art Deco architecture; their landmarks are incredibly small devices built from nanoscopic building blocks that arrange themselves. “We can build now the complexly prescribed 3D organizations from self-assembled nanocomponents, a kind of nanoscale version of ...

Autism is classified as a ‘spectrum’ for a reason: Each case is different. Scientists have struggled to parse through the many ways autism can manifest, much less to link these varying observable traits (called phenotypes) to underlying genetics. A new study in Nature Genetics from researchers at the Flatiron Institute’s Center for Computational Biology (CCB) and their collaborators leverages data from SPARK, the largest-ever study of autism, to analyze phenotypic and genotypic data from more than 5,000 participants with autism ...

A new paper published in Nature Communications reveals how the way tree species are arranged in a forest can help optimise ecosystem functioning and productivity. The study was conducted using empirical field data combined with advanced computer models and simulations by researchers at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Leipzig University, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, and the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS). The researchers simulated virtual forests with multiple arrangements of tree species, such as block ...

Researchers have identified how thyroxine, a human thyroid hormone, can positively influence the life-critical calcification in soft corals, and have developed a unique technique for injecting molecules into coral tissues. “We understand a lot about hormones in vertebrates, but much less about hormones in invertebrate animals such as corals,” says Clémence Forin, a PhD student at the Scientific Centre of Monaco. “We wanted to learn more about how they process hormones to find out how they are involved into the calcification process.” A major barrier to researching the role and regulation of ...

Research into the intestinal cells of Burmese pythons has revealed the existence of a previously unknown cell type, responsible for completely absorbing the skeletons of their prey. Most carnivores eat only the flesh of their prey and avoid eating the bones or pass them undigested, but many snakes and reptiles often consume their prey whole, including the bones. The cellular mechanisms that enable them to do this have remained mysterious until now. Snakes that are fed on boneless prey suffer from calcium deficiencies, and so bones are a required part of their diet. However, absorbing all the available calcium from a skeleton could ...

New study points to Skagerrak as nursery area for the enigmatic Greenland shark The Greenland shark – the world's longest-living vertebrate – is most often associated with cold Arctic waters. However, a new international study led by researchers from the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources and the University of Copenhagen shows that Skagerrak probably serves as a nursery area for young Greenland sharks. The study also points out that Greenland sharks are not born in Greenland or anywhere else in the ...

A combination of sewage overflows and coastal winds could be sending billions of airborne microplastic particles into the world’s coastal towns and cities, a new study suggests. Scientists analysed existing records on two years of combined sewer overflows into Plymouth Sound, alongside same-day and long-term meteorological and satellite data to assess how often conditions for aerosolisation (the transfer of particles from water to air) occurred. They found that on 178 days within the two-year period, ...

A study in Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism has identified certain characteristics that might influence people’s weight loss after taking prescription drugs called glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RAs), such as semaglutide (sold under the brand names Ozempic and Wegovy). After analyzing data on 679 patients with overweight or obesity who initiated GLP-1RAs between November 2022 and October 2024, investigators found that longer duration of GLP-1RA treatment, using semaglutide, not having diabetes, and having a higher percentage of body fat were associated with better weight reduction over ...

Research in Contemporary Economic Policy indicates that well-intentioned renter protection policies may actually increase discrimination against certain minority races and ethnicities. The research applies to a policy implemented in Minneapolis that limits the use of background checks, eviction history, and credit scores on rental housing applications. Investigators submitted fictitious email inquiries to publicly advertised rentals using names manipulated on perceived race and ethnicity before and after this policy was implemented. After ...

Research in Health Economics indicates that introducing school grades—with A as the highest grade and F as a failing grade—at younger ages may negatively affect children’s mental health. In Sweden, students traditionally received individual grades beginning in eighth grade (around 14 years of age), but in the fall of 2012, a reform shifted the introduction of grades to sixth grade (around age 12). By comparing sociodemographic and clinical data on 524,093 children in Sweden in grades 5 through 9 before and after the ...

Investigators have developed an artificial intelligence-assisted diagnostic system that can estimate bone mineral density in both the lumbar spine and the femur of the upper leg, based on X-ray images. The advance is described in a study published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Research. A total of 1,454 X-ray images were analyzed using the scientists’ system. Performance rates for the lumbar and femur of patients with bone density loss, or osteopenia, were 86.4% and 84.1%, respectively, in terms of sensitivity. The respective specificities were 80.4% and 76.3%. (Sensitivity reflected the ability of the test to correctly identify people with ...

A large prospective study published in Molecular Nutrition and Food Research reveals that a healthy plant-based diet is linked with a reduced risk of inflammatory bowel disease. For the study, 143,434 individuals in the UK reported on their dietary intake. During an average follow-up of 14.5 years, 1,117 participants developed inflammatory bowel disease—795 cases of ulcerative colitis and 322 cases of Crohn’s disease. A healthy plant-based diet was associated with an 8% lower risk of ulcerative colitis, and a 14% lower risk of Crohn’s disease. An unhealthy plant-based diet was associated with a 15% higher risk of Crohn’s ...

In research published in Social Science Quarterly, the study’s investigator expected that migrants living in cities where local voting rights are extended to non-citizens would be more likely to engage in protests compared with those in restrictive contexts. However, the findings revealed the opposite: migrant protests seem to flourish not where rights are granted, but where they are denied. In an assessment of migrant participation in protests across 4 major European cities with substantial migrant populations (Vienna, Brussels, Berlin, and Amsterdam), the results showed that perceived discrimination increased protest likelihood. Protests were also more common in cities with favorable ...

A new kind of cosmic object could help solve one of the universe’s greatest mysteries: dark matter.   Particle Astrophysicists have proposed the existence of a strange new type of star-like object, called a ‘dark dwarf’, which may be quietly glowing in the centre of our galaxy.   Far from being dark in appearance, these unusual objects are powered by dark matter (the invisible substance thought to make up about a quarter of the universe).   The discovery comes from a UK-US research team and the full research findings has been published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (JCAP).   Using theoretical models, ...

Bottom line: Teclistamab-cqyv (Tecvayli) led to clinically meaningful responses in patients with heavily pretreated multiple myeloma who would have been ineligible for the MajesTEC-1 trial, and identified a novel factor independently associated with outcomes. Journal in Which the Study was Published: Blood Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). Author: Beatrice M. Razzo, MD Background: Teclistamab-cqyv is a T-cell-engaging bispecific antibody that targets multiple myeloma cells via the B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA) receptor. It received accelerated approval in 2022 for patients treated with four or more lines ...

A research group led by Dr. Keisuke Obara, Dr. Kento Yoshioka, and Professor Yoshio Tanaka from the Department of Chemical Pharmacology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Toho University, has uncovered important details about how platelet-activating factor (PAF)—a powerful molecule involved in inflammation and allergic reactions—triggers contractions in the smooth muscles of the esophagus. Their findings could pave the way for new treatments targeting gastrointestinal symptoms associated with allergies, asthma, and anaphylaxis. What is PAF? PAF (platelet-activating factor) is a bioactive lipid molecule produced by various cells in the body, including immune ...

Key takeaways Each fraction of a degree of warming will have a bigger impact than the last on lengthening heat waves, with the most extreme heat waves lengthening the most. Tropical regions will see larger changes than temperate regions, and summer heat waves will lengthen more than winter warm spells. Researchers led by UCLA and the Universidad Adolfo Ibañez in Santiago, Chile, developed an equation that has the flexibility to analyze one region or to gain additional broad insight by analyzing multiple regions as a whole. New research finds that not only will climate change make ...

A sneeze. Ocean currents. Smoke. What do these have in common? They’re instances of turbulence: unpredictable, chaotic, uneven fluid flows of fluctuating velocity and pressure. Though ubiquitous in nature, these flows remain somewhat of a mystery, theoretically and computationally. “Most flows that we encounter in nature are turbulent — it does not matter whether it is the flow outside the airplane that makes us fasten our seatbelts, or the flow in a small stream,” said UC Santa Barbara mathematics professor Björn Birnir. “Turbulence is difficult to understand because the mathematical ...

The drugs, sutezolid and delpazolid, have demonstrated strong antimicrobial activity and a notably better safety profile compared to linezolid, with potential to replace this current cornerstone in the treatment of drug-resistant TB. The findings were published on 7 July in two peer-reviewed articles in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, one of the world’s leading journals in the field of infectious disease medicine. Research partners in Europe included Radboud university medical center from the Netherlands and the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), Munich, the Fraunhofer Institute for Translational Medicine and Pharmacology ...

Recreating artificial solar eclipses in space could help astronomers decipher the inner workings of our Sun much quicker than if they had to wait for the celestial show on Earth. The plan, part of a UK-led space mission to be unveiled at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting 2025 in Durham, would involve the use of a mini-satellite and the Moon's shadow to achieve the closest-ever views of the Sun's atmosphere. The Moon-Enabled Sun Occultation Mission (MESOM) proposes a novel way to study the inner solar corona – the innermost layer of the Sun's atmosphere, which ...

Royal Astronomical Society press release RAS PR 25/26 (NAM 6) 8 July 2025 Embargoed until Wednesday 9 July 2025 at 00:01 BST Astronomers want to unlock the secrets of the 'Cosmic Dawn' by sending a miniature spacecraft to listen out for an "ancient whisper" on the far side of the Moon. The proposed mission will study the very early universe, right after the Big Bang, when it was still quite dark and empty before the first stars and galaxies appeared. But to probe the cosmic 'Dark ...

Royal Astronomical Society press release RAS PR 25/27 (NAM 7) 8 July 2025 Embargoed until Wednesday 9 July 2025 at 00:01 BST A new UK-led satellite mission concept aims to strengthen the country's position in space weather observation and forecasting by deploying a suite of homegrown scientific instruments on a low-cost spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. The proposal is being presented today (Wednesday) at the Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting 2025 in Durham. UK-ODESSI ...

A mental health hack designed to promote mental well-being could shift how teenagers view themselves – according to new research from the University of East Anglia. A new study published today shows how watching a one-off ten-minute video can positively change young people’s beliefs about their personality traits. But the intervention appeared to have little immediate effect on symptoms of anxiety or depression. The findings add to a growing body of evidence that mental health support delivered online can play a valuable role - but may work best as part of a broader toolkit of services. The team say that more ...

Understanding whether lakes are fed predominantly by groundwater or rainwater is critical to managing our water resources in the face of droughts and shortages, new research has found. The study drew on data from 350 lakes across 18 European countries, collected between 2022 and 2024, to provide a comprehensive picture of how the continent’s lakes are coping with climate change. The research is presented today [Wednesday 9 July, 2025] at the Goldschmidt Conference in Prague. The researchers, from the Czech Academy of Sciences, analysed the proportions of stable hydrogen and oxygen isotopes (18O and 2H) in the lakes’ ...