Milan, Italy – March 2025 – The Italian Association of Science Writers, SWIM, has announced an extension of the application deadline for the 2025 SWIM Award. Candidates now have until March 31, 2025, at 23:59 CET to submit their applications for the prestigious award, which has been recognizing excellence and innovation in science journalism in Italy since 2021. The SWIM Award highlights the critical role of science journalists in fostering public understanding and dialogue on scientific issues. The competition also serves as the Italian selection process for the European ...

On first inspection, the Cuban blue-headed quail dove doesn’t look like much: drab brown feathers, a slender beak, a pronounced strut in their walk typical of most other doves. You’d be forgiven for overlooking it in favor of Cuba’s prismatic parrots. But looks aren’t everything. For decades, this unassuming bird has perplexed biologists, who have no idea where it came from, how it got to the island or what it’s related to. Now, for the first time, scientists have sequenced DNA from the blue-headed quail dove with the goal of finally getting to the bottom of things. Instead, they’re even more perplexed now than when they started. “This ...

The Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) is opening 12 postdoctoral positions for international researchers, with a specific focus on American scholars working in socially significant fields. These prestigious fellowships come with substantial funding (€2.5 million) as part of the European Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) program. Additionally, as part of the Brains for Brussels initiative, VUB aims to actively attract American professors looking to relocate. In collaboration with its Francophone sister university ULB, VUB is also providing 18 apartments for international ...

Researchers have widely accepted that what sets humans apart from nonhuman primates are prefrontal cortex–driven behaviors such as decision-making, reasoning, planning, and attention. In a new JNeurosci paper, research led by Rogier Mars, at University of Oxford, and Katherine Bryant, at Aix-Marseille University, provides a better picture of the cortical evolution that distinguishes human brains from other primates.   The researchers compared cortical organization not only between humans and macaques, which is a standard for human and nonhuman primate ...

How stress impacts behavioral outcomes of traumatic brain injury (TBI) represents a major gap in knowledge. This oversight is especially felt by those in the military due to the high prevalence of TBI and the abundance of stress that they endure. In a study funded by the US Department of Defense, researchers led by Pamela VandeVord at Virginia Tech discovered that prior stress exposure influences TBI outcomes in a sex-dependent manner.   In their eNeuro paper, VandeVord and colleagues used an unpredictable stress paradigm ...

MIAMI, FLORIDA (EMBARGOED UNTIL MARCH 17, 2025, AT NOON EDT) – Glioblastoma has remained one of the toughest cancers to treat, resisting even the latest advances in immunotherapy. But new research from Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, part of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, suggests a way forward: suppressing a protein called ZNF638 triggers an antiviral immune response, making immune checkpoint inhibitors more effective. The discovery not only offers a potential new treatment strategy but also identifies ...

In a randomized trial, Mass General Brigham researchers found the surgical removal of tonsils and adenoids was effective for children with snoring and mild sleep apnea An estimated 6 to 17 percent of children have sleep-disordered breathing, ranging from snoring to sleep apnea, which can cause behavioral, neurocognitive, cardiovascular, and cardiometabolic issues. A new study from Mass General Brigham researchers reveals that adenotonsillectomy—the surgical removal of tonsils and adenoids—is an effective early intervention for these children. Their results are published in JAMA Pediatrics. “To ...

About The Study: This cohort study found that statin use was associated with a reduced risk of hepatocellular carcinoma and hepatic decompensation in patients with chronic liver disease. These findings provide support for the potential role of statins in prevention of hepatocellular carcinoma and liver disease progression.  Corresponding Authors: To contact the corresponding authors, email Jonggi Choi, MD, PhD, (j.choi@amc.seoul.kr) and Raymond T. Chung, MD, (chung.raymond@mgh.harvard.edu). To ...

About The Study: In this longitudinal observational cohort study, gender-affirming hormone therapy was associated with lower rates of moderate-to-severe depressive symptoms, highlighting the importance of gender-affirming primary care models for transgender, nonbinary, and gender diverse patients. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Sari L. Reisner, ScD, MA, email sreisner@umich.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.0955) Editor’s ...

What: Surgical removal of enlarged tonsils and adenoids in children with mild sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) appears to significantly reduce the frequency of medical office visits and prescription medicine use in this group, according to a clinical study supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The findings, published in JAMA Pediatrics, show that the surgery, called adenotonsillectomy, was tied to a 32% reduction in medical visits and a 48% reduction in prescription use among children with a mild form of the condition.   SDB refers to breathing disturbances during sleep ...

Stuttgart – A team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS) in Stuttgart developed a biohybrid micro swimmer covered with magnetic material, whose swimming ability is largely unaffected by the coating. The team from the Physical Intelligence Department at MPI-IS published their work in the journal Matter, which covers a wide range of materials science research. In nature, the ten-micron small, single-cell microalgae are fantastic swimmers, propelled by their two whip-like ...

Impact Journals is proud to participate in the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2025, taking place April 25-30 in Chicago, Illinois. BUFFALO, NY- March 17, 2025 – Impact Journals is pleased to announce its participation as an exhibitor at the upcoming American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2025. The meeting is scheduled for April 25-30, 2025, at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, Illinois. The 2025 AACR Annual Meeting theme, “Unifying Cancer Science and Medicine: A Continuum of Innovation ...

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured its first direct images of carbon dioxide in a planet outside the solar system in HR 8799, a multiplanet system 130 light-years away that has long been a key target for planet formation studies. The observations provide strong evidence that the system’s four giant planets formed in much the same way as Jupiter and Saturn, by slowly building solid cores. They also confirm Webb can do more than infer atmospheric composition from starlight measurements—it can directly analyze the chemistry ...

A National Institutes of Health (NIH)-sponsored clinical trial of a candidate vaccine to prevent Lassa fever has begun enrolling participants at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore. Lassa fever is a viral hemorrhagic disease that can be fatal and that causes permanent hearing loss in up to one-third of those who contract it. Lassa virus is spread by rodents, known as multimammate rats, that are native to many countries in West Africa. The virus can also be spread from person to person. Currently, there are no specific drug treatments or vaccines for Lassa fever. NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and ...

(Note: The following press release was prepared by Brunel University of London.) Abortion is murder – the emotive rallying cry popular with pro-life campaigners keen to convert others to their cause. But what if opposition to abortion isn’t all about sanctity-of-life concerns, and instead at least partly about discouraging casual sex? That’s what psychology researchers found in experiments designed to test what really drives anti-abortion attitudes in the USA. The study, published today in ...

As global electricity demand grows, traditional energy sources are under strain. Oceans, which cover more than 70% of Earth’s surface, offer vast potential for clean energy from renewable resources such as ocean currents and waves. However, marine renewable energy development is still in its early stages compared to wind and solar power. One challenge is identifying the most feasible and economically viable locations for ocean current energy projects. While many studies have focused on regional ocean current energy resource assessment, a global evaluation based on actual data has been lacking – until now. Using more ...

New York, NY [March 17, 2025]—Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine have developed a powerful AI tool, built on the same transformer architecture used by large language models like ChatGPT, to process an entire night’s sleep. To date, it is one of the largest studies, analyzing 1,011,192 hours of sleep. Details on their findings were reported in the March 13 online issue of the journal Sleep [https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/zsaf061]. The model, called patch foundational transformer for sleep (PFTSleep), ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A combination of cosmic processes shapes the formation of one of the most common types of planets outside of our solar system, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State. The research team used data from NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to study young sub-Neptunes — planets bigger than Earth but smaller than Neptune — that orbit close to their stars. The work provides insights into how these planets might migrate inward or lose their atmosphere during their early stages. A paper describing the ...

Heart failure is a major health concern, especially for ageing populations—it significantly increases mortality rates, and severely impacts quality of life for those affected. Exercise therapy has been shown to be particularly effective for patients with heart failure. Previous research, however, has mainly examined the benefits of exercise after a diagnosis of heart failure. There is a considerable gap when it comes to our understanding of the role that exercise plays before a patient with heart failure is hospitalized.   Now, in a recent study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology on 19 February 2025, researchers from Japan have explored the link between ...

As global food demand continues to increase, effective pest control remains one of agriculture’s most pressing challenges. Worldwide, farmers apply nearly 4 million tons of chemical pesticides annually to protect their crops, representing a $60 billion industry. While these compounds have significantly boosted agricultural productivity, their widespread use has raised concerns regarding environmental impact, health risks, and the long-term sustainability of modern farming. The two-spotted spider mite, Tetranychus urticae, exemplifies the limitations of conventional pesticide-based pest management in agriculture and horticulture. ...

University of Cambridge media release   Make Indian Sign Language an official language and open more schools for deaf and hard-of-hearing students, Cambridge study advises Indian Government   UNDER STRICT EMBARGO UNTIL 15:30 INDIA STANDARD TIME / 10:00 UK TIME / 06:00 US ET ON MONDAY 17TH MARCH 2025   Around one in five (over 19%) of India’s deaf and hard-of-hearing children were out-of-school in 2014, according to a survey conducted for the Indian Government.* A new study calls on the Government to address this ongoing educational crisis by recognising ...

To learn more about the deepest reaches of our own galaxy and the mysteries of star formation, Japanese researchers have created a deep learning model. The Osaka Metropolitan University-led team used artificial intelligence to pore through the vast amounts of data being acquired from space telescopes, finding bubble-like structures that had not been included in existing astronomical databases. The Milky Way galaxy we live in, like other galaxies in the universe, has bubble-like structures formed mainly during the birth and activity of high-mass stars. These so-called Spitzer bubbles hold important clues to understanding the process of star formation and galaxy evolution. Graduate School of ...

Our ability to cooperate with others may be influenced by how our attention is captured and directed, as much as by how altruistic we are feeling.   According to a new study by researchers at the University of Birmingham jointly with the University of Zurich, choices made for individual reward or cooperatively for a joint reward can be influenced by presenting information to participants in configurations that naturally draw their attention. The results are published today in Communications Psychology.   Cooperation – defined as the ability of individuals to incur a personal cost for the benefit ...

In the continuing evolution of personalized medicine, a new Yale study has found evidence to support the value of a tool that measures the presence of cancer-derived molecules in the blood of patients with lung cancer years after their treatment. This tool is a type of molecular residual disease (MRD)detector, which is used after patients have completed their primary treatment in order to monitor their cancer status. Researchers say it could inform clinical intervention, including whether to restart or intensify treatment. “MRD detection is the future — allowing ...

Riddle me this: how can it be that reading these words activates nearly identical word-sensitive patches of the brain’s visual system in you and nearly every other reader of this story? And that a different set of face-sensitive visual regions—again in almost identical positions in each reader’s brain—would activate to process the faces of the researchers, should you meet them? For years, researchers have debated how our brains consistently develop areas specialized for recognizing faces, objects, words, and places, despite individuals having vastly different life experiences. Two competing theories have dominated this discussion. One ...