Vaccination of pregnant women has been linked to a drop in newborns being admitted to hospital with a serious lung infection, research suggests. Researchers found the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine, introduced across the UK in late summer 2024, led to a 72 per cent reduction in babies hospitalised with the virus if mothers were vaccinated. The findings are the first to show the real-world effectiveness of the vaccine in pregnant women in the UK. Uptake of the jab among pregnant women could help to limit the number of sick babies each winter, reducing hospital pressures, experts say. RSV is a common virus that causes coughs and colds but can lead to ...

JULY 2025 TIP SHEET Blood Cancer Expanding Donor Pool for Stem Cell Transplant Patients Blood cancer patients who have struggled to find a donor match for transplantation now have more options, according to new research from Sylvester. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, showed that patients can achieve good outcomes with a partial match drawn from the national public donor registry when they are treated with the immune-suppressing drug cyclophosphamide. These findings should expand the donor pool for patients struggling to find a full match, said Antonio Jimenez Jimenez, M.D., physician-scientist and senior study author. Pap ...

Each year, numerous patients worldwide require surgical interventions that could benefit from the precision and safety offered by surgical robots. The standard approach for complex surgeries often involves traditional open or laparoscopic techniques, which may result in significant patient trauma and longer recovery times. In a study published in the manuscript "Current Application Status and Innovative Development of Surgical Robot," a team of researchers explores a new approach to enhance surgical outcomes through the use of surgical ...

Counterfeiting tops the list of organized crimes committed worldwide, raking in nearly half a trillion dollars in 2019. These illicit businesses impact consumers, workers, brand owners, state authorities, and the overall economy. For example, counterfeit luxury goods like handbags and watches are commonly sold to unsuspecting consumers and divert revenue from legitimate producers. Moreover, the proliferation of counterfeiting has fueled the advancement of other types of organized crimes, such as human trafficking, drug trafficking, and money laundering. In a new book, a Rutgers ...

Yellowstone, a popular tourist destination and namesake of an equally popular TV show, was the first-ever national park in the United States. And bubbling beneath it – to this day – is one of Earth’s most seismically active networks of volcanic activity. In a new study, published July 18 in the high impact journal Science Advances, Western engineering professor Bing Li and his collaborators at Universidad Industrial de Santander (Industrial University of Santander) in Colombia and the United States Geological Survey used machine learning to re-examine historical earthquake data from the Yellowstone caldera over a 15-year period. The team was able to retroactively detect ...

The first studies of the 28 March 2025 magnitude 7.8 Myanmar earthquake suggest that the southern portion of its rupture occurred at supershear velocity, reaching speeds of 5 to 6 kilometers per second. In their paper published in The Seismic Record, seismologists Lingling Ye, Thorne Lay and Hiroo Kanamori share new details about the devastating earthquake, which caused widespread and severe damage in Myanmar and neighboring countries such as Thailand, with more than 5,000 confirmed casualties. The earthquake ruptured about ...

Dramatic CCTV video of fault slip during a recent large earthquake in Myanmar thrilled both scientists and casual observers when it was posted to YouTube. But it was on his fifth or sixth viewing, said geophysicist Jesse Kearse, that he spotted something even more exciting. When Kearse and his colleague Yoshihiro Kaneko at Kyoto University analyzed the video more carefully, they concluded that it had captured the first direct visual evidence of curved fault slip. Earthquake geologists often observe curved slickenlines, the scrape marks created ...

Technology developed at Swansea University has won funding to help deliver better battery systems to Sub-Saharan Africa. The StamiNa – Sustainable Transport and Affordable Mobility through Innovation in Na-ion technology project—led by Swansea University in partnership with Coventry University, Batri Ltd, Strathmore University (Kenya), AceOn Group, and Federal University of Technology Owerri (Nigeria)—is one of five collaborations to receive valuable investment from the Faraday Institution. The projects all seek to optimise and validate battery systems to maximise performance and improve efficiency and lifetime. In doing so, they will advance the technologies a ...

A new study from Emory University reveals that maintaining optimal cardiovascular health can significantly improve overall physical and psychological well-being. Published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, the study synthesizes findings from nearly 500 peer-reviewed studies. It confirms that the benefits of heart-healthy behaviors extend far beyond the heart, positively impacting brain function, vision, hearing, muscle strength, and even reducing the risk of chronic diseases such as cancer and dementia. “While we recently learned that heart-health and brain health ...

A team of University of Florida scientists has been awarded a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to tackle one of South Florida’s most urgent environmental threats: groundwater flooding and saltwater intrusion caused by sea level rise. During the three-year project, scientists on a multidisciplinary team at UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), will develop a decision-support system to help local leaders make science-based, cost-effective choices about land use, infrastructure, climate adaptation and flooding mitigation. “This ...

New research published in Cell has found that the environment inside our bodies, specifically, the pH level within cells, has a powerful influence on the immune system. The research team identified a key molecular sensor that detects changes in intracellular pH and helps regulate the body’s immune defense. This sensor affects how cells respond to bacterial infections and may also influence susceptibility to inflammatory diseases and cancer. These findings open up a new way of thinking about ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Inhaling agricultural dust may pose significant risks to gut health for workers in animal agriculture, a University of California, Riverside, study has found.  Led by Declan McCole, a professor of biomedical sciences in the UCR School of Medicine, the study expands on prior findings that hog farm dust causes airway inflammation. The researchers now report in the Journal of Applied Toxicology that inhaling this dust also alters the gut microbiome and impairs intestinal function, including increased “leaky gut” or intestinal permeability. Leaky ...

A new international study suggests that ancient viral DNA embedded in our genome, which were long dismissed as genetic “junk”, may actually play powerful roles in regulating gene expression. Focusing on a family of sequences called MER11, researchers from Japan, China, Canada, and the US have shown that these elements have evolved to influence how genes turn on and off, particularly in early human development.   Transposable elements (TEs) are repetitive DNA sequences in the genome that originated from ancient viruses. Over millions of years, they spread throughout the genome via copy-and-paste mechanisms. Today, TEs make up nearly half of the human genome. While they ...

Osaka, Japan – Ulcerative colitis (UC) causes misery for millions worldwide. It affects the large intestine, causing pain, cramping, and frequent bowel movements with bloody diarrhea. Although some people go through periods when they feel well, the disease will suddenly flare up, causing another cycle of pain, diarrhea, and weight loss. There is currently no cure. The intestinal flora plays a vital role in UC, but the exact role is unclear. In healthy people, the intestinal flora contains a wide variety of microbes that help digestion and provide benefits for the whole body. In contrast, the intestinal flora of people with UC is unbalanced, with fewer beneficial microbes ...

Chinese researchers have recently challenged the long-held belief that "all life depends on sunlight." In a study published in Science Advances, the researchers identified how microbes in deep subsurface areas can derive energy from chemical reactions driven by crustal faulting, offering critical insights into life deep below Earth's surface. The research was led by Prof. HE Hongping, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Prof. ZHU Jianxi, both from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry of CAS. Long regarded as inhospitable to life ...

(IDAHO FALLS, Idaho) – The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has been chosen to serve as the chief digital officer for the Semiconductor Manufacturing and Advanced Research with Twins USA Institute (SMART USA). This Manufacturing USA Institute, funded by the National Institute for Standards and Technology CHIPS for America program and launched in 2025, is led by Semiconductor Research Corporation Manufacturing Consortium Corporation. The SMART USA program is partnering with the Department of Energy to tackle the semiconductor industry’s toughest challenges, leveraging the department’s decades-long investments ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Just 9% of plastic worldwide is recycled. Due to waste mismanagement, nearly three-quarters of it ends up in landfills or the environment.  So how can plastic recycling be more efficient? A review article by University at Buffalo researchers summarizes the latest technologies and methods guided by process systems engineering approaches, from chemical solvents that can dissolve specific plastics to automated plastic sorting aided by artificial intelligence. Selected as the cover article ...

Everyone knows that if you want to enjoy the full experience of the dawn chorus in the forests of Central Europe, or carry out scientific research on bird species, you have to get up very early in the morning. Until now however, detailed data about daily and seasonal patterns in birdsong have only been available for a few species, as the observations required are time-consuming. A research team from the University of Göttingen and the Northwest German Forest Research Institute has now, for the first time, analysed the song ...

The Dan David Prize is the world’s largest history prize, recognizing up to 9 outstanding early and midcareer scholars and practitioners in the historical disciplines each year. Each Dan David Prize winner is awarded $300,000 to acknowledge their achievements and support future work. We are pleased to announce that nominations for the 5th cycle of the new Dan David Prize are now open. The deadline for nominations for the 2026 Prize is September 24, 2025. Nominees can come from anywhere in the world and work in any field related to the study of the human past, both within academia and outside it. The list of previous winners ...

Teaching a robot new skills used to require coding expertise. But a new generation of robots could potentially learn from just about anyone.  Engineers are designing robotic helpers that can “learn from demonstration.” This more natural training strategy enables a person to lead a robot through a task, typically in one of three ways: via remote control, such as operating a joystick to remotely maneuver a robot; by physically moving the robot through the motions; or by performing the task themselves while the robot watches and mimics.  Learning-by-doing ...

Researchers have discovered an unusual case where two well-known cancer-related mutations—APC and KRAS—coexisted in a woman with familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) and a history of endometrial cancer. This case may reveal new insights into how different genetic mutations can cooperate across organ systems to promote cancer development. FAP is a rare inherited condition that causes hundreds to thousands of polyps to grow in the colon, significantly increasing colorectal cancer risk. It is primarily caused by mutations in the APC gene, which normally acts to suppress tumors by regulating cell growth through the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. In contrast, ...

An international research team has conducted the first comprehensive global-to-local assessment of the direct health burden of COVID-19, spanning 920 locations worldwide. Utilizing the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2021 analytical framework, the study examined data from 2020 and 2021 across five spatial levels—global, international regional, national, subnational, and local. It quantified the pandemic’s impact through core health metrics: incidence (new cases), prevalence (existing cases), mortality (deaths), and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), which ...

The recent release of the rcssci R package represents a significant advancement in the way researchers visualize and analyze complex relationships between continuous variables and their outcomes. The package introduces an innovative methodology for creating more refined and aesthetically pleasing Restricted Cubic Spline (RCS) plots, offering four distinct styles for enhanced data interpretation. These improvements not only increase the statistical clarity of the results but also provide a more user-friendly interface for researchers working across various types of regression models. “We’ve seen a need in the research community for a more intuitive and visually ...

A new study published in the journal One Earth reveals that the way ecosystems collapse—abruptly or gradually—may depend on internal complexity, much like how magnetic materials behave under stress. The study, led by Professor John Dearing at the University of Southampton with colleagues from Rothamsted Research, Bangor University, and Edinburgh University, challenges the prevailing assumption that climate tipping points always happen suddenly. Instead, it shows that some large-scale Earth systems may be experiencing gradual ...

Nearly one-third of the nation’s K-12 U.S. public schools mandate mental health screening for students, with most offering in-person treatment or referral to a community mental health professional if a student is identified as having depression or anxiety, according to a new study.   About 40% of principals surveyed said it was very hard or somewhat hard to ensure that students receive appropriate care, while 38% said it was easy or very easy to find adequate care for students. The findings are published in the journal JAMA Network ...