A team of researchers from Nanjing University and Nanjing Normal University has designed a new, affordable sensor to detect toxic perchlorate in water, paving the way for better environmental monitoring and healthier communities. The sensor, inspired by porphyrin molecules and costing less than two US dollars, offers rapid and highly accurate detection of perchlorate, a harmful pollutant that often escapes into rivers and drinking water through fireworks manufacturing and industrial operations. Perchlorate is a persistent pollutant known for its mobility, water solubility, and stability. While perchlorate can occur naturally, ...

Cancer Center at Illinois (CCIL) Program Leader Erik Nelson’s lab made an important discovery about the relationship between cholesterol and breast cancer progression with crucial implications for breast cancer therapeutics. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death for American women, and more than 90% of breast cancer deaths are caused by metastatic spread of the disease. While breast cancer therapies have improved significantly in recent years, scientists do not yet understand the totality of molecular mechanisms involved in breast cancer progression and treatment ...

New research has found a simple sit-stand routine at work significantly reduces lower back pain, offering a high-impact solution for employees in sedentary work environments.  While the Griffith University-led study focused on individuals with recent lower back pain, the recommended ratio of 30 minutes sitting followed by 15 minutes standing (30:15) could benefit all desk-based workers by improving focus, reducing stress, and encouraging regular movement patterns throughout the day.  In collaboration with co-authors ...

At 10 one-millionths of a meter wide, a single human cell is tiny. But something even smaller exerts an enormous influence on everything a cell does: proton concentration, or pH. On the microscopic level, pH-dependent structures regulate cell movement and division. Altered pH response can accelerate the development of cancers and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Huntington’s. Researchers hope that pinpointing pH-sensitive structures in proteins would help them determine how proteins respond to pH changes in normal and diseased cells alike and, ultimately, to ...

As a mentor, Sindhu Jagadamma, associate professor of soil science at the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture, helps her students increase their self-confidence and push themselves to persevere through adversity, traits she learned to improve in herself as a young girl from a small town in India. Former mentees who worked with Jagadamma in the Sustainable Soil Management Lab nominated her for the Women in Science Mentoring Award, given by the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America and Soil Science Society of America. She received the award at ...

CATONSVILLE, Md., Nov. 11, 2025 – A new peer-reviewed study in the INFORMS journal Decision Analysis finds that while generative AI (GenAI) can help define viable objectives for organizational and policy decision-making, the overall quality of those objectives falls short unless humans intervene. In the field of decision analysis, defining objectives is a foundational step. Before you can evaluate options, allocate resources or design policies, you need to identify what you’re trying to achieve. The research underscores that AI tools are valuable brainstorming partners, but sound decision analysis still requires a “human ...

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A long-term analysis shows that a major Oregon reservoir abruptly swapped one type of toxic algae for another midway through the 12-year study period, absent any obvious cause. The project provides a novel look at harmful algal blooms, or HABs, which pose multiple health risks to people and animals worldwide. Harmful algal blooms in lakes and reservoirs are explosions of cyanobacteria, often referred to as blue-green algae. Microscopic organisms ubiquitous in all types of water around the globe, cyanobacteria use sunlight to make their own food and in warm, nutrient-rich environments can quickly multiply, resulting in blooms that spread across ...

Forensic experts are inviting the public to put their trainer knowledge to the test – and contribute to an award-winning research project. Led by University of Staffordshire and West Yorkshire Police, When All is Tread and Done is exploring new forensic techniques to help identify criminals by their shoes. Project lead Professor Claire Gwinnett explained: “While CCTV, body-worn cameras and mobile footage is increasingly used in criminal investigations, suspects often cover their faces. “Shoes, however, can be a distinguishing feature in CCTV footage or images and that is what our research is ...

Principal Investigator Maryam Parsa, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering and Computing (CEC), and co-Principal Investigator Giorgio Ascoli, Distinguished Professor of Bioengineering and Neuroscience, College of Science, received funding from the U.S. Department of Energy for the project: “GAINS: Generalizable, Analog, Izhikevich-Based Neuromorphic Spintronics for Next-Generation Computing.” PI-Parsa is leading this collaborative project with two other co-PIs from University of Wisconsin–Madison (Prof. Akhilesh Jaiswal) and Northwestern University ...

Key Takeaways Cancer patients who frequently miss radiation appointments experience worse clinical outcomes than those who complete their recommended treatment. Transportation barriers, unrelated illnesses, and not wanting to continue with treatment are the most common reasons patients miss radiation appointments. Providing patients with structured and individualized support can reduce missed radiation therapy appointments by almost half, a national quality improvement project found. CHICAGO — A national quality improvement program led by the American College of Surgeons (ACS) found that transportation barriers and illness are among the top reasons cancer patients miss critical ...

A nanofiber air filter developed by the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) could turn existing building ventilation into carbon-capture devices while cutting homeowners’ energy costs. In a paper recently published in Science Advances, researchers from the lab of UChicago PME Asst. Prof. Po-Chun Hsu developed a distributed carbon nanofiber direct air capture (DAC) filter that could potentially turn every home, office, school or other building into a small carbon-capture system working toward the global problem of airborne CO2. A ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Small-group discussions designed to help elementary students engage in conversations that promote critical analytic thinking, reasoning and deeper understanding of the content they read increased critical thinking over time for fourth- and fifth-grade students, according to a new study by a team that includes researchers from the Penn State College of Education. It’s the latest evidence in support of Quality Talk, the “deliberate approach to discussion that transforms student engagement” developed by P. Karen Murphy, associate dean for research and outreach in the Penn State College ...

For a long time, scientists assumed that newly established plants in Europe served less often as food or hosts for native animals and fungi, since they share no common evolutionary history with local fauna and could therefore spread particularly aggressively. According to Staude, the study confirms this initial phase. However, the study also showed that this changes over time: after a few centuries, many of these plants are increasingly used by plant parasites. Unlike pollinators, plant parasites are usually highly specialised in native plants – which makes the findings all the more surprising, according to Staude. “We also observe in this context that ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — While the exact causes of neurodegenerative brain diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia are still largely unknown, researchers have been able to identify a key characteristic in affected brains: reduced blood flow. Building upon this foundational understanding, a team at Penn State recently found that a rare neuron that is extremely vulnerable to anxiety-induced stress appears to be responsible for regulating blood flow and coordinating neural activity in mice.  The researchers found that eliminating type-one nNOS neurons — which make up less than 1% of the brain’s 80 billion neurons and die off when exposed to too much stress — resulted ...

A NIMS research team has developed an automated high-throughput system capable of generating datasets from a single sample of a superalloy used in aircraft engines. The system successfully produced an experimental dataset containing several thousand records—each consisting of interconnected processing conditions, microstructural features and resulting yield strengths (referred to as “Process–Structure–Property datasets” below)—in just 13 days. Datasets are generated over 200 times faster than when using conventional methods. The system’s ability to rapidly produce large-scale, comprehensive datasets has the potential to significantly ...

Third-generation solar cell technology is advancing rapidly. An engineering research team at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has achieved a breakthrough in the field of perovskite/silicon tandem solar cells (TSCs), focusing on addressing challenges that include improving efficiency, stability and scalability. The team has conducted a comprehensive analysis of TSC performance and provided strategic recommendations, which aim to raise the energy conversion efficiency of this new type of solar cell from the current maximum of approximately 34% to ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma is projected to become the second-leading cause of cancer death in the United States by 2030, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The International Cancer of the Pancreas Screening (CAPS) Consortium, the American Society for Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, and the National Comprehensive Cancer Network currently recommend surveillance for high-risk individuals, including individuals with multiple immediate blood relatives who have had pancreatic cancer as well as those identified as having a genetic predisposition. ...

Background and Aims Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) represents an escalating healthcare burden across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region; however, system-level preparedness remains largely undefined. This study aimed to assess existing models of care, clinical infrastructure, policy frameworks, and provider perspectives across 17 MENA countries. Methods A cross-sectional, mixed-methods survey was distributed to clinicians from MASLD-related specialties across the region. A total of 130 experts (87.2% response rate) from ...

Qualification of additively manufactured parts can now be supported by Artificial Intelligence. Researchers have developed a new method to process high-frequency welding data collected from a Wire Arc Direct Energy Deposition process, achieving an improvement in anomaly detection performance from 57% to 85.3%. This demonstrates the potential of AI in this field. Published in Advanced Manufacturing, the proposed methodology has the potential to reduce both the time and cost associated with AM production, ultimately lowering overall product costs. Additive manufacturing (AM) today enables the production of components that are difficult or even impossible to fabricate using traditional technologies. ...

With the development of science and technology, green technology and various advanced information technology have been utilized to make cities more and more low-carbon, intelligent and ecological.  Cities can operate more efficiently and the life quality of urban residents can be improved as civil construction, city planning, management and services developed. GBCESC 2025 aims to offer research scholars and engineers a platform for the interchange of cutting-edge technological achievements.  During ...

The survey “A Survey on Omni-Modal Language Models” offers a systematic overview of the technological evolution, structural design, and performance evaluation of omni-modal language models (OMLMs). The work highlights how OMLMs enable unified perception, reasoning, and generation across modalities, contributing to the ongoing progress toward Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Recently, Lu Chen, a master’s student at the School of Computer and Artificial Intelligence, Shandong Jianzhu University, in collaboration with Dr. Zheyun ...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 11, 2025 — Car enthusiasts will pay hundreds of dollars for stereo systems that will improve the sound quality in their cars. However, the inherent directionality of speakers and complex shapes of car cabins can exacerbate sound disparities between the drivers and passengers, no matter how advanced a speaker system. In the Journal of Applied Physics, by AIP Publishing, researchers from a collaboration of institutions in China created a prototype using a fractal to mitigate the sound differences. Fractals are unique shapes that can be split into infinitely smaller ...

About The Study: In this population-based cross-sectional study, infant mortality risk was inversely associated with county-level access to maternity care, with the highest risk in counties with no access. When examined by race and ethnicity, differences in mortality risk between living in a full access and no access county were observed among white infants only, indicating that unmeasured barriers may limit the protective effect of access for some racial and ethnic groups.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Ripley Lucas, MPH, email RLucas@marchofdimes.org. To ...

About The Study: In this randomized clinical trial, the clinical hypnosis group experienced significantly greater reductions of hot flash scores and daily interference from hot flashes compared with the active control condition at week 6. This study suggests that hypnosis delivered through self-administered audio files is a clinically significant and effective method to reduce hot flashes in postmenopausal women.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Gary Elkins, PhD, email gary_elkins@baylor.edu. To ...

(Vienna, 11 November 2025) Using sophisticated RNA sequencing technology, biomedical researchers can measure the activity of our genes across millions of single cells, creating detailed maps of tissues, organs, and diseases. Analysing these datasets requires a rare combination of skills: deep understanding of the biology, and the ability to develop computer code that turns data into insights. What if we could equip biomedical researchers with an AI assistant that sees the data, supports the analysis, ...