Hydrogen production from solar-driven water splitting serves as a crucial technology to sustainably access zero-carbon H2 energy. Toward large-scale application, cost-effective cocatalysts—such as transition metal sulfides—with high H2 evolution activity and excellent stability are desperately needed to greatly boost the solar-to-hydrogen conversion efficiency. Unfortunately, the intrinsic symmetrical electron distribution in crystalline metal sulfides usually causes an improper electronic configuration between catalytic S atoms and H intermediates (Had) to form strong S-Had bonds, ...

In iron and steel production, incomplete fuel combustion is the main cause of high CO emissions during sintering, accounting for over half of the industry's total emissions. Developing technologies for purifying high-concentration CO flue gas is urgent. The bottleneck in the industrialization of CO catalytic oxidation for sintering flue gas is developing catalysts with high activity, strong anti-poisoning ability and low cost. Conventional noble metal catalysts have high activity but are scarce and costly; they also tend to deactivate ...

Patients with major depressive disorder, including those who have not responded to first-line antidepressants, may benefit from short-term nitrous oxide treatment, a major meta-analysis led by the University of Birmingham has found. The new paper published in eBioMedicine today has assessed the best available clinical information to show how clinically administered nitrous oxide (N2O) can offer fast-acting depressive symptom relief for adults with major depressive disorder (MDD) and treatment-resistant depression (TRD).  TRD is characterised as depression that isn’t effectively managed after a patient tries two ...

Topline summary * Study indicates generative AI tools are being used widely by UK Universities for the REF * Findings show disparate level and nature of usage * Results highlight need for national oversight and guidelines * With innovative mindset and structured support…scope to improve efficiency and equitable access Full release A new national report has shown for the first time how generative AI (GenAI) is already being used by some universities to assess the quality of their research – and it could be scaled up to help all higher education institutions ...

From shifting economic policy to disrupted supply chains, there seems to be no lack of challenges for businesses nowadays. Rising inflation, shifting interest rates, labor shortages and geopolitical tensions can make things worse, pushing businesses into a crisis mode. To survive, companies sometimes must resort to extreme measures such as freezing salary increases, changing benefits, cutting employees’ perks or reducing headcount. For employees, such drastic changes can give rise to a phenomenon known as the “psychological contract breach,” a perception that an organization has failed to meet ...

CHICAGO – One of the largest MRI-based studies comparing knee injuries between men and women reveals surprising differences in injury patterns based on gender and age. The findings, which can be used to improve risk assessment and develop early intervention strategies, will be presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). “In recent years, we've grown more interested in the differences in knee injuries between men and women,” said study co-author Jenifer Pitman, M.D., assistant professor of radiology at Johns Hopkins Medical ...

University of Cambridge media release   First ‘Bible map’ published 500 years ago still influences how we think about borders   UNDER STRICT EMBARGO UNTIL 19:01 US ET ON FRIDAY 28TH NOVEMBER 2025 / 00:01 UK (GMT) ON SATURDAY 29TH NOVEMBER 2025   The first Bible to feature a map of the Holy Land was published 500 years ago in 1525. The map was initially printed the wrong way round – showing the Mediterranean to the East – but its inclusion set a precedent which continues to shape our understanding of ...

Experts at Cincinnati Children’s have uncovered striking metabolic differences in people with Fanconi anemia (FA), a rare genetic disorder that causes bone marrow failure and dramatically increases cancer risk. The findings, published Nov. 28, 2025, in Science Advances, could reshape how clinicians think about nutrition and potentially cancer prevention in this vulnerable population.  WHAT THE TEAM DISCOVERED  In collaboration with the Bone Marrow Transplantation Program and the Fanconi Anemia Comprehensive Care Center at Cincinnati Children’s, researchers used a cutting-edge technique ...

A new study published in Science Advances overturns a long-standing paradigm in climate science that stronger Northern Hemisphere summer insolation produces stronger tropical rainfall. Instead, a precisely dated 129,000-year rainfall reconstruction from a Cuban cave shows that the Caribbean often did the opposite, drying during intervals of intensified summer insolation. The research reveals a new unrecognized primary driver: The North Atlantic Subtropical High (NASH), a powerful and ever-present high-pressure system, that surprisingly has been the dominant force shaping the ...

A discovery from Australian researchers could lead to better treatment for children with neuroblastoma, a cancer that currently claims 9 out of 10 young patients who experience recurrence. The team at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia, found a drug combination that can bypass the cellular defences these tumours develop that lead to relapse. In findings made in animal models and published today in Science Advances, Associate Professor David Croucher and his team have shown that a drug already approved for other cancers can trigger neuroblastoma cell death through alternative pathways when the usual routes become blocked. This ...

Belgian scientists from VIB and Ghent University (UGent), together with Danish collaborators, have uncovered compelling evidence that early-infancy infection with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) significantly increases the risk of developing childhood asthma—especially in children with a family history of allergy or asthma. Their study, published today in Science Immunology, suggests that protecting newborns against RSV could substantially reduce asthma cases later in life. Early triggers of asthma Across Europe, 5–15% of children live with asthma—a chronic condition that affects quality of life, can burden families ...

Osaka, Japan – Catalysts are vital substances that speed up many chemical reactions fundamental to modern life, including fertilizer, pharmaceutical, and energy production. However, many catalysts depend on expensive transition-metal elements, and their supply damages the environment and is vulnerable to geopolitical disruption. Recently, a team in Japan has developed a way to achieve a crucial type of chemical transformation without relying on transition-metal element resources. In an article due to be published in the Journal ...

Groundbreaking new research warns that Africa’s forests, once vital allies in the fight against climate change, have turned from a carbon sink into a carbon source. A new international study published in Scientific Reports and led by researchers at the National Centre for Earth Observation at the Universities of Leicester, Sheffield and Edinburgh reveals that Africa’s forests, which have long absorbed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, are now releasing more carbon than they remove. This alarming shift, which happened after 2010, underscores the urgent need for stronger global action to protect forests, ...

Yuwei Gu was hiking through Bear Mountain State Park in New York when inspiration struck. Plastic bottles littered the trail and more floated on a nearby lake. The jarring sight in such a pristine environment made the Rutgers chemist stop in his tracks. Nature makes plenty of long-stranded molecules called polymers, including DNA and RNA, yet those natural polymers eventually break down. Synthetic polymers such as plastics don’t. Why? “Biology uses polymers everywhere, such as proteins, DNA, RNA and cellulose, ...

In humans, CBD is thought to have therapeutic effects for some conditions including chronic pain, nausea, or inflammation. Now, dogs may be reaping some of the benefits, too, according to a new study. Researchers in the US have used data from the Dog Aging Project to characterize demographics, health status, and behavior of dogs that used CBD or hemp supplements. They published their results in Frontiers in Veterinary Science. “Behaviorally, dogs given CBD products for multiple years are initially more aggressive compared to dogs not receiving those products, but their aggression becomes less intense over time,” said senior author ...

By Alistair Jones SMU Office of Research Governance & Administration – A dystopian future where advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems replace human decision-making has long been a trope of science fiction. The malevolent computer HAL, which takes control of the spaceship in Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, is a chilling example. But rather than being fearful of automation, a more useful response is to consider what types of repetitive human tasks could be safely offloaded to AI, particularly with the advances of large language ...

By Vince Chong SMU Office of Research Governance & Administration – It might not be ubiquitous just yet but embodied artificial intelligence is slowly but surely cementing its place in the world. Robotic systems equipped with sensors and cameras help with everything from factory assembly to surgery, while autonomous, self-driving cars and drones are science fiction no more. Despite these advances though, there is a limit to what embodied AI can do in unpredictable, everyday environments like homes or offices. Say, a robotic arm may be programmed ...

By Alistair Jones SMU Office of Research Governance & Administration – Beomgeun Cho, an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Singapore Management University (SMU), is the inaugural recipient of the Kyujin Jung Memorial Research Award, presented at the 2025 American Society for Public Administration (ASPA) conference.  The award, which recognises a promising early-career scholar in the field of public administration, is based on an overall assessment of their academic trajectory and achievements, rather than a specific paper. "I am deeply honoured to be the ...

SMU Office of Research Governance & Administration – Associate Professor Yasmin Ortiga chats with Filipino nurses for a living. The sociologist at Singapore Management University (SMU) tends to ask them about their hopes and dreams, why they uprooted themselves to go work in a hospital miles away from their home in the Philippines, often leaving young children behind. Every conversation builds up her research on international migration.  Of late, the chats have thrown up cases of these migrant nurses choosing to bypass Singapore, which relies on Filipinos for over half of its foreign registered nurses. A blip or a notable shift ...

By Vince Chong SMU Office of Research Governance & Administration - Increasing tax competition, cryptocurrency taxation, environmental taxation, and myriad global tax reforms. These are among the many concerns facing the international tax system right now, as regulatory environments diverge and grow ever more complex. Tackling the challenges head on is SMU Assistant Professor Vincent Ooi, who leads a prestigious new initiative launched in partnership with the Tax Academy of Singapore: ...

SMU Office of Research Governance & Administration – In a coup for Singapore Management University (SMU), a team led by Associate Professor of Computer Science He Shengfeng has edged out competing research institutions to clinch a grant for developing a groundbreaking deepfake detection system. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) project, when completed in an estimated three years’ time, promises to have widespread commercial applications. It would also be the first multilingual deepfake data set that includes dialectal variants such as Singlish and Korean dialects. “Many existing tools don’t perform well on Asian languages, accents, or content,” ...

Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron facility, will today welcome delegates from SESAME (Synchrotron-light for Experimental Science and Applications in the Middle East) as well as representatives from the UK government, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and UKRI (UK Research and Innovation). The event is aimed at deepening an existing collaboration between the two facilities.   SESAME, located in Allan, Jordan, is an intergovernmental synchrotron radiation facility established under the auspices of UNESCO and modelled on CERN. It is a unique scientific ...

Long-term exposure to toxic air can substantially weaken the health benefits of regular exercise, suggests a new study by an international team including UCL (University College London) researchers. The study, published in the journal BMC Medicine, analysed data from more than 1.5 million adults tracked for more than a decade in countries including the UK, Taiwan, China, Denmark and the United States. The team found that the protective effect of regular exercise on people’s risk of dying over a specific period – from any cause and from cancer and heart disease specifically – appeared to be reduced, but not eliminated, for those who ...

The domestic cat may be a far more recent arrival to Europe than previously thought, arriving roughly 2000 years ago and not because of the Paleolithic expansion of Near East farmers. The findings offer new insight into one of humanity’s most enigmatic animal companions and identify North Africa as the cradle of the modern housecat. The domestic cat has a long and complex, albeit uncertain, history. Genetic studies show that all modern cats descended from the African wildcat, which is found today in North Africa and the Near East. However, sparse archaeological remains and the difficulty of distinguishing domestic from wild ...

An injection that blocks the activity of a protein involved in aging reverses naturally occurring cartilage loss in the knee joints of old mice, a Stanford Medicine-led study has found. The treatment also prevented the development of arthritis after knee injuries mirroring the ACL tears often experienced by athletes or recreational exercisers. An oral version of the treatment is already in clinical trials with the goal of treating age-related muscle weakness. Samples of human tissue from knee replacement surgeries — which include both the extracellular scaffolding, or matrix, in the joint as well as cartilage-generating ...