If watching Robert De Niro ordering hammer-based retribution on a cheat’s hand in Casino instinctively made you wince, you are not alone. Many people say that seeing bodily injury on film makes them flinch, as if they ‘feel’ it themselves. It is as if the sting leaps straight off the screen and into your skin.   But explaining why and how this happens has puzzled scientists for a long time. Now, scientists from the University of Reading, Free University Amsterdam, and Minnesota, USA, have uncovered a major clue as ...

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, in collaboration with Data Science Alliance, a nonprofit promoting the importance of a responsible science environment, led a study showing that hospitals could save millions of dollars and significantly reduce surgical waste by rethinking supply lists used to prepare operating rooms, without compromising patient safety.  The study, published in the November 26, 2025, online edition of JAMA Surgery, found that preference cards — hospital checklists of tools and supplies for surgeries — often ...

Across the globe, soil compaction is becoming an ever more serious challenge. Heavy vehicles and machinery in modern agriculture compress the soil to such an extent that crops struggle to grow. In many regions, the problem is aggravated by drought linked to climate change. But plants may in fact be able to solve part of the problem themselves – with a little help from us. It is already known that when soil becomes dense and difficult to penetrate, plants can respond by thickening their roots. Until now, however, it has remained unclear how they manage this, beyond the fact that the plant hormone ethylene plays a key role. Researchers from the University ...

Background and objectives Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and other motor neuron diseases (MNDs) are major global causes of death. However, their global incidence, mortality, and disability-adjusted life years remain largely unknown, despite their importance for disease prevention and resource allocation. We therefore examined the global epidemiology of ALS/MNDs. Methods This study analyzed data from the Global Burden of Disease 2021 database for 204 regions (1990–2021), focusing on ALS/MNDs. Data from the world, China, and the G8 countries were analyzed separately. Age-standardized ...

A new evidence brief, based on a study by the Juno Evidence Alliance conducted in collaboration with CABI’s One Health Hub, has highlighted that a One Health approach is needed in research into zoonotic disease risks around the world. The study, an evidence synthesis carried out by the Juno Evidence Alliance with Newcastle University and funded by UK International Development, did not find published research on zoonoses risks linked to agrifood systems for 46% of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), which could point to an uneven distribution of research resources. It adds that several key areas related to zoonotic ...

An international team led by Covadonga Orejas, a researcher at the Gijón Oceanographic Centre of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography (IEO-CSIC); Veerle Huvenne, a researcher at the UK National Oceanography Centre (NOC); and Jacob González-Solís, professor at the Faculty of Biology of the University of Barcelona, has published the first comprehensive study on the seamounts of the Cape Verde archipelago, their biodiversity, ecological functionality and socio-economic relevance in the journal Progress in Oceanography. These volcanic formations — at least 14 large mountains ...

Scientists have discovered how a mitochondrial mutation rewires immune function in a model of inherited primary mitochondrial disorders, which often lead to severe disability and death. They have discovered that this single inherited mutation causes whole-body issues in an animal model after its immune response is sparked into action. Although the scientists stress the research is at a relatively early stage, it is one of the first pieces of work to show that a heritable mitochondrial DNA mutation can independently remodel immune cell function and inflammatory signalling.  It ...

The presence of robots in schools is no longer surprising. How do elementary school children treat humanoid robots? Are they polite to them, and willing to attribute human-like qualities to them? Researchers from SWPS University have shown that in most cases, children treat robots politely, and younger children and girls are more likely to perceive them as possessing human-like qualities. The fourth edition of the international HumanTech Summit, organized at SWPS by the HumanTech Center, took place in Warsaw on November 20-22, 2025. Interactions with robots were among the topics discussed during ...

ANN ARBOR—Inside the cell reside many tiny assembly factories and warehouses that gather together all of the proteins and RNAs—which carry out instructions from our DNA—that a living being needs.  These assemblies, called biomolecular condensates, help regulate how cells divide and respond to stress by sequestering and processing RNA and proteins. However, they don't have a membrane that separates them from the rest of the nucleus. Instead, their machinery condenses together, similar ...

Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is an autoimmune disorder characterized by the specific destruction of insulin-producing pancreatic β-cells. While islet transplantation has demonstrated promise, its widespread application is hampered by immune rejection, the necessity for lifelong immunosuppression, and a critical shortage of donor organs. This review posits that regenerative medicine, particularly strategies centered on stem cells and pancreatic progenitor cells, holds the key to a lasting cure. We explore innovative avenues for regenerating functional β-cells, with a focused ...

Statins have transformed heart health, saving millions of lives by lowering cholesterol and reducing the risk of heart attacks and strokes. But for many patients, these drugs come with a troubling downside: muscle pain, weakness and, in rare cases, severe muscle breakdown that can lead to kidney failure.  University of British Columbia researchers and their collaborators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have now pinpointed the cause. Their findings, published last week in Nature Communications, could pave the way ...

SAN ANTONIO — November 26, 2025 — Engineers at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) have developed a reliable testing methodology to study stochastic pre-ignition (SPI) in hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engines (H2-ICEs), offering the automotive industry tools to address challenges associated with hydrogen fuel and advance cleaner engine technologies. Pre-ignition, where unintentional combustion occurs before spark timing, is disruptive and sometimes detrimental to engine performance and durability. While hydrogen's low ignition threshold is a suspected SPI factor, SwRI explored whether lubricant autoignition contributes to SPI in H2-ICEs. “H2-ICEs ...

A study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison has revealed a previously unknown pathway plants use to detect gravity and orient the direction they grow in. Publishing this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study may one day open the door for improvements in crop cultivation. Prior studies have already established that a suite of genes, nicknamed LAZY, control a pathway plants use for detecting gravity. In a typical plant, cells within the stem use LAZY genes to detect the force of gravity. The plant can then guide the stem to grow upwards, branches to grow outwards, and roots to ...

Food quality and safety are crucial. However, conventional food-monitoring methods, including ribotyping and polymerase chain reaction, tend to be destructive and lengthy. These shortcomings limit their potential for broad applications. In this regard, surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) sensing, with real-time, non-destructive, and high sensitivity capabilities, is a highly promising alternative. In a new breakthrough, a team of researchers, led by Associate Professor Ji-Hwan Ha from the Department of Mechanical ...

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is an age-related, progressive neurodegenerative disorder. The hallmark of PD pathogenesis is the Lewy bodies (LBs) that accumulate in neurons in the substantia nigra region of the brain, damaging these neurons and leading to the motor symptoms of the disease. α-synuclein (α-syn), a misfolded protein, aggregates and forms fibrils, which leads to the formation of LBs. The exact molecular mechanism behind this aggregation process is yet to be uncovered. With an increasing number of elderly patients suffering from Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases ...

Power transmission lines (TLs) are ubiquitous, spanning diverse landscapes, including forests, agricultural regions, as well as mountains. Therefore, it is crucial to develop novel technologies to monitor their condition in terms of environmental infringement as well as sag estimation. In a breakthrough, a team of researchers, led by Prof. Ki-Yong Oh, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Hanyang University, and Munsu Jeon, a PhD candidate in Mechanical Convergence Engineering at Hanyang University, has presented the first unmanned ...

CHICAGO – The brain’s waste-clearing system significantly declines in function with repeated head impacts, according to a new study of cognitively impaired professional boxers and mixed martial arts fighters. The findings will be presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Sports-related traumatic brain injuries account for up to 30% of all brain injury cases, and boxing and mixed martial arts are major contributors. Repeated head impacts are risk factors ...

CHICAGO – An image-only artificial intelligence (AI) model for predicting the five-year risk of breast cancer provided stronger and more precise risk stratification than breast density assessment, according to a new study being presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Senior author Constance D. Lehman, M.D., Ph.D., professor of radiology at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, said traditional methods of assessing a woman’s risk for breast cancer, including age, family history, genetics and breast density, ...

A large-scale laboratory screening of human-made chemicals has identified 168 chemicals that are toxic to bacteria found in the healthy human gut. These chemicals stifle the growth of gut bacteria thought to be vital for health. Most of these chemicals, likely to enter our bodies through food, water, and environmental exposure, were not previously thought to have any effect on bacteria. As the bacteria alter their function to try and resist the chemical pollutants, some also become resistant to antibiotics such as ciprofloxacin. If this happens in the human gut, it could make infections harder to treat. The new research, ...

EMBARGOED UNTIL 10:00 AM GMT / 05:00 ET WEDNESDAY 26 NOVEMBER 2025 Chemists design OLEDs that electrically flip the handedness of light Researchers from the University of Oxford have for the first time discovered an approach to electrically switch organic LEDs (OLEDs) to emit either left- or right-handed circularly polarized light without changing the light-emitting molecules. This could be useful for a range of technological applications, from more energy efficient OLED displays, to optical information transfer. They describe their results in a study published today (26 Nov) in Nature Photonics. Usually, the handedness of such ...

New York, NY [November 26, 2025]— Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and collaborators have reported early success with a novel mRNA-based therapy designed to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The findings, published in the November 26 online issue of Nature Biotechnology [DOI: 10.1038/s41587-025-02928-x], show that in preclinical studies in mice and human lung tissue in the lab, the therapy slowed bacterial growth, strengthened immune cell activity, and reduced lung tissue damage in models of multidrug-resistant pneumonia. Antibiotic-resistant ...

Researchers have discovered new regions of the human genome particularly vulnerable to mutations. These altered stretches of DNA can be passed down to future generations and are important for how we study genetics and disease.  The regions are located at the starting point of genes, also known as transcription start sites. These are sequences where cellular machinery starts to copy DNA into RNA. The first 100 base pairs after a gene’s starting point are 35% more prone to mutations compared with what you’d expect by chance, according to the study published today in Nature Communications.  “These sequences are extremely prone to mutations and rank among the most functionally ...

A new paper in Biology Methods and Protocols, published by Oxford University Press, finds that we can now distinguish wild from farmed salmon using deep learning, potentially greatly improving strategies for environmental protection. Norway is home to the largest remaining wild populations of wild salmon and is also one of the largest producers of farmed salmon. Atlantic salmon abundance in Norway has declined by over 50% since the 1980s and is now at historically low levels. Escaped farmed salmon are an important reason for this decline. Norway produces over 1.5 million ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (Nov 26, 2025) –Although research on sexuality in older adults has been growing in recent years, most of the studies are focused on partnered sexual activity and not on solo sexual behavior, including masturbation or the use of sex toys. A new study specifically investigated sex toy use during partnered sex and masturbation in older adult women. Results of the study are published online today in Menopause, the journal of The Menopause Society. Women are less likely to masturbate than men, and masturbation tends to be negatively associated with age. Women are more likely to use masturbation as complementary ...

Fame itself may be a critical factor in shortening singers’ lives beyond the hazards of the job—at least those in the UK/Europe and North America—suggests research published online in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. These stars seem to die around 4 years earlier, on average, than their peers who haven’t achieved celebrity status, and the effects of fame are on a par with certain other health risks, suggest the researchers. Previously published research indicates that famous singers tend to die earlier than the general public. But it’s far from clear ...