As cities continue to expand and face rising environmental pressure, scientists are seeking innovative solutions that can help urban areas become cleaner, greener, and more resilient. A new perspective paper highlights biochar, a carbon rich material made from organic waste, as a transformative tool that could significantly improve the environmental future of cities around the world. The study, published in Biochar X, synthesizes global research and case studies to show how biochar contributes to cleaner air, healthier soils, improved water quality, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The authors examined applications across major cities such as ...

SAN ANTONIO, Nov. 25, 2025 – From metabolic villain to hero? The hormone glucagon that raises blood sugar is now getting a second look to see how it actually contributes to insulin secretion, glucose regulation and energy balance in people with obesity. A clinical research team at UT Health San Antonio, the academic health center of The  University of Texas at San Antonio, has been awarded a five-year, nearly $4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of ...

In a re-evaluation of Hockett’s foundational features that have long dominated linguistic theory—concepts like ‘arbitrariness’, ‘duality of patterning’, and ‘displacement’—an international team of linguists and cognitive scientists shows that modern science demands a radical shift in how we understand language and how it evolved. The conclusion? Language is not a spoken code. It’s a dynamic, multimodal, socially embedded system that evolves through interaction, culture, ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Over the last few years, systems and applications that help visually impaired people navigate their environment have undergone rapid development, but still have room to grow, according to a team of researchers at Penn State. The team recently combined recommendations from the visually impaired community and artificial intelligence (AI) to develop a new tool that offers support specifically tailored to the needs of people who are visually impaired.  The tool, known as NaviSense, is a smartphone application that ...

Whether great minds think alike is up for debate, but the collaborating minds of two people working on a shared task process information alike, according to a study published November 25th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Denise Moerel and colleagues from Western Sydney University in Australia. Humans rely on collaboration for everything from raising food to raising children. But to cooperate successfully, people need to make sure that they are seeing the same things and working within the same rules. We must agree that the red fruits are the ones that are ripe and that we will leave green fruits alone. Behavioral collaboration requires that people think ...

Scanning for serious structural issues in fetuses during the first trimester can result in earlier detection of these issues, reports a new study led by Aris Papageorghiou at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, published November 25th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine. In England, pregnant people typically undergo a basic ultrasound at 12 weeks to assess the gestational age. Whereas an ultrasound at around 20 weeks – during the second trimester – is used to detect serious problems called congenital anomalies, which occur in about ...

Newcastle University has won the UK’s highest national honour for universities in recognition of work transforming the understanding, diagnosis and care of people with Dementia with Lewy bodies. The prestigious Queen Elizabeth Prizes for Higher and Further Education are awarded by the monarch every two years in recognition of world-class excellence and achievement at academic institutions. Newcastle University has been recognised with a Queen Elizabeth Prize for Education in this round and the last one in 2023, for excellence in water research. Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is the ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — At a time when millions of Americans have turkey on their minds, a team of researchers led by an animal scientist at Penn State has successfully tested a new way for poultry producers to keep their turkeys in sight.  Crucial for productivity and animal welfare, monitoring behavior and health of poultry animals on large, commercial farms is a costly, time-consuming and labor-intensive task. To help producers keep track of how the birds are behaving, the researchers tested a new method using a small drone equipped ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State’s LionGlass project has reached a major milestone in its partnership with Italian glassmaker Bormioli Luigi, marking one year of collaboration and the signing of a second-year agreement to continue commercialization efforts in the cosmetics packaging industry. The partnership, which began in 2024, aims to scale up LionGlass — a new family of glass developed at Penn State — as a sustainable alternative to traditional soda lime glass. LionGlass ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The dream of an artificial intelligence (AI)-integrated society could turn into a nightmare if safety is not prioritized by developers, according to Rui Zhang, assistant professor of computer science and engineering in the Penn State School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.  Zhang is the principal investigator on a project awarded $166,078 from Open Philanthropy to better mitigate sandbagging — attempting to look less capable or powerful — in AI models. While these systems go ...

Machine learning models called convolutional neural networks (CNNs) power technologies like image recognition and language translation. A quantum counterpart—known as a quantum convolutional neural network (QCNN)—could process information more efficiently by using quantum states instead of classical bits. Photons are fast, stable, and easy to manipulate on chips, making photonic systems a promising platform for QCNNs. However, photonic circuits typically behave linearly, limiting the flexible operations that neural networks need. In a study published ...

Researchers find that cancer cells mimic myeloid cells to hide from the immune system and promote disease hyper progression after immunotherapy Inhibiting the myeloid mimicry pathway along with immunotherapy improves antitumor outcomes in preclinical models Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have found that renal medullary carcinoma (RMC) cells use an adaptive mechanism called “myeloid mimicry” to hide from the immune system and promote disease hyper progression after ...

Individuals with coronary artery disease (CAD) — a constricting or blocking of blood vessels feeding the heart — face increased risks of strokes, cognitive impairment and dementia. However, the link between CAD and cognitive function is not fully understood. A new study led by Concordia researchers looks at how the disease affects the brain’s white matter, the network of nerve fibers that connects different regions of the brains and is critical to transmitting information efficiently. The study, published in the journal Journal ...

HER2-positive metastatic biliary tract cancer (BTC) is a rare and aggressive cancer with limited treatment options Final results from the HERIZON-BTC-01 clinical trial, the largest study of a HER2-targeted drug in BTC, show zanidatamab has clinically meaningful responses The targeted therapy demonstrated durable responses, longer survival and tumor shrinkage in some BTC patients Zanidatamab was granted accelerated FDA approval for treating HER2-positive BTC in Nov. 2024, based on these trial results Zanidatamab, a bispecific HER2-targeted antibody, delivered clinically meaningful and durable responses for patients with HER2-positive ...

For decades, scientists have known that what harms the body often harms the brain. Conditions such as obesity, high blood pressure and insulin resistance strain the body’s vascular and metabolic systems. Over time, that stress can speed up cognitive decline and increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Now, researchers at Arizona State University and their collaborators report that these effects may begin far earlier than expected. In young adults with obesity, the team identified biological markers of inflammation, liver stress ...

Background and objectives Mechanical valve replacement is a primary treatment for rheumatic heart disease, yet prosthesis-related adverse outcomes remain underreported in India. This study aimed to examine the in-hospital mortality rate among patients who underwent prosthetic heart valve replacement surgeries in the past five years. Methods A retrospective analysis of 221 rheumatic heart disease patients (2019–2023) who underwent aortic valve replacement (AVR), mitral valve replacement (MVR), or double valve replacement (DVR) was conducted. Comorbidities (hypertension, type-2 diabetes mellitus) and valve origin (Indian ...

“I just can’t make it tonight. You have fun without me.” Across much of the animal kingdom, when infection strikes, social contact shuts down. A new study details how the immune and central nervous systems implement this sickness behavior. It makes perfect sense that when we’re battling an infection, we lose our desire to be around others. That protects them from getting sick and lets us get much needed rest. What hasn’t been as clear is how this behavior change happens. In the research published Nov. 25 in Cell, scientists at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory of MIT and collaborators used multiple methods to demonstrate ...

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg have discovered that milk from grey seals in the Atlantic Ocean may be more potent than breast milk. An analysis of seal milk found approximately 33 per cent more sugar molecules than in breast milk. Many of these sugars are unique and may pave the way for even better infant formula for babies.    During the 17 days that grey seal pups suckle, they need to get their digestive systems up and running and build up an immune system to protect them against diseases and other dangers they may encounter in the North Atlantic. It is reasonable to suspect that their mother's milk is extremely refined to accomplish this task. ...

Veterans living in California who have cardiometabolic conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure experience significantly higher risk of dying during heat waves compared to cooler days, UCLA-led research finds. The study, to be published in the peer-reviewed JAMA Network Open, demonstrates the danger that heat waves can pose for people with heart disease and risk factors for heart disease, whether or not they are veterans, said Dr. Evan Shannon, assistant professor-in-residence at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the study’s lead author. Veterans are particularly vulnerable to these heat events because they tend to be older, ...

What makes plants tolerant to nutrient fluctuations? An international research team led by the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and involving the Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) has investigated this question on the micronutrient boron. The researchers analyzed 185 gene data sets from the model plant Arabidopsis. Their goal is to then be able to transfer the findings to the important crop plant rapeseed. Boron is one of the key micronutrients for the growth and fertility of many plants. However, extreme weather events reduce the availability of this nutrient: drought reduces boron uptake, ...

Vision shapes behavior and, a new study by MIT neuroscientists finds, behavior and internal states shape vision. The research, published Nov. 25 in Neuron, finds in mice that via specific circuits, the brain’s executive control center, the prefrontal cortex, sends tailored messages to regions governing vision and motion to ensure that their work is shaped by contexts such as the mouse’s level of arousal and whether they are on the move. “That’s the major conclusion of this paper: There are targeted projections for targeted ...

Biomedical research that began at the University of Virginia School of Medicine has yielded a much-needed new treatment for patients with the deadliest form of blood cancer. The federal Food and Drug Administration has approved the drug ziftomenib for patients with recurring or treatment-resistant acute myeloid leukemia who have a mutation in the NPM1 gene. The new medication, taken by mouth once daily, offers a potential treatment for patients who otherwise have no good options. The drug arose from many years of research by Jolanta Grembecka, PhD, and Tomasz Cierpicki, PhD, who began the ...

The American College of Lifestyle Medicine (ACLM) has published a position paper calling for the implementation of lifestyle medicine as a high-value care solution that delivers on the Quintuple Aim—better health outcomes, higher patient and clinician satisfaction, greater health equity, and lower costs. The paper includes five position statements asserting that lifestyle medicine—a rapidly growing medical specialty focused on evidence-based lifestyle interventions to treat, reverse and prevent chronic disease—offers a scalable and sustainable approach to address the nation’s ...

BUFFALO, NY — November 25, 2025 — A new research paper was published in Volume 17, Issue 10 of Aging-US on October 13, 2025, titled “Hospitalization with infections and risk of Dementia: a systematic review and meta-analysis.” This large-scale meta-analysis, led by first author Wei Yu Chua from the National University of Singapore and corresponding author Eng-King Tan from the National Neuroscience Institute and Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, shows that adults hospitalized ...

WASHINGTON—Women with persistent thyroid hormone imbalance across pregnancy may be at an increased risk of having children with autism, according to a new study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. Maternal thyroid hormones are essential for fetal neurodevelopment. Gestational thyroid imbalance has been associated with atypical neurodevelopment, including increased risk of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Autism is a complex neurodevelopmental condition that affects how a person communicates, interacts with others and experiences the world. “We ...