Living close to cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms — which are present nationwide but are more common in coastal and Great Lake states — heightens the rate of dying from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS, a study suggests. These blooms occur when cyanobacteria, also called blue-green algae, grows dense and out of control, producing toxic agents that can poison people and the environment.  Researchers at Michigan Medicine surveyed participants with ALS who were seen at the University ...

Background and objectives Propolis is a resinous material produced by honeybees. Its chemical composition is highly complex and varies significantly depending on geographic region and season. This intrinsic variability presents challenges to the standardization and quality control of propolis. This study aimed to evaluate the chemical composition, total phenolic content, and antioxidant potential of propolis collected from seventeen geographical regions across Africa. Methods A reverse-phase high-performance ...

New York, NY [June 17, 2025]—In a new collaboration that could transform how cancer is treated, OCCAM Immune—a Mount Sinai initiative focused on understanding the immune system’s role in disease—is partnering with the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) to unlock the secrets of how the immune system responds to advanced therapies. Under the agreement, OCCAM Immune and CRI have established a long-term plan to support ongoing immune monitoring across CRI’s clinical trials. The collaboration ...

Suicide remains one of the most pressing public health crises affecting young adults today, with devastating consequences. According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is currently the third leading cause of death among individuals aged 18 to 25, with a 51% increase in suicide deaths between 2000 and 2021. While this trend is deeply concerning for the general population, it is even more alarming for young adults living with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) – a group long overlooked in suicide prevention efforts. Research ...

In recent years, Mendelian randomisation (MR) has revolutionised observational epidemiology by offering a tool to infer causal relationships using genetic variants as instrumental variables (IVs). However, its popularity has come at a cost. The editorial by Chen, Guillot, and Schneider in eGastroenterology (2025) titled "Attention to the misuse of Mendelian randomisation in medical research" delivers a timely critique of the field's current trajectory. As MR studies surge, so too do concerns about their quality and interpretive validity. The authors call for stricter methodological scrutiny and offer practical recommendations ...

AI can help public health agencies in the quest to end HIV. The United States is pursuing an initiative to end the HIV epidemic by 2030. To achieve this goal, public health agencies and organizations must remind the public about how best to avoid transmitting and acquiring the virus. Public health campaigns are costly, their effectiveness is seldom systematically assessed, and no systematic methods have been developed to build health campaigns in real-time. Dolores Albarracin and colleagues collected public health messages about HIV prevention and testing from US federal agencies, non-profit organizations, ...

Gene editing could be used to treat millions of glaucoma patients. Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness, characterized by high pressure inside the eye. Patients often rely on daily eye drops to lower intraocular pressure, but the drops may cause significant complications including bradycardia, metabolic acidosis, and kidney stones. In addition, many patients fail to keep up with the eye drops. Yang Sun and colleagues used the CRISPR gene editing technique to knock down two genes associated with the production ...

Bees, ants and termites don’t need blueprints. They may have queens, but none of these species breed architects or construction managers. Each insect worker, or drone, simply responds to cues like warmth or the presence or absence of building material. Unlike human manufacturing, the grand design emerges simply from the collective action of the drones — no central planning required. Now, researchers at Penn Engineering have developed mathematical rules that allow virtual swarms of tiny robots to do the same. In computer simulations, the robots built honeycomb-like structures without ever following — or even being able to comprehend — ...

A public survey indicates that Americans have negative opinions of scientists who work on AI. Dror Walter and colleagues collected opinions about scientists from thousands of US adults via the Annenberg Science and Public Health survey and compared the perceived credibility, prudence, unbiasedness, self-correction, and benefit of scientists working on AI with those of scientists in general and climate scientists in particular. Previous work has established that high scores on these dimensions predict support for science ...

A new McGill University-led study suggests that disrupting the body’s internal clock during adolescence can alter how the brain responds to an in-utero risk factor linked to certain brain disorders. Previous research has shown that a mother’s infection during pregnancy, such as the flu, can increase a child’s risk of developing conditions like schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders later in life. Irregular sleep patterns – often a sign of circadian rhythm disruption – are also associated with these conditions. To investigate how these factors interact, researchers exposed mice to either a ...

Bone growth occurs through the proliferation of specialized cells of the cartilage tissue, known as chondrocytes, on either end of a bone. This process requires the synthesis of extracellular matrix (ECM) in the bone growth plates. A peptide hormone, known as C-type natriuretic peptide (CNP), plays a pivotal role by binding to its specific receptors present on the chondrocytes and triggering a signaling cascade in these cells. The CNP-bound receptor activates a molecule, cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP), which in turn activates ...

WASHINGTON, DC – June 17, 2025 – Sleeve gastrectomy and gastric bypass were associated with about five-times more weight loss than weekly injections of GLP-1 receptor agonists semaglutide or tirzepatide,* at the end of two years, according to a new head-to-head real-world study presented today at the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting. Researchers from NYU Langone Health and NYC Health + Hospitals discovered patients who had one of the bariatric procedures lost an average 58 pounds after two years compared to 12 pounds ...

WASHINGTON, DC – June 17, 2025 – People who have metabolic and bariatric surgery are significantly less likely to develop psychiatric disorders compared to those who take weekly injections of GLP-1 anti-obesity medications, according to a new study* presented today at the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting. Over a five-year period, the risk of developing cognitive deficits was 54% lower and 18% and 17% lower for anxiety disorders and substance use ...

WASHINGTON, DC – June 17, 2025 – The higher a person’s body mass index (BMI), the higher their risk for complications after bariatric surgery, especially those with BMI of 50 or more, according to a new study presented today at the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting. Researchers found that the rate of complications increased by an average of 5.56% and serious occurrences rose 3.21% from the lowest BMI category to the highest, with people with a BMI 50 or more the most likely to experience complications of any kind.   The study gives new insights into the risks associated ...

WASHINGTON, DC – June 17, 2025 – Black patients are more likely to experience minor complications after metabolic and bariatric surgery than White patients, according to new study* presented today at the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (ASMBS) 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting. Researchers from the Yale School of Medicine found Black patients had a higher overall incidence of minor complications such as dehydration, trips to the emergency department (ED) and infections in ...

The founding director of the institute, Aalto University professor Samuel Kaski has received the European Research Council Advanced Grant to develop new types of machine learning. Many popular and widely available AI tools appear to be extremely versatile and agile, but there is still a hole in the underlying machine learning, argues Kaski. "The basic tenet of machine learning is to apply a model trained on a learning data set. But that only works if the set is representative of the deployment setting — and that seldom holds, because life happens. Unexpected factors, statistically speaking covariates ...

The Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) in Klosterneuburg receives over 10 million Euro by the European Research Council (ERC). Four research projects – in astrophysics, neuroscience, brain imaging, and math – were awarded around 2.5 million Euro each in the form of a competitive ERC Advanced Grant. ISTA is one of the most successful institutions at winning grants from this EU funding body. The European Research Council awards Advanced Grants to “active researchers who have a track-record of significant research achievements.” They are awarded for a period of up to 5 years and for up to 2.5 ...

The future of gene therapy is arriving in the form of intelligent genetic circuits. Diego di Bernardo, Genomic Medicine Program Coordinator at the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM) and Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Naples “Federico II,” has been awarded a prestigious €2.5 million ERC Advanced Grant for DIMERCIRCUITS — a project that merges synthetic biology, artificial intelligence, and biomedical engineering to transform how we ...

Scientists have used clues locked into tree rings to reveal major changes in the Amazon’s rainfall cycle over the last 40 years:  wet seasons are getting wetter and dry seasons drier. Oxygen isotope signals in rings from two Amazon tree species allowed the international research team to reconstruct seasonal changes in rainfall for the recent past. Publishing their findings today (17 June) in Communications Earth and Environment, the researchers reveal that wet season rainfall has increased by 15 - 22%, and dry season rainfall decreased by 5.8 - 13.5% since 1980. The study is a result of a collaboration ...

Plants and trees extend their roots into the earth in order to draw nutrients and water from the soil—however, these roots are thought to decline as they move deeper underground. But a new study by a multi-institutional team of scientists shows that many plants develop a second, deeper layer of roots—often more than three feet underground—to access additional nourishment.  Published in the journal Nature Communications, the study reveals previously unrecognized rooting patterns, altering our understanding of how ecosystems respond to changing environmental conditions. More importantly, the study suggests that plants might transport and store fixed carbon deeper than ...

Osaka, Japan – Treating rare diseases can be complicated at the best of times, and it gets even more complicated when different patients with the same disease exhibit different symptoms. Now, researchers from Japan have reported a cellular signature that might explain why some patients with autoimmune disease are stable while others face life-threatening complications. In a study to be published in Nature Communications, a multi-institutional research team led by The University of Osaka has revealed that, for patients with systemic sclerosis, this variation in disease severity seems to be due to the proliferation ...

WASHINGTON -- Liver transplant is a lifesaving surgery, but a significant number of patients experience organ rejection or other complications. Now a new study by scientists from Georgetown University and MedStar Health describes how a single blood sample can be used to catch problems at the earliest stages, allowing tailored treatment to prevent the organ’s failure. The research, funded in part by the National Institutes of Health, is a major step toward the development of a liquid biopsy that could not only quickly detect post-transplant complications but also ...

Bladder tumors that have been excluded from clinical trials have a few things in common that could lead to new therapies.  Scientists at UC San Francisco have found a way to identify and possibly treat a mysterious type of bladder cancer that affects up to 1 in 4 cases.  First, they found a marker on the surface of the tumor cells that until now had only been associated with ovarian cancer; then they designed CAR-T therapy to kill the tumors in mice.  The discovery, which was made possible through funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), appears ...

In a world-first breakthrough, researchers have used an epilepsy-like disease model in a laboratory dish and showed that improved information processing and neural function can be achieved using a medication designed specifically to treat the disease. Published in Communications Biology, the research was led by Cortical Labs and marks a significant breakthrough in the study and treatment of neurological disorders in real time.      Cortical Labs is an Australian start-up which created the world’s first commercial biological computer, the CL1, which fuses lab-cultivated neurons from human stem cells with hard silicon to create ...

Wildfires pollute waterways and could affect their ability to sequester carbon, recent University of British Columbia research shows. Dr. Brian Hunt, professor in the Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries (IOF), and Emily Brown, IOF research scientist, discuss how wildfires affect our waters and what this means in a changing climate. What did you find about how fire affects water? BH: We focused on the mighty Fraser River basin. When forests burn, they release ash, soil particles and chemicals into the environment. In a recent study which analyzed water quality and wildfire data, we were able to link increases in the concentrations of compounds like arsenic and lead, as well as nutrients ...