Yiming Zhang didn't grow up playing chess. Like many other people, the Carnegie Mellon University Ph.D. student discovered the Netflix series "The Queen's Gambit" during the pandemic and began playing online. However, he quickly realized how unnatural it felt playing against chess bots. "After I learned the rules, I was in the bottom 10%, maybe 20% of players online," said Zhang, who is part of the Language Technologies Institute (LTI) in CMU's School of Computer Science. "For beginners, ...

A group of UBC Okanagan students has helped create technology that could improve how doctors and scientists detect everything from tumours to wildfires.  Working under the guidance of Associate Professor Xiaoping Shi from UBCO’s Department of Computer Science, Mathematics, Physics and Statistics, the students designed and tested a system called an adaptive multiple change point energy-based model segmentation (MEBS).  This method uses advanced mathematics to pick out important details in complex or noisy images, the kind that often confuse ...

While fasting has become a popular trend, particularly for people who hope to lose weight, new UBC Okanagan research suggests fasting does not have the same effect on all body types. Fasting as part of a ketogenic—very low-carbohydrate—diet is becoming more popular, as people aim to burn stored fat as a fuel source for energy when their bodies run low on carbs. Dr. Hashim Islam, Assistant Professor in UBCO’s School of Health and Exercise Sciences and the Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention and Management, says fasting and low-carbohydrate meals can benefit many people, but the ...

Philadelphia, August 15, 2025 – Researchers from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and Children’s Hospital Colorado have found that better control of chronic eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE)-associated inflammation during childhood leads to less stiffening of the esophagus, resulting in fewer disease complications. Using Endoluminal functional imaging (FLIP), the study team suggests this could be a key marker for assessing disease severity and progression. The findings were published online today by the journal Gastroenterology.   EoE is a chronic ...

Substance use recovery is a life-long process, but environmental triggers, such as alcohol at social gatherings or pain medication advertisements, can put individuals in recovery at risk of relapse. Research by social work Professor Holly Matto, with colleagues from George Mason’s College of Science, demonstrates how positive stimuli, called recovery cues, can counteract drug cravings and lower relapse risk. The team equipped individuals in recovery with VR technology to see how relaxing sensory experiences ...

Over the past 8,000 years, Utah’s Great Salt Lake has been sensitive to changes in climate and water inflow. Now, new sediment isotope data indicate that human activity over the past 200 years has pushed the lake into a biogeochemical state not seen for at least 2,000 years. A University of Utah geoscientist applied isotope analysis to sediments recovered from the lake’s bed to characterize changes to the lake and its surrounding watershed back to the time the lake took its current shape from the vast freshwater Lake Bonneville that once covered much of northern Utah. “Lakes are great integrators. ...

In southwestern Kenya more than 2.6 million years ago, ancient humans wielded an array of stone tools—known collectively as the Oldowan toolkit—to pound plant material and carve up large prey such as hippopotamuses. These durable and versatile tools were crafted from special stone materials collected up to eight miles away, according to new research led by scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Queens College. Their findings, published Aug. 15 in the journal Science Advances, push back the earliest known evidence of ancient humans transporting ...

Researchers at the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) in collaboration with the Dexeus University Hospital have captured unparalleled images of a human embryo implanting. This is the first time that the process has been recorded in real time and in 3D. Failure of the implantation process in the uterus is one of the main causes of infertility, accounting for 60% of spontaneous abortions. Until now, it had not been possible to observe this process in humans in real time, and the limited available information came from still images taken at specific moments during the process. 'We have observed that human embryos ...

Humans adapt to floods through private measures, early warning systems, emergency preparedness and other solutions. A new attribution study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) shows that such adaptation other than structural flood defences has reduced economic losses from flooding by 63 percent and fatalities by 52 percent since 1950. The study analyses seven decades of historical flood impacts across Europe and demonstrates how adaptation measures have reduced damage over time. Flood damage is the result of the interaction between hazards, such as heavy rainfall or storm surges, exposure, i.e., how many people and assets are located in vulnerable ...

Recapitulating egg and sperm development in the dish New stem cell differentiation method is first to induce meiosis, a critical step in egg and sperm cell development, with potential for drug development and future fertility treatments By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) —  More than one-sixth of adults around the world experience infertility in their lifetime. There is a high unmet need not only for increased access to affordable, high-quality fertility care for those in need but, importantly, also for new biomedical solutions that can address the root causes of infertility. Some of the earliest causes ...

In the high-elevation desert region of the Trans-Himalayas, most people farm for a living. In the 1980s, they largely transitioned from subsistence-based to market-oriented production of commercial crops, such as green peas (Pisum sativum L.), they could sell to other states in India.  For their own communities and monasteries, however, some farmers still cultivate foods with a 3,000-year legacy in the area, including barley (Hordeum vulgare) and a local variety of black peas that lacks a scientific name. Favored for nutrition and sustained energy, these black peas are an integral part of traditional recipes, such as soups ...

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that affects millions worldwide and can have a devastating impact on patients’ lives. Yet, about one in three patients respond poorly to existing treatments. Researchers at Kyoto University have shed new light on this challenge by discovering that peripheral helper T cells (Tph cells), a key type of immune cell involved in RA, exist in two forms: stem-like Tph cells and effector Tph cells. The stem-like Tph cells reside in immune “hubs” called ...

August 15, 2025 — The Congress of Neurological Surgeons (CNS) has issued its first comprehensive, evidence-based guidelines on the care of adults with functioning pituitary adenomas (FPA), a prevalent and complex condition. Tailored for neurosurgeons, endocrinologists, and other specialists, the guidelines mark a pivotal step in standardizing care, optimizing patient outcomes, and promoting multidisciplinary coordination. The new CNS Guideline about FPA treatment stems from the review of approximately 20,000 published abstracts and is presented as four papers (43 pages plus Supplemental data) in an online supplement to Neurosurgery, the official publication ...

New research from the Charles Perkins Centre at the University of Sydney has uncovered a new biological pathway that may help explain why people with type 2 diabetes are more prone to developing dangerous blood clots, potentially paving the way for future treatments that reduce their cardiovascular risk. The study, led by Associate Professor Freda Passam from the Central Clinical School and Associate Professor Mark Larance from the School of Medical Sciences, was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. ...

Tumor electrophysiological abnormalities, characterized by membrane potential dysregulation, ion channel network remodeling, and microenvironmental signaling interactions, are critical drivers of malignancy. A central feature is the depolarization of the transmembrane resting potential (Vm), a hallmark of tumor cells that promotes proliferation, maintains cancer stem cell (CSCs) undifferentiated states, and facilitates metastatic remodeling. These abnormalities extend beyond the plasma membrane: CSCs exhibit mitochondrial membrane potential hyperpolarization with a pronounced pH gradient between the matrix ...

The pharmaceutical industry stands at a transformative crossroads as artificial intelligence reshapes the landscape of drug development. In a Correspondence published in the KeAi journal Current Molecular Pharmacology, a group of researchers from China illuminate how large language models (LLMs) - the sophisticated AI systems powering advanced chatbots - are delivering unprecedented breakthroughs across the entire drug discovery pipeline. These intelligent systems are moving beyond mere assistance to fundamentally redefine the ...

A new study warns that contamination from laboratory reagents could be misleading scientists worldwide in their hunt for emerging infectious diseases. Researchers found that silica membranes—commonly used in nucleic acid extraction kits—can harbor parvoviruses and other viral contaminants, creating false virus–host associations in metagenomic sequencing (mNGS) data. These misleading links can affect clinical diagnostics, zoonotic surveillance, and public health responses. In mNGS analyses of patient samples from multiple regions in China, the team detected dozens ...

Medical databases are undergoing rapid expansion, with the number of observed values and variable types continuously increasing, resulting in increasingly rich data content. This growth leads to a significant expansion in the size of individual data files, encompassing both an increase in the number of rows (length) and the number of columns (width). For instance, the chartevents file in the MIMIC 3.0 database boasts hundreds of millions of records, and the numeric file in the Amsterdam Critical Care Database version 1.0.2 is similarly large. In contrast, ...

A new study maps the planetary boundary of “functional biosphere integrity” in spatial detail and over centuries. It finds that 60 percent of global land areas are now already outside the locally defined safe zone, and 38 percent are even in the high-risk zone. The study was led by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) together with BOKU University in Vienna and published in the renowned journal One Earth. Functional biosphere integrity refers to the plant world’s ability to co-regulate ...

America’s youth mental health crisis has escalated to the point that thousands of children primarily suffering from suicide-related behaviors and depression are stuck in hospital emergency rooms for three days or more, according to new research from Oregon Health & Science University. The study, published today in the journal JAMA Health Forum, examined Medicaid claims data from 2022. Among 255,000 hospital emergency department visits for mental health conditions involving Medicaid-enrolled kids, more than 1 in 10 visits resulted in children being “boarded” — ...

About The Study: The results of this cross-sectional analysis showed significant variation in the prices and affordability of 549 essential medicines across 72 markets in 2022. Strategies to promote equitable drug prices and improve drug affordability are urgently needed. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Olivier J. Wouters, PhD, email olivier_wouters@brown.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2025.2043) Editor’s ...

Kyoto, Japan -- As space programs evolve and we continue to mistreat our own planet, human dreams of space tourism and planetary colonization seem increasingly common. However, features of spaceflight such as gravitational changes and circadian rhythm disruption -- not to mention radiation -- take a toll on the body, including muscle wasting and decreased bone density. These may even affect our ability to produce healthy offspring. Studying the impact of spaceflight on germ cells -- egg and sperm precursor cells -- is particularly important because they ...

FastUKB is an innovative tool specifically developed to streamline and enhance research workflows utilizing the UK Biobank, effectively addressing key limitations of existing platforms such as the UK Biobank Research Analysis Platform (RAP). One of its most notable features is its breakthrough bulk data extraction functionality, which transforms traditionally complex coding tasks into intuitive click operations. This is made possible through a user-friendly interface equipped with dropdown menus and a hierarchical variable tree structure, allowing researchers to effortlessly navigate and select the data they need. Unlike RAP, which restricts ...

New York, NY (August 15, 2025) Mount Sinai is celebrating its 13th year as the official hospital and medical services provider of the US Open Tennis Championships, which begins with Fan Week from Monday, August 18, through Saturday, August 23, and continues with the Main Draw Sunday, August 24, through Sunday, September 7. It is also Mount Sinai’s 11th year in this role for the U.S. teams for the Billie Jean King Cup and Davis Cup events. Mount Sinai, one of the largest academic medical systems in New York, will continue to provide the highest level of health care in orthopedics, sports medicine, emergency medicine, musculoskeletal radiology, and more to ...

A multi-institutional team led by Weill Cornell Medicine has received a five-year, $14.9 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, to find ways to remove latent HIV from the cells of individuals with HIV. The team aims to use a personalized medicine approach to transform the management of HIV into effective cures. Over 40 million people worldwide are living with HIV, according to the World Health Organization. People with ...