By changing the physical structure of gold at the nanoscale, researchers can drastically change how the material interacts with light – and, as a result, its electronic and optical properties. This is shown by a study from Umeå University published in Nature Communications. Gold plays a crucial role in modern advanced technology thanks to its unique properties. New research now demonstrates that changing the material's physical structure – its morphology – can fundamentally enhance both its electronic behaviour and its ability to interact with light. “This might make it possible to improve the efficiency of chemical reactions such as those used in hydrogen ...

The first study to test a digital tool designed to help people with Long COVID manage their energy levels has been developed by a team of researchers. The paper published in Nature Communications is entitled “A Digital Platform with Activity Tracking for Energy Management Support in Long COVID: A Randomised Controlled Trial”. In this study, funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), people with Long COVID tried out a new app called “Pace Me” to help manage their energy levels. The tool combines a wearable activity tracker (Fitbit watch) with an app that sends helpful messages throughout the day, reminding users ...

Generative AI models have been used to create enormous libraries of theoretical materials that could help solve all kinds of problems. Now, scientists just have to figure out how to make them. In many cases, materials synthes is not as simple as following a recipe in the kitchen. Factors like the temperature and length of processing can yield huge changes in a material’s properties that make or break its performance. That has limited researchers’ ability to test millions of promising model-generated materials. Now, MIT researchers have created an AI model that guides scientists ...

A sediment core from the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean has provided a research team led by geochemist Dr Torben Struve from the University of Oldenburg, Germany, with evidence of an unexpected climate feedback in Antarctica. As the team reports in the latest issue of Nature Geoscience, there was a close correlation between changes in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) and marine algae growth over previous glacial cycles – but the correlation was not as expected. Based on the results, the team concludes ...

Scientists have created a complete map showing how hundreds of possible mutations in a key cancer gene influence tumour growth. The study focused on CTNNB1, a gene that produces the protein β-catenin, which helps regulate tissue growth and repair. When β-catenin is disrupted, cells can begin uncontrolled growth – a hallmark of cancer. By systematically testing all possible mutations in a priority area of the gene in mouse cells, the map helps explain why certain mutations appear in specific cancers and could guide the development of new treatments, experts say. Many cancers carry mutations ...

A new study in Nature Geoscience reveals that changes in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) closely tracked marine algae growth in the Southern Ocean over previous glacial cycles, but not in the way scientists expected. The key factor is iron-rich sediments transported by icebergs from West Antarctica. Iron acts like fertilizer for algae. But when analyzing a sediment core taken from the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean in 2001, more than three miles below the water’s surface, researchers were surprised to find that a high iron supply did not accelerate marine algae growth. “Normally, an increased supply of iron in the Southern Ocean would stimulate algae ...

People born more recently are being diagnosed with psychotic disorders (e.g., schizophrenia) more often and at younger ages than people born earlier, suggests a large study of more than 12 million people in Ontario, published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.250926. “Individuals with psychotic disorders face substantial morbidity and risk of premature death, and often require substantial health services and social support,” writes Dr. Daniel Myran, Gordon F. Cheesbrough ...

The fossils, representing at least five individuals, were first uncovered by Fidel Torcida Fernández-Baldor of the Dinosaur Museum of Salas de los Infantes. “From the beginning, we knew these bones were exceptional because of their minute size. It is equally impressive how the study of this animal overturns global ideas on ornithopod dinosaur evolution,” he notes. The genus name Foskeia is derived from the ancient Greek. The prefix fos means ‘light’, given the very lightweight and small body size of grown individuals (Dieudonné et al. 2023). The combination of letters ...

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 01:00AM (GMT) MONDAY 2ND FEB 2026 New research from the University of St Andrews has discovered a crucial piece in the puzzle of how all animals with a spine - including all mammals, fish, reptiles and amphibians - evolved.    In a paper published today (2nd February) in BMC Biology, researchers found an intriguing pattern of gene evolution which appears to be significant for the evolutionary origin and diversification of vertebrates.    All animals have major ...

Aortic Hemiarch Reconstruction Safely Matches Complex Aortic Arch Reconstruction for Acute Dissection in Older Adults NEW ORLEANS—February 1, 2026—Ascending aortic hemiarch reconstruction offers the same long-term benefits to patients over age 65 with acute type A aortic dissection (ATAAD) as more complex extended arch reconstruction procedures, according to a study presented today at the 2026 Society of Thoracic Surgeons Annual Meeting. The finding came from a risk-adjusted analysis of 3,562 patients examining long-term survival and surgical reintervention for aortic disease following initial operation for ATAAD. Patient data came from the STS ...

An agreement on the third implementation phase of Destination Earth (DestinE), the European Commission’s initiative to develop a highly accurate digital twin of the Earth, has been signed between the European Commission and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF). The third phase will start in June 2026 and end in June 2028.  The DestinE digital twins enable the exploration of past, present and likely future climate and extreme conditions, ...

Late-Breaking Study Finds Comparable Long-Term Survival Between Two Leading Multi-Arterial CABG Strategies Largest US analysis leveraging the STS National Database shows patient age may guide optimal conduit selection NEW ORLEANS — January 31, 2026 — A late-breaking study drawing on more than 15 years of national outcomes data from the STS Adult Cardiac Surgery Database (ACSD) suggests that the two most commonly used multi-arterial coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) strategies—bilateral internal thoracic artery (BITA) and single internal thoracic artery plus radial artery (SITA+RA)—offer comparable ...

Lymph node examination should be expanded to accurately assess cancer spread in patients with lung cancer NEW ORLEANS — January 31, 2026 — Breakthrough research presented at the 2026 Society of Thoracic Surgeons Annual Meeting shows that additional lymph node evaluation is needed during surgery for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) to accurately identify cancer spread. Globally, surgical standards vary on the number and location of lymph nodes that should be removed and assessed for metastasis in patients with clinically node-negative NSCLC, cancer that imaging shows has not spread. In North America, surgical standards developed in 2021 call for assessment of three N2 nodes ...

Study Examines Prediction of Surgical Risk in Growing Population of Adults with Congenital Heart Disease NEW ORLEANS — January 31, 2026 — Heart specialists at Mayo Clinic today presented new research at the 2026 Society of Thoracic Surgeons Annual Meeting that redo surgery for adults with congenital heart disease (CHD) remains high-risk, and a clinically applicable national risk assessment model is needed to help patients and care teams make decisions about procedures. Adults with CHD represent a growing and medically complex population, despite surgical advances. ...

Bridging Speed and Accuracy in Radiation Therapy QA Led by Professor Fu Jin, the study addresses a critical challenge in radiation therapy: balancing the computational speed and accuracy of EPID-based dose verification. EPID has emerged as a key tool for real-time in vivo dose verification. However, MC simulation—long regarded as the "gold standard" for dose calculation—faces a dilemma: increasing the number of simulated particles ensures higher accuracy but at the cost of significantly longer computation times, whereas reducing the particle count introduces disruptive noise that compromises result reliability. Integrated MC-DL Technology To address this challenge, the ...

Exploring Lepton Flavor Violation Led by researchers from Sun Yat-sen University, the Institute of Modern Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and multiple collaborating institutions across China, MACE is designed to search for the spontaneous conversion of muonium—a bound state of a positive muon and an electron—into its antimatter counterpart, antimuonium. Such a transition would violate lepton flavor conservation, a symmetry upheld by the Standard Model of particle physics, ...

Professor Jian Wang's research group at Tsinghua University reported a photocatalyzed/nitrogen heterocyclic carbene-catalyzed asymmetric radical α-alkoxycarbonylation reaction of amines. Using dibenzylaniline derivatives and readily available pyrocarbonates as starting materials, chiral α-amino acid esters can be synthesized in one step. Further deprotection reactions yield chiral α-amino acids containing primary, secondary, or tertiary amine groups. This research provides a novel method for obtaining structurally diverse chiral α-amino acid derivatives and has ...

MADISON — The cells in our bodies move in groups during biological processes such as wound healing and tissue development — but because of resistance, or viscosity, those cells can't just neatly glide past each other.   Or can they? Using a pioneering method they developed to directly measure viscosity in a group of cells, University of Wisconsin–Madison engineers have made a surprising discovery that upends understanding of how cells move. It's called "negative viscosity," and it propels cells, rather than impedes ...

The Institute for Data Science in Oncology (IDSO) at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center today announced the appointment of Iakovos Toumazis, Ph.D., to lead its focused efforts in advancing decision analytics for health. The goal of this new IDSO focus area is to develop, rigorously validate and implement advanced data‑driven analytics frameworks that support optimal decision‑making to enhance patient outcomes, to strengthen value‑based care delivery, and to enable efficient allocation of health ...

Cities occupy just a small fraction of Earth's land, but they act as the planet's massive carbon engines, pumping out the lion's share of global CO2 emissions. To stop climate change, we first have to measure it accurately—street by street and chimney by chimney. A comprehensive new review published in Carbon Research takes a deep dive into the sophisticated networks designed to "sniff out" these emissions, highlighting both the technological triumphs and the massive gaps still remaining in our global monitoring net. Leading the charge is Professor Gan Zhang from the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Environmental Technology at the Guangzhou Institute ...

As renewable energy expands worldwide, one challenge remains stubbornly unresolved: how to store heat efficiently and sustainably when the sun is not shining or demand fluctuates. A new study shows that agricultural waste, specifically discarded neem seeds, can be transformed into a powerful and environmentally friendly thermal energy storage material. Researchers have developed a biochar based phase change material that can capture, store, and release heat with high efficiency while also locking carbon away. The work demonstrates how the temperature used to produce biochar strongly ...

Biochar, a carbon rich material made by heating biomass under low oxygen conditions, has long been known for its ability to store carbon in soils and improve environmental quality. Now, a new comprehensive review introduces a powerful way to understand and design biochar by mapping what the authors call its “physical genome”, a framework that links biochar’s internal structure to how it performs across a wide range of applications Published online on January 29, 2026, the review brings together decades of research on biochar’s physical properties, including porosity, mechanical strength, ...

A study led by the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Global Surgery Program, in partnership with George Regional Hospital in South Africa, reported that a traveling mobile endoscopy team performed more than 500 procedures across five rural hospitals in South Africa’s Western Cape. The study was published in BMJ Open Gastroenterology in December 2025. Between January and November 2024, the team performed procedures on adults at district hospitals where endoscopy is not routinely available. The findings highlighted both the heavy burden of treatable gastrointestinal disease in rural communities and ...

A groundbreaking study from Brown University Health researchers has identified a crucial factor that may help improve treatment for glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive and common forms of adult brain cancer. The findings, published November 10 in Cell Reports, reveal how differences among cells within a single tumor influence the cancer’s response to chemotherapy, and introduce a promising new therapy designed to tip the odds in the patients’ favor. Glioblastoma is notoriously difficult to treat.  One of the key ...

Researchers are continually looking for new ways to hack the cellular machinery of microbes like yeast and bacteria to make products that are useful for humans and society. In a new proof-of-concept study, a team from the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology showed they can expand the biosynthetic capabilities of these microbes by using light to help access new types of chemical transformations. The paper, published in Nature Catalysis, demonstrates how the bacteria Escherichia coli can be engineered to produce these new molecules in ...