Walking is well known to have significant health benefits, but few people achieve the daily recommended steps. Fortunately, mobile health (mHealth) applications have emerged as promising tools to promote physical activity. These apps track user activities on mobile devices to deliver health and wellness services. However, the effectiveness of these apps in increasing daily walking behavior remains underexplored, partly due to variations in their incentive structures. Dr. Haruka Kato, Junior Associate Professor at Osaka Metropolitan University, investigated the impact of incentive design on walking behavior using a local mHealth application called ...

Changmin Sung, a principal researcher at the Doping Control Center at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST), announced that he and his collaborators at the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Korea University have developed a high-throughput multiplexed gene and cell doping analysis (HiMDA) based on gene scissors (CRISPR-Cas). Unethical doping practices to enhance athletic performance is becoming more sophisticated with the use of advanced technology, and gene and cell doping - the ...

Philadelphia, July 30, 2025 – Despite widespread public health efforts, the dangerous myth of "prevention of tongue swallowing" continues to persist during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). New research in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, published by Elsevier, exposes the mainstream and social media’s detrimental role in perpetuating this misconception, which often leads to critical delays in proper CPR for collapsed athletes. Concern about “tongue swallowing” leads resuscitators to waste valuable time trying ...

Female pilots may outperform their male counterparts in high-pressure flight situations, according to a new study led by University of Waterloo researchers.   The findings challenge traditional assumptions in aviation and suggest that women pilots may have unique strengths that could be better recognized in pilot training and evaluation systems.  “These findings are exciting because they push us to rethink how we evaluate pilots,” said Naila Ayala, lead author of the study and postdoctoral fellow ...

Hydrogen peroxide (H₂O₂) is an essential eco-friendly oxidant, but its conventional anthraquinone-based production is energy-intensive and generates hazardous waste. Photocatalysis offers a sustainable, solar-driven alternative. Organic polymer photocatalysts, notably covalent organic frameworks (COFs), have gained attention due to their tunable structures, earth-abundant elements, and visible-light responsiveness. Although recent advances (e.g., polarity-optimized, fluorinated, or sulfone-containing COFs) have improved H₂O₂ yields and extended stability to 336 hours, long-term durability remains limited. Most systems exhibit reaction times of less than 200 hours ...

Two decades-long catalytic journey has borne industrial fruit—greener, cleaner, and smarter. Fischer–Tropsch synthesis (FTS) and heterogeneous hydroformylation are two cornerstone processes in modern chemical manufacturing. They convert syngas (a mixture of CO and H₂, typically derived from coal or biomass) into hydrocarbons and oxygenates that underpin fuel, plastics, and pharmaceutical industries. Yet for over a century, challenges in selectivity, catalyst longevity, and process integration have limited their broader industrial deployment—until now. In a newly published account in Chinese Journal of ...

□ The research team led by Senior Researchers Yoonhee Lee from the Division of Biomedical Technology and Gyogwon Koo from the Division of Intelligent Robot at DGIST (under President Kunwoo Lee) has developed a technology that distinguishes lung cancer gene mutations solely by measuring the “stiffness” of exosomes—tiny particles released from cancer cells in the bloodstream—using atomic force microscopy (AFM). Their study enables rapid and precise analysis of individual exosomes and is expected to advance into a new liquid biopsy-based diagnostic technique for lung cancer.   □ Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common type ...

When Black and Latino youth aspire toward careers in science and technology, their confidence in exploring career possibilities and how they think society views their ethnic-racial group can play a crucial role in whether their dreams take root. Such is a finding of a study by UC Riverside associate professor of psychology Aerika Brittian Loyd, UCR doctoral candidate Tate LeBlanc, and co-authors published in the Journal for STEM Education Research. Middle and high school students who voiced higher expectations of success in exploring different career paths — along with perceptions that their racial ...

The presence of humans and human infrastructure in U.S. national parks has lasting effects on the behaviours of the large animals that call them home, according to a new study. “Wildlife all around the world fear people and avoid areas of high human activity, but it was surprising to see that this holds true even in more remote protected areas,” said Dr. Kaitlyn Gaynor, a zoologist at the University of British Columbia and lead author of the paper published today in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. Researchers tracked 229 animals from 10 species across 14 national parks and protected areas using GPS collar data from 2019 to 2020, ...

In a discovery that deepens our understanding of animal social bonds, a study led by University of Oxford researchers in collaboration with the University of Leeds has demonstrated that wild great tits exhibit clear behaviours signalling ‘divorce’ long before the breeding season. The findings, published today (30 July) in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, provide valuable new insights into how animals navigate complex social decisions. provide valuable new insights into how animals navigate complex social decisions. For monogamous birds that only bond with one partner at a time, ...

Osaka, Japan – DNA holds the instructions that make us who we are. If we want to read those instructions, say to understand our predisposition to genetic disorders, we need to carefully ‘unzip’ DNA’s iconic double-helix structure. This is neither easy nor fast, and the process involves intense heating and chemicals that can damage the DNA. Now, in a new study published in ACS Nano, a research team led by The University of Osaka has developed a novel technology for making the unzipping process much easier. Their invention uses a miniature heater to precisely and gently unzip the DNA double helix. The device uses a nano-sized platinum coil. As the DNA strand reaches ...

Women politicians in Europe receive uncivil tweets regardless of how known they are – and woman also receive more identity-based attacks than other politicians, revealed a new study in Politics & Gender, published on behalf of the American Political Science Association by Cambridge University Press.  This study used a machine learning approach to analyse over 23 million tweets addressed to politicians in Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States, to determine the degree of incivility that female politicians face. Women in politics frequently report serious online harassment, yet the extent of this harassment and how it compares ...

(IDAHO FALLS, Idaho) — The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and Amazon Web Services (AWS) will collaborate to use AWS’s advanced capabilities and cloud infrastructure to develop artificial intelligence (AI) tools for nuclear energy projects. INL leads the nation in adapting AI for the nuclear energy industry. The laboratory is developing a suite of technologies that use AI to reduce the costs and timeframes of designing, licensing, building and operating nuclear facilities. Ultimately, the tools could be used for safe and reliable autonomous operation of nuclear reactors and accelerating deployment of new advanced reactors. AWS’s advanced computing power and AI foundation ...

Lydia Kavraki, a pioneering researcher in robotics, computational biomedicine and artificial intelligence (AI) at Rice University, has been elected to the European Academy of Sciences. This prestigious organization recognizes excellence in scientific advancement and innovation.  The honor will be conferred in Geneva in December, placing Kavraki among an elite group of scientists whose work drives progress in both academia and applied technology. Kavraki, the Kenneth and Audrey Kennedy Professor of Computing, holds multiple appointments across engineering ...

UK teens who currently vape are as likely to take up smoking as their peers in the 1970s,  despite a substantial fall in the prevalence of teenage smoking over the past 50 years, suggests a long term intergenerational study published online in the journal Tobacco Control. The likelihood of starting to smoke among teens who don’t vape was around 1.5%, but 33% among those who do, the findings indicate. It’s not entirely clear if the rise in popularity of e-cigarettes (vapes) among teens threatens the steady decline in the prevalence of cigarette smoking in this age group, say the researchers, as the ...

A higher intake of ultra processed food (UPF) is linked to an increased risk of lung cancer, suggests research published online in the respiratory journal Thorax. Further research is warranted in different population groups, but limiting consumption of these foods may help curb the global toll of the disease, say the researchers. Lung cancer is the most common cancer in the world. And in 2020 alone there were an estimated 2.2 million new cases and 1.8 million deaths from the disease worldwide, they note. UPF typically undergo multiple processing steps, contain long lists of additives and preservatives, and are ready-to-eat or heat. High consumption has been linked to a heightened risk of ...

Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation lessens the severity, frequency, and recurrence of the most common form of irregular heart rhythm, atrial fibrillation, or AF for short, finds a pooled data analysis of the available research, published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. It also improves general exercise capacity and mental health, without incurring any serious side effects, the findings show. AF occurs when the heart's upper chambers (atria) don’t contract properly and instead twitch, disrupting the electrical signals to the lower chambers (ventricles). Symptoms can include palpitations, ...

A large region of unusually hot rock deep beneath the Appalachian Mountains in the United States could be linked to Greenland and North America splitting apart 80 million years ago, according to new research led by the University of Southampton. The scientists argue it is not, as has long been believed, the result of plate tectonic movements causing the continent of North America to break away from Northwest Africa 180 million years ago. The hot zone in question is the Northern Appalachian Anomaly (NAA), a 350-kilometre-wide region of anomalous hot rock that sits about 200 km beneath the Appalachian Mountains ...

Many summer visitors to America’s national parks hope for a glimpse of a moose or a bighorn sheep — or perhaps to spot a wolf or a bear.  A newly published study by a multinational group of wildlife scientists took advantage of the opportunity offered by the 2020 COVID-19 shutdowns to better understand why such glimpses can be so elusive.  Using GPS collar data, researchers tracked 229 animals from 14 U.S. national parks and protected areas. They compared the animals’ ...

A new contract for transformational research to determine how menopause and modifiable lifestyle factors influence brain aging in women during midlife has been awarded to  Neda Jahanshad, PhD, a researcher at the USC Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (Stevens INI), and associate professor of neurology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. Jahanshad joins the global CARE (Cutting Alzheimer’s Risk through Endocrinology) program from Wellcome Leap, a leading US-based non-profit organization focused on accelerating and increasing the number of breakthroughs in global health. Together with ...

NORMAN, OKLA. – Hayley Lanier, Ph.D., an associate professor in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Oklahoma and associate curator of mammalogy at the Sam Noble Museum, has been awarded a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Award to conduct evolutionary genomics research in the Czech Republic during the 2025–2026 academic year. Lanier is among 400 scholars selected nationwide for the prestigious international award. The Fulbright Scholars program aims to promote mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and those from other nations. Candidates are chosen based on their academic achievements ...

JULY 29, 2025--The idea that herpes infections trigger or contribute to Alzheimer’s disease has been gaining favor among some scientists, raising hope that herpes treatments could slow progression of Alzheimer’s symptoms among patients.  But the first clinical trial to test that theory has found that a common antiviral for herpes simplex infections, valacyclovir, does not change the course of the disease for patients in the early stages of Alzheimer's.  Results from the trial, ...

In the last two decades, childhood immunization coverage improved significantly across most African countries. However, at least 12 countries are unlikely to achieve global targets for full immunization by 2030, according to a new study publishing July 29th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Phuong The Nguyen of Hitotsubashi University, Japan, and colleagues. Vaccines are one of the most effective ways to protect children from deadly diseases, yet immunization coverage is still suboptimal in many African countries. Monitoring and progress in childhood immunizations at the national and local level is essential for refining health programs and achieving ...

An analysis of data from more than 4.7 million Chinese women showed that those who had low blood sugar levels prior to conception were more likely to have certain adverse pregnancy outcomes—such as their baby being born preterm or with low birth weight. Hanbin Wu of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, in collaboration with the National Research Institute for Family Planning, presents these findings on July 29th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine. Glucose, a type of sugar, is the body’s main energy source. When blood levels of glucose are too high (known as hyperglycemia and found in prediabetes and type 2 diabetes) or too low (hypoglycemia), health risks may arise. ...

A new analysis suggests that posts in hate speech communities on the social media website Reddit share speech-pattern similarities with posts in Reddit communities for certain psychiatric disorders. Dr. Andrew William Alexander and Dr. Hongbin Wang of Texas A&M University, U.S., present these findings July 29th in the open-access journal PLOS Digital Health. The ubiquity of social media has raised concerns about its role in spreading hate speech and misinformation, potentially contributing to prejudice, discrimination ...