A deep genetic mystery has baffled plant scientists for decades. Although leaves, stems, and flowers develop in strikingly similar ways across many plant species, scientists have struggled to identify the shared DNA instructions that guide their formation. A new study now uncovers this hidden regulatory code and shows that its core has been conserved for 300 million years of plant evolution. Remarkably, these ancient DNA sequences were hidden in plain sight but were obscured by the constant reshuffling and duplication of plant genomes. By uncovering this deep-time blueprint, the research reshapes our understanding of plant evolution, showing how core regulatory logic ...

With more than 100 million neurons in the digestive tract, the gut is commonly known as the “second brain” in numerous cultures, including ancient Greece, Japan, China and India, linking digestion with physical and mental well-being. Now, a new study from Emory University explains the gut-brain connection, indicating that live bacteria from the gut can directly enter the brain, with potential implications for neurological health. Published in PLOS Biology in March, this study, performed using mouse models, establishes that ...

HERSHEY, Pa. — Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder, affecting 12%–13% of adolescents in the United States, according to some studies. The pattern of inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity can interfere with daily life, raising problems at home, work or school. At the same time, individuals diagnosed with ADHD are at a higher risk of developing substance use disorder. But treating the combination of these two conditions can be complicated. A team, led by researchers from Penn State College of Medicine, identified a treatment gap among adolescents and young adults diagnosed with both ADHD and substance use disorder. In ...

Stark black against an open sky, common ravens are often spotted soaring above wolves in Yellowstone National Park. Researchers assumed that the notorious scavengers were following the wolves to get their scraps, but new research reveals a twist: Ravens don’t follow wolves, they remember common hunting grounds and regularly check back for fresh meat. When food is easy to find, animals save energy by memorizing the path to retrieving it. Because scavengers rely on other animals to eat, their meals are less predictable. Some scavengers contend with this insecurity by tailing predators, ...

New findings challenge the long-held idea that scavengers seeking food routinely follow predators to find it. Studying common raven, gray wolf, and cougar in Yellowstone National Park, researchers found that ravens rarely trail predators over long distances; instead, they rely on spatial memory to return to places where kills have occurred before. Scavenger species that rely on the kills of predators face the challenge of finding food that is patchily distributed, unpredictable, and often ephemeral because many animals compete for it. A widely accepted hypothesis suggests that scavengers solve this problem by adjusting their movements to follow large carnivores to their kills. Although scavengers ...

By tracking nearly every movement of a tiny fish’s life from adolescence to death, a new study reveals a hidden behavioral blueprint of aging – one that can predict a fish’s age or how long an individual will live. This is possible based on behavioral patterns visible early in life, researchers report. Aging in vertebrates unfolds over long and complex timescales and is influenced by a myriad of factors. Behavior provides a powerful window into an animal’s internal state and has been shown to reflect the aging process in several species, including humans. However, the ability to continuously ...

Contrary to previous assumptions, a new study finds that the needle-like lithium dendrites that grow in lithium (Li)-metal batteries are surprisingly strong and brittle, quite unlike soft bulk Li. According to the authors, understanding this brittle fracture behavior provides insights for suppressing dead Li formation and electrolyte cracking, enabling safer and more reliable Li-metal batteries. Li-metal anodes offer the highest specific capacity and the lowest electrochemical potential among all known anode materials, making them highly attractive for use in next-generation battery technologies. However, the use of Li-metal anodes poses significant safety challenges. During ...

By mapping the brains of seals and sea lions, researchers have uncovered specialized neural circuits that have evolved to support the control of complex vocal behavior and learning in the species. Humans are vocal learners, but they are not unique; some birds, bats and some marine mammals have demonstrated the ability to modify or acquire new vocalizations that fall outside of their inherited repertoire through experience or by mimicking novel sounds. Among marine mammals, pinnipeds, a group of mammals that includes seals (phocids) and sea lions (otariids), show clear behavioral evidence of different components of vocal flexibility, ranging from highly ...

By midlife, an animal’s everyday behaviors can signal how long it is likely to live.   That is the striking conclusion of a new study supported by the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at Stanford’s Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, in which researchers put scores of short-lived fish under continuous, lifelong surveillance to explore how behavior and aging are linked. Individual fish aged in markedly different ways, despite having similar genetics and living in a carefully controlled ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – A potted scarlet monkeyflower would die within a few days without water. But multiple natural populations of the species survived an extreme, four-year drought in California, and researchers now know why: The flowers were rescued by their own rapid evolution. In the study, under embargo until 2pm ET on March 12, 2026 in Science, researchers tracked scarlet monkeyflower populations in Oregon and California for more than a decade and found that the populations rapidly evolved in ...

For five decades, scientists have known about a notorious cancer-causing enzyme called SRC. But they always assumed it only appeared on the inside of cells, where it sent signals that fueled tumor growth and stayed hidden from the immune system.  But now researchers at UC San Francisco have discovered that the SRC enzyme also appears like a flag on the surface of bladder, colorectal, breast, pancreatic and probably many other tumor cells.  As cancer cells furiously divide, they produce a lot of garbage. In healthy cells, the trash gets broken down. But in tumors, the recycling ...

PHILADELPHIA – A new preclinical study in mice shows that precancerous cells in the pancreas can be eliminated before they have the chance to become tumors. Using an experimental therapy to target microscopic precancerous lesions in the pancreas nearly doubled survival in mouse models of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) compared to the same treatment given after cancer developed. The research, published today in Science, was led by physician-scientists in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center. It’s the first time scientists have shown that a medical intervention could stop growth of pre-cancerous ...

How does a tiny cluster of cells become an embryo with a head, trunk, and tail? And how do thousands of genes coordinate this development? A new imaging method makes it possible to visualize the activity of thousands of genes simultaneously throughout the entire zebrafish embryo. Using this technology, a research team at the University of Basel, Switzerland, has created an atlas of all genes and cells involved in turning a cluster of cells into an embryo. The interplay between genes and cells during the development of a fertilized egg into an embryo is highly complex. Previous methods captured gene activity only in 2D slices, making whole-embryo visualization impossible and ...

The study is published online in Science. It is led by Eva González-Suárez, researcher at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre.   The team has unexpectedly discovered that cells from the brain defence system play a role in the sexual maturation process. The link between them is RANK, a protein involved in mammary development.   The research has been carried out in animal models, but it has also found genetic mutations associated with a rare syndrome related to infertility in humans. The kick off signal for puberty begins in the brain. Specifically, in the hypothalamus, where ...

For the first time, scientists have observed how tiny metal "thorns" called dendrites sprout inside lithium-ion batteries, which can cause the batteries to short-circuit. Their findings, published Mar. 12 in the journal Science, shed light on previously unknown mechanical properties of lithium dendrites as they grow. Scientists have long studied lithium dendrites, but did not fully understand how these structures behave inside batteries. Dendrites form at the nanoscale; their growth is challenging to observe in the closed system of a working battery, but has been linked to battery decline and failure. The new study, an international ...

A recent study suggests that bacteria thrive more readily on untreated than treated wood surfaces. The finding has implications for hygiene in both homes and public spaces. A University of Helsinki study investigated bacterial adhesion, survival and transmission on untreated and treated wood surfaces under both laboratory and field conditions. The laboratory work focused on Staphylococcus epidermidis, a bacterium that forms part of the skin’s normal microbiota; and Pseudomonas aeruginosa, ...

(MEMPHIS, Tenn. – March 12, 2026) – St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital today announced the appointment of Carsten Bönnemann, MD, as a faculty member to lead and chair the hospital’s newly created Department of Genomic and Translational Neuroscience.    Bönnemann, who specializes in pediatric neuromuscular and neurogenetic disorders, comes to St. Jude from the National Institutes of Health, where he served as a physician-researcher and chief of the Neuromuscular and Neurogenetic Disorders of ...

To understand how professional networks contribute to persistent gender disparities in corporate leadership, researchers analyzed data from more than 19,000 corporate employees over 20 years. Publishing March 12 in the Cell Press journal Patterns, their results show that educational, employment, and social networks matter for both men and women, but women rely on more complex social networks to reach director-level positions than men. Women with professional ...

Mass General Brigham study results signal a call to do further research into the connection between vitamin D supplementation and long COVID In a large, randomized trial, researchers at Mass General Brigham have found that high-dose vitamin D3 did not reduce COVID-19 infection severity, but may impact long COVID outcomes. Results of the study are published in The Journal of Nutrition. “There’s been tremendous interest in whether vitamin D supplements can be of benefit in COVID, and this is one of the largest and most rigorous randomized trials on the subject,” said senior author JoAnn Manson, MD, DrPH, ...

A new study led by UCLA researchers suggests that a personalized counseling program can significantly help women who have survived cervical precancer or cervical cancer to quit smoking — and does so at a cost that researchers say represents good value for healthcare systems. The findings, published in JAMA Network Open, show that the specialized program, called Motivation and Problem-Solving (MAPS), which combines standard nicotine replacement therapy with up to six individualized counseling sessions over a year, helped twice as many women quit smoking compared to women who had standard smoking cessation support. “Smoking is a major risk factor for cancer recurrence and ...

About The Study: In this cohort study, adverse childhood experience (ACE) exposure was associated with an increased risk of treatment-resistant depression even after accounting for unmeasured familial confounding. The findings highlight the importance of preventing ACEs and incorporating ACE history into clinical assessment to identify individuals with major depressive disorder who may be at elevated risk for treatment resistance.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Ying Xiong, PhD, MMedSc, email ying.xiong@ki.se. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this ...

About The Study: This study estimated the increase in 12-month psilocybin use in Oregon and Colorado associated with decriminalization.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Joshua C. Black, PhD, email joshua.black@rmpds.org. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2026.1952) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, ...

A new, national analysis published in the Aesthetic Surgery Journal suggests the future growth of aesthetic surgery may lie far from traditional luxury markets. UC Davis Health researchers found that Southern, Midwestern and rural regions of the United States are growing as high-demand areas, despite limited access to board-certified plastic surgeons. The study, conducted by researchers at UC Davis Medical Center, analyzed Google search behavior alongside workforce data across 210 U.S. Designated Market Areas. Researchers found that consumer demand is rising nationwide but remains unevenly matched with surgeon distribution. This imbalance has revealed multiple “plastic surgery deserts” ...

A University of Virginia School of Medicine researcher has received $3.4 million from the National Institutes of Health to increase the availability of weight-management programs that offer beneficial personalized feedback.   Rebecca Krukowski, PhD, and her colleagues are aiming to support people who track or “self-monitor” their diet, exercise and weight in weight-management programs. The researchers will create a semi-automated feedback system to find the “sweet spot” of combining human expertise and support with automated feedback to help participants stay on ...

(WASHINGTON — Mar. 12, 2026) — Hematology-oncology trained physicians who treat sickle cell disease reported higher rates of burnout (60%) than their counterparts who do not provide sickle cell care (43%) despite no differences in grit and resilience between the two groups. The data were published in the American Society of Hematology’s journal, Blood Advances.    “This is the first and only data on burnout, grit, ...