A team of chemists at the University of Cambridge has developed a powerful new method for adding single carbon atoms to molecules more easily, offering a simple one-step approach that could accelerate drug discovery and the design of complex chemical products. The research, recently published in the journal Nature under the title One-carbon homologation of alkenes, unveils a breakthrough method for extending molecular chains—one carbon atom at a time. This technique targets alkenes, a common class of molecules characterised by a double bond between two carbon atoms. Alkenes are found in a wide range of everyday ...

Researchers at Colorado State University have developed a tool that can be used to switch a plant’s key genetic traits on or off at will. The breakthrough was recently published in ACS Synthetic Biology and represents the first time that a synthetic genetic “toggle switch” has been used in a full-grown plant.  Synthetic biologists design and build new segments of DNA that can then be inserted into living organisms to work like circuits in electronics or a computer. Just as a switch is used to turn a lightbulb on or off in an electric circuit, the team’s “toggle” turns genes on and ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- One of Earth's most common nanomaterials is facilitating breakthroughs in tackling climate change: clay. In a new study, researchers at Purdue University, in collaboration with experts from Sandia National Laboratories, have potentially uncovered a game-changing method for using clay to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from the air to help mitigate climate change. Their work, which earned them a 2024 R&D 100 Award and has a patent application in progress, was recently published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C. Cliff Johnston, professor of agronomy ...

When treating an ischemic stroke – where a clot is blocking the flow of oxygen to the brain – every minute counts. The more quickly doctors can remove the clot and restore blood flow, the more brain cells will survive, and the more likely patients are to have a good outcome. But current technologies only successfully remove clots on the first try about 50% of the time, and in about 15% of cases, they fail completely. Researchers at Stanford Engineering have developed a new technique called the milli-spinner thrombectomy that could significantly improve success rates in treating strokes, as well as heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, and other clot-related diseases. In a paper published June ...

Key Takeaways  Different materials, different outcomes: Time-to-recurrence was longest for long-acting resorbable meshes (166.4 months), followed by synthetic meshes (132.1 months), and shortest for biologic meshes (80 months).  Cost considerations: While long-acting resorbable mesh is projected to perform the best, its cost is approximately 2x that of synthetic mesh.  No national guideline: More guidance is needed for best practices in mesh choice and follow-up schedule.  CHICAGO — Repair of ...

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia and affects more than a tenth of Americans aged 65 and older. The disease has proven difficult to develop new treatments for, and available treatment options are limited. With cases in the U.S. projected to more than double by 2050, more therapies are needed to improve patients’ quality of life and reduce the burden on the health care system and family caregivers.   Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys and elsewhere have recently reported real-world links in medical records associating common HIV drugs with a reduced incidence of Alzheimer’s disease. The ...

June 4, 2025 — The most popular TikTok videos related to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have millions of views – but very low scores for quality of medical information, reports a study in the May/June issue of Gastroenterology Nursing, Official Journal of the Society of Gastroenterology Nurses and Associates. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. "Social media platforms such as TikTok have the potential to reach a wide audience of people living with IBD, particularly young adults," comments lead author Samantha Winders, ...

Hydrogen has the potential to be a climate-friendly fuel since it doesn’t release carbon dioxide when used as an energy source. Currently, however, most methods for producing hydrogen involve fossil fuels, making hydrogen less of a “green” fuel over its entire life cycle.  A new process developed by MIT engineers could significantly shrink the carbon footprint associated with making hydrogen.  Last year, the team reported that they could produce hydrogen gas by combining seawater, recycled soda cans, and caffeine. The question then was whether the benchtop process could be applied at an industrial scale, and at ...

Pancreatic cancer is one of the deadliest forms of cancer, killing 87% of patients within five years. Previous studies have shown that obesity can increase pancreatic cancer risk by around 50%. In a new study from the University of California, Davis, researchers showed evidence that switching from a high-fat diet to a low-fat diet slowed pancreatic precancer development in mice, even after weight gain and precancerous changes began. The research was published in the Journal of Nutrition. “This study shows that managing excess body weight is very important,” said corresponding author Gerardo Mackenzie, professor and chair of the UC Davis Department ...

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has been awarded $6.3 million for a groundbreaking initiative that could transform additive manufacturing by enabling the rapid production of high-quality components from scrap metal. This innovative approach to additive manufacturing, funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), aims to ensure that essential components can be produced even in the most resource-limited environments, including where access to traditional supply chains is limited, such as battlefields or remote search-and-rescue locations. The ...

A new study highlights a surprising lens for tracking pollution trends over centuries: preserved plants and animals housed at natural history museums around the world. According to Shane DuBay, a researcher at The University of Texas at Arlington, these specimens contain valuable environmental data that can help scientists reconstruct pollution trends spanning more than 200 years. “We often lack the historical pollution data needed to understand the links between environmental contamination and long-term health effects, such as cancer, asthma, cognitive disorders and premature ...

A research team from the Institute of Modern Physics and Sichuan University has performed a direct measurement of the 12C+12C fusion reaction at a center-of-mass energy of 2.22 MeV using the LEAF accelerator facility. The experiment employed a highly intense 12C2+ beam, a highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG) target known for its low background, and a ΔE–E telescope combining a Time Projection Chamber and silicon detectors. This setup enabled detection of extremely rare fusion events, with a thick-target yield on the order of 10−17 ...

In the world of microorganisms, microbes compete for turf, spew chemicals at foes, and sometimes exploit the microscopic terrain to gain an edge. In a study published June 4 in the Cell Press journal Biophysical Journal, researchers found that bacteria can speed up by using the fluid pockets shaped by neighboring yeast cells. These microscopic moisture trails allow bacteria to swim farther and spread faster—revealing a new way for microbes to travel through soil, plants, and the human body.  “When studying microbial interactions, research often focuses on the chemical nature of these interactions,” says lead author Divakar Badal of Cornell University. ...

Scientists at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) have uncovered a non-invasive method to boost the brain’s natural waste drainage system—a discovery that could open new avenues for tackling age-related neurological disorders. In a study published in Nature, researchers from the IBS Center for Vascular Research, led by Director KOH Gou Young, along with senior researchers JIN Hokyung, YOON Jin-Hui, and principal researcher HONG Seon Pyo, demonstrated that precisely stimulating the lymphatics under skin on the neck and face can significantly enhance the flow of cerebrospinal ...

In a UNSW-led Nature study published today, researchers say that an off-the-scale marine heatwave in the North Atlantic Ocean in 2023 was caused by record-breaking weak winds combined with increased solar radiation – all on the back of ongoing climate change. From Greenland to the Sahara and across to the Americas, the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean warmed at an unprecedented speed in the summer of 2023. “The intensity of the warming in that single summer was equivalent to about two decades worth of warming for the North Atlantic,” says lead author Professor Matthew England from UNSW Sydney. “While ...

What if your brain had a built-in map – not of places, but of possible futures? Researchers at the Champalimaud Foundation (CF) blend neuroscience and artificial intelligence (AI) to reveal that populations of dopamine neurons in the brain don’t just track whether rewards are coming – they encode maps of when those rewards might arrive and how big they might be. These maps adapt to context and may help explain how we weigh risks, and why some of us act on impulse while others hold back. Strikingly, this biological ...

A new study has revealed for the first time that ancient carbon, stored in landscapes for thousands of years or more, can find its way back to the atmosphere as CO₂ released from the surfaces of rivers. The findings, led by scientists at the University of Bristol and the cover story of the journal Nature, mean plants and shallow soil layers are likely removing around one gigatonne more CO₂ each year from the atmosphere to counteract this, emphasising their pivotal and greater part in combating climate change. Lead author Dr Josh ...

About The Study: The proportion of U.S. adults who were unaware of having hypertension increased significantly over the study period (2013 to 2023), particularly in young adults and women, while diabetes and high cholesterol level unawareness remained stable. By the 2021 to 2023 cycle, approximately 1 in 6 adults with hypertension and 3 in 10 with diabetes were unaware of their condition. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Rishi K. Wadhera, MD, MPP, MPhil, email rwadhera@bidmc.harvard.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at ...

About The Study: In this cohort study of schools, a COVID-19–related decline in youth physical fitness was observed. Compared with pre-pandemic and post-pandemic periods, cardiorespiratory fitness and musculoskeletal fitness healthy fitness zone achievement were significantly lower during the pandemic, but the reduction did not appear to be associated with extended remote or hybrid environments. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Andjelka Pavlovic, PhD, email andjelka.pavlovic@ttuhsc.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.13721) Editor’s ...

A study initiated by a University of Arizona Comprehensive Cancer Center physician-scientist defined for the first time how loss of the Y chromosome in male immune cells negatively affects immune system function, which may explain why loss of Y is associated with lower cancer survival rates. The paper “Concurrent loss of the Y chromosome in cancer and T cells impacts outcome,” was published today in Nature. In males, each cell in the body usually contains one X and one Y chromosome. “Loss of Y” is a common, nonhereditary ...

When cancer cells in male patients and immune cells in their tumors both lose the Y chromosome, those patients tend to experience poorer outcomes than patients without Y chromosome loss, according to new findings from Cedars-Sinai investigators. Their work, published in the scientific journal Nature, could lead to ways to make some cancer treatments more effective. The Y chromosome is one of two chromosomes that determine biological sex in mammals. Females have two X chromosomes, males have one X and one Y chromosome, and it ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Hot air holds more moisture. That’s why you can blow your hair dry even after a steamy shower. It’s also what dumps rain in the tropics and sucks water from desert soils. A new study, published in Nature, shows that the atmosphere’s growing thirst for water is making droughts more severe, even in places where rainfall has stayed the same. The paper details how this “thirst” has made droughts 40% more severe across the globe over the course of the past 40 years. “Drought is based on the difference between water supply (from precipitation) and atmospheric water demand. ...

A new University of British Columbia-led study is shedding light on a long-overlooked consequence of colorectal cancer: the lasting toll it can take on women’s sexual health, even years after treatment ends. Researchers analyzed health data from more than 25,000 women in B.C. diagnosed with colorectal cancer between 1985 and 2017, comparing their experiences to those of cancer-free women. Cancer treatments such as surgery, chemotherapy and radiation were linked to a range of long-term sexual health issues, including a 67 per cent higher risk of dyspareunia—pain during sex—a ...

(Philadelphia, PA) – A novel screening approach developed by physicians at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University shows significant promise for improving the detection of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH)—a life-threatening form of heart failure related to high blood pressure in the lung circulation that is often overlooked due to vague symptoms such as fatigue and shortness of breath. The new research, published online April 5 in the American Heart Journal, shows that the virtual echocardiography screening ...

Scholars from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) are committed to pioneering research excellence and providing innovative solutions to the ever-changing needs of society and technology. Prof. AU Man Ho Allen, Professor and Associate Head (Research and Development) of the Department of Computing at PolyU, has been recognised with the prestigious Hong Kong Engineering Science and Technology (HKEST) Award 2024-25 for his outstanding contributions to the Web3 ecosystem and the digital economy. Prof. AU has made significant contributions to information security, applied cryptography, and blockchain technology, pioneering ...