WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina, USA, 6 January 2026 -- A comprehensive mini-review published today after peer review in Brain Medicine by Dr. Tao Ma and colleagues at Wake Forest University School of Medicine synthesizes emerging evidence that two isoforms of a critical cellular energy sensor play distinct, and sometimes opposing, roles in Alzheimer's disease. The analysis proposes that this overlooked complexity may explain why pharmacological approaches targeting AMP-activated protein kinase have yielded frustratingly mixed results in treating the disease that ...

KODAIRA, Tokyo, JAPAN, 6 January 2026 -- In a revealing Genomic Press Interview published today in Genomic Psychiatry, Dr. Noritaka Ichinohe challenges a foundational assumption that has quietly constrained psychiatric research for decades: the belief that meaningful explanation requires averaging away individual differences. His three decades of translational neuroscience across Japanese research institutions have instead demonstrated that biological heterogeneity, far from being statistical noise to eliminate, constitutes the very phenomenon demanding ...

SÃO PAULO, SP, BRAZIL, 6 January 2026 -- A Viewpoint published today in Genomic Psychiatry by Dr. Mayana Zatz and colleagues at the Human Genome and Stem Cell Research Center, University of São Paulo, examines why Brazil represents one of the most valuable yet underutilized resources for understanding extreme human longevity. The synthesis draws upon the team's ongoing research with a nationwide cohort of long-lived individuals while contextualizing recent advances in supercentenarian biology. Where Genetic Diversity Meets Exceptional Aging Why do some humans live ...

There are “costs of life” that mechanical physics cannot calculate. A clear example is the energy required to keep specific biochemical processes active — such as those that make up photosynthesis, although the examples are countless — while preventing alternative processes from occurring. In mechanics, no displacement implies zero work, and, put simply, there is no energetic cost for keeping things from happening. Yet careful stochastic thermodynamic calculations show that these costs do exist — and they are often quite significant. A ...

China Finance Review International (CFRI) has announced a call for papers for a forthcoming special issue titled “New Frontiers in Sustainable Finance,” inviting original research that examines the growing role of sustainability in financial markets, corporate decision-making, and regulatory frameworks. The special issue aims to capture recent advances in sustainable finance as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations become increasingly central to the global ...

A research team led by Professor Leo Tianshuo Zhao from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Hong Kong (HKU), has developed the world’s smallest fully printed infrared photodetectors, which are an innovative room-temperature nano-printing platform that overcomes the limitations of traditional silicon-based technology. Near-infrared (NIR) technology is essential for applications such as autonomous systems, biomedical sensing, and high-speed optical communications. However, conventional silicon-based CMOS technology cannot directly detect NIR wavelengths. Current solutions ...

Background Understanding the dynamic neural mechanisms of sleep-wake cycles is a major challenge in sleep science and neuroengineering. Sleep, essential for maintaining brain homeostasis and cognitive function, relies on the intricate coordination between neuronal electrical activity and neurochemical signals in specific brain regions. The nucleus accumbens, a key node in the reward and motivation circuit, has been identified as critical for regulating sleep-stage transitions through dopamine dynamics and neuronal firing patterns. However, existing neural sensing technologies face significant ...

Microvascular endothelial dysfunction (MiVED) is implicated in several health conditions, such as hypertension, atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (CVD), and diabetes. MiVED is considered an early marker of endothelial impairment that often precedes dysfunction in larger arteries. Our study aims to address the lack of suitable technologies for detailed in-vivo MiVED observation by introducing fast raster-scan optoacoustic mesoscopy (fRSOM), which can resolve cutaneous MiVED features at single-capillary resolution.   The ...

Organised by the Beijing-Hong Kong Academic Exchange Centre, the results of the annual selection for the ‘Top 10 Innovation & Technology News in Hong Kong 2025’, have recently been announced. The University of Hong Kong (HKU) is pleased to report that three of its groundbreaking research projects have made it onto this prestigious list, leading among all local institutions. These selected projects in the fields of medical health and astronomical sciences highlight HKU's strong capabilities ...

This study is led by associate professor Gan Ai and associate professor Jinding Liu (College of Plant Protection, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, China). Nucleotide-binding leucine-rich repeat (NLR) proteins function as key intracellular receptors in the plant immune system, recognizing pathogens’ effectors and activating defenses. Identifying NLRs is a critical step in breeding disease-resistant crops. However, NLRs are frequently misannotated or entirely overlooked in automated genome annotations due to their complex genomic structures and ...

For quota_Anchor, collinear gene pairs are initially identified by a dynamic programming algorithm analogous to those implemented in DAGchainer and MCScanX. The algorithm then identifies the highest-scoring block and determines the number of query and reference genes within that block, taking into account the alignment depth constraint. This iterative process continues until the score of the collinear block falls below the predefined minimum threshold (default: 3), at which point the iteration terminates.   The authors hypothesized that inversion alters the regulatory context of collinear ...

Quantum information storage is a cornerstone technology for the emerging quantum internet and quantum computation. While current quantum communication networks face fundamental limitations due to signal loss over long distances, quantum memories offer a promising solution by enabling quantum repeaters that can extend the range of quantum networks through entanglement swapping operations.   In a breakthrough published in Light: Science & Applications, a research team led by scientists from the Humboldt-Universität ...

Fluorescence microscopy is a cornerstone of modern biological research, widely used to reveal cellular structures, molecular interactions, and dynamic life processes. Computational fluorescence microscopy(CFM) has further revolutionized this field by integrating molecular specificity with optical modulation and algorithmic demodulation, enabling high resolution and multidimensional imaging far beyond the limits of conventional wide field microscopy. However, its full potential is still hindered by a long standing challenge: accurate characterization of the imaging system. Traditional approaches either rely on ...

This study is led by Professor Guangcun Li (State Key Laboratory of Vegetable Biobreeding, Institute of Vegetables and Flowers, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Beijing, China). The authors evaluated 14 restriction enzymes to select optimal restriction enzymes in multiple crop species, as the restriction enzyme used affects the evenness and spacing of markers.   Then they present BacPhase, an innovative sequence-based approach in which constructed BACs are digested with a restriction enzyme and self-ligated to produce small inserts that can be ...

This study was led by Prof. Jianghua Chen from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The authors identified four WOX1 homologs in soybean and uncovered their roles in leaf development. They found that GmWOX1a and GmWOX1b are specifically expressed at the initiation sites of leaf primordia and in the middle domain of leaf primordia.   Using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing, they generated multiple knockout mutants and demonstrated the functional redundancy among four WOX1 genes. Triple mutants Gmwox1acd and Gmwox1bcd showed ...

Perovskite solar cells (PSCs) have emerged as promising alternative for next generation photovoltaics due to their superior power conversion efficiencies (record currently at 34.9% for perovskite-silicon tandem) and low-cost manufacturing. One fully-printable implementation of perovskite solar cells uses mesoporous layers. However, the complex mesoporous architectures present a significant challenge for accurate modelling, especially considering the enhanced interfacial effects. Then, the influence of the manufacturing texturing on the charge ...

This study was led by Professor Kabin Xie (National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement, Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China). The authors found that overexpression of ADARdd in rice protoplasts leads to abundant off-target editing, a phenomenon not observed in leaves of stable transgenic rice plants overexpressing ADARdd (ADAR deaminase domain). To investigate the underlying mechanisms, the authors systematically explored the effects of ADARdd expression levels, protoplast physiology, and the presence of RNA-binding domains or a nuclear localization signal (NLS) on off-target editing. The results indicated that off-target editing by ADARdd was independent ...

Academician Yu-Zhong Wang's team at Sichuan University proposed an innovative "LEGO" strategy, successfully upgrading and recycling waste polyethylene (PE) into high-performance materials with multiple functions. This strategy degrades PE into oligomers, which are then modularly assembled with different functional monomers through dynamic imine bonds. This allows for customized functionalization, achieving multiple functions such as flame retardancy, antistatic properties, UV shielding, and dyeability. Simultaneously, the resulting material exhibits good physical and chemical recyclability. ...

URBANA, Ill. — For centuries, scientists have known that plants "breathe" through microscopic pores on their leaves called stomata. These tiny valves are the gatekeepers that balance the intake of carbon dioxide into the leaf for photosynthesis against the loss of water vapor from the leaf to the atmosphere. Now, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a groundbreaking new tool that allows them to watch and quantify this process in real-time and under strictly controlled environmental conditions. The study, published in the journal Plant Physiology, introduces a system dubbed "Stomata In-Sight." It solves a long-standing ...

Anorexia nervosa is a psychiatric condition characterized by a fear of weight gain and reduced calorie consumption that can result in dangerous weight loss. This condition is thought to affect around 1-4% of all women, and those who suffer from it, or have suffered from it, are estimated to be three times more likely to die prematurely than those who have never had it.   Anorexia nervosa (or AN) doesn’t just result in fat loss. It can also result in a 20-30% loss of skeletal muscle strength and size, which is critical to longevity and the ability to do basic activities like grocery shopping or picking up babies. Along with treating the psychiatric component, ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Shifting from numerical to narrative-based performance reviews can significantly impact employees’ perceptions of fairness and their likelihood of improving performance based on the feedback, according to Cornell University-led research. The study, published in the Academy of Management Discoveries, compared responses to performance feedback delivered in one of three formats: numerical-only, narrative-only or a combination of both. Their findings suggest that narrative-only feedback was generally perceived as the fairest, and gives ...

Scientists have taken a major step toward improving how wastewater treatment systems deal with emerging contaminants such as pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, and endocrine disrupting chemicals. In a new perspective article published in New Contaminants, researchers present a comprehensive framework explaining how advanced oxidation processes, or AOPs, remove these hard to eliminate pollutants from water. Emerging contaminants are often present at very low concentrations, but they can pose long term risks to ecosystems and human health. Many conventional ...

A new comprehensive review highlights how converting biomass into gaseous fuels such as hydrogen, methane, and syngas could play a critical role in the global transition to low-carbon energy systems. By combining techno-economic analysis with life-cycle assessment, the study provides one of the clearest pictures to date of when and where biomass-based gaseous fuels can be both climate-friendly and economically viable. The review, published in Energy & Environment Nexus, examines thermochemical conversion pathways that transform agricultural residues, forestry waste, and other ...

  Climate change is not only warming the planet and disrupting rainfall, it is also quietly rewiring the way nitrogen moves through the world’s croplands, forests, and grasslands. This hidden shift in the global nitrogen cycle carries major consequences for food security, water quality, biodiversity, and climate policy. Nitrogen is a basic building block of proteins and DNA, and healthy terrestrial ecosystems depend on a steady but balanced flow of nitrogen through soils, plants, and microbes. When that balance is disturbed, harvests can fall, rivers can turn green with algae, and more greenhouse gases can escape into the atmosphere.​ “In a warming world, nitrogen ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 5 January 2026    Follow @Annalsofim on X, Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky, and Linkedin              Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing ...