Using eye-tracking — a technique for recording and analysing eye movements — a team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) has shown that individuals with multiple disabilities can improve their social and emotional skills. Although these patients are often considered ‘‘untestable’’, nine young people have undergone personalised training over a period of one year, with promising results in terms of their ability to socialise. This work opens the way to new methods of assessment and support. It is published in Acta Psychologica. Multiple disabilities involve a combination of severe intellectual and motor impairments, resulting in profound dependence. ...

Since the pandemic, we are very aware of the power of social distancing to protect against infectious disease. But can social distancing be effective if the infectious agent isn’t a virus or bacterium, but an insect powered by a brain and wings, and with the instinct to seek out new hosts? Now, a study published to Frontiers in Bee Science has shown that physical distance does play a leading role in protecting bumblebees against a flying insect parasite, the bumblebee wax moth Aphomia sociella. The source of the potentially lethal infection was another species, namely nearby hives of domestic honeybees. “Here we show that infestation with bumblebee wax moths is much greater ...

Lacquers, paint, concrete—and even ketchup or orange juice: Suspensions are widespread in industry and everyday life. By a suspension, materials scientists mean a liquid in which tiny, insoluble solid particles are evenly distributed. If the concentration of particles in such a mixture is very high, phenomena can be observed that contradict our everyday understanding of a liquid. For example, these so-called non-Newtonian fluids suddenly become more viscous when a strong force acts upon them. For a brief moment, the liquid behaves like a solid. This sudden thickening is caused by the particles present ...

Genome wide association studies (GWAS) have identified hundreds of genome regions containing thousands of genetic variants associated with asthma, but it’s still not clear which variants have an actual causal link to the disease. This “variant-to-function” gap is one of the biggest challenges to the usefulness of these genomic studies and has motivated researchers to develop new tools to make sense of GWAS results. A new study by researchers from the University of Chicago combines genetic data and improved computational tools to look more closely ...

People should learn to meditate and hone their critical thinking skills as AI becomes more integrated into daily lives, an expert suggests. Digital strategy expert Giulio Toscani has spoken with 150 AI experts across 50 countries to understand the challenges and opportunities around human interactions with artificial intelligence. He argues in his new book, Augmented: prAIority to Enhance Human Judgment through Data and AI, that as humans operate largely unconsciously by design, they are inclined toward immediacy and instant rewards, often overlooking potential ...

The development of new antibiotics to treat superbugs and other bacterial infections is a global priority, with the rate of infections that cannot be treated with current antibiotics rising and presenting one of the biggest threats to human health. In line with that, new research has shown a daily dose of epidermicin NI01 – an antibiotic compound developed by University of Plymouth spinout company Amprologix – is as effective at removing Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) as the current standard of care. The results were achieved through a robust skin MRSA infection model, and those behind the research say it justifies ...

WASHINGTON (April 9, 2025) — A new study from researchers at the George Washington University has found that certain bacteria living in the nose may influence how likely someone is to get a COVID-19 infection. Published in EBioMedicine, the research reveals that certain types of nasal bacteria can affect the levels of key proteins the virus needs to enter human cells, offering new insight into why some people are more vulnerable to COVID-19 than others. “We’ve known that the virus SARS-CoV-2 enters the body through the respiratory tract, with the nose being a key entry point. What’s new—and surprising—is that bacteria in our noses ...

A study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation, has shown that Europe has adapted better to low temperatures than to high temperatures over the last two decades. The research, carried out in collaboration with the Barcelona Supercomputing Centre (BSC) and published in The Lancet Planetary Health, shows that there has been a significant decrease in cold-related mortality risk in recent years compared to the first decade of the 2000s. There has also been a reduction in the risk of heat-related ...

In a cave overlooking the ocean on the southern coast of South Africa, archaeologists discovered thousands of stone tools, created by ancient humans roughly 20,000 years ago. By examining tiny details in the chipped edges of the blades and stones, archaeologists are able to tell how the tools were made. In a new study published in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology, researchers analyzed these stone tools and discussed how the different techniques used to make them hint at the ways that prehistoric people traveled, interacted, and shared their craft. “This is an important insight into how people who lived in this region ...

10 April 2025: The world’s first baby has been born following conception with a fully automated, digitally controlled intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) system. ICSI, developed and adopted into widespread use in the 1990s and now a routine method of assisted conception, achieves fertilisation by injecting a single sperm cell into the centre of a mature egg. The details are reported today in the peer-review medical journal Reproductive Biomedicine Online.(1) The automated system was described and developed by a multidisciplinary team of specialists from Conceivable ...

Education projects supporting marginalised girls in lower-income countries are more likely to achieve lasting transformations when they mobilise young women and their communities as “agents of change”, a new report indicates. The recommendation comes from the latest evaluation of the Girls’ Education Challenge: a UK Government-supported initiative which has funded projects reaching more than 1.6 million girls. The University of Cambridge-led study finds that these projects initiated “virtuous cycles” of change – particularly by rooting themselves in communities and empowering young women to lead the way. In ...

New research suggests conservation efforts could more effectively identify and protect bird species at greatest risk from climate change by better understanding the range of specific conditions they need to thrive. The study, led by the University of East Anglia (UEA), examined the relationship between the extent of the climatic conditions that species tolerate and in which populations can survive - known as climatic niche breadth - and their likelihood of declining in response to climate change. For species inhabiting a similar area of geographic space, those able to tolerate ...

Astronomers have peered back in time to find what looks like a population of 'hidden' galaxies that could hold the key to unlocking some of the universe's secrets. If their existence is confirmed it would "effectively break current models of galaxy numbers and evolution". The possible galaxies may also provide the missing piece of the puzzle for the energy generation in the universe in infrared light. That's because their combined light would be enough to top-up the energy budget of the universe to the maximum we observe, effectively ...

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 00:01 BST THURSDAY 10 APRIL / 19:01 ET WEDNESDAY 9 APRIL 2025 For the first time, a study led by University of Oxford researchers has ‘listened in’ to the fascinating courtship displays of Fiddler crabs using geophones. The findings, published today in the Journal of Experimental Biology, provide new insights into how the animals communicate effectively on the noisy seashore. For male fiddler crabs, vibrational signals are a crucial part of their courtship routines – produced by drumming the ground using their oversized claw, ...

New research to be presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2025, Malaga, Spain, 11-14 May) shows that patients using GLP-1 or combined GLP-1 / GIP receptor agonist therapy for weight loss experienced minimal lean muscle mass loss as they lost weight across 6 months of treatment. The study is by Dr Dinabel Peralta-Reich, Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell; Lenox Hill Hospital, Northwell Health, New York City, NY, USA, and Dr Alexandra Filingeri, New York Weight Wellness Medicine, New York City, NY, USA, and colleagues. GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) receptor agonists, ...

Australian technology developed at RMIT University could enable more sustainable and cheaper production of bio-oils to replace petroleum-based products in electronic, construction and automotive applications. The technology, known as PYROCOTM, uses high temperatures without oxygen to convert treated sewage (biosolids) into a carbon-rich product called biochar, which can act as a catalyst to produce phenol-rich bio-oil. PYROCOTM has been developed by RMIT in collaboration with South East Water, Intelligent Water Networks and other water authorities over several years and is now being applied to several exciting circular economy applications. The RMIT team's latest research in collaboration ...

An international team of researchers led by Professor Huaijun Zhou from the UC Davis Department of Animal Science has created the first-ever detailed map of how genes are regulated in chickens — a breakthrough that could help scientists breed birds that are more resistant to diseases like avian influenza. The study, published April 8 in Nature Genetics, brings together a massive amount of genetic and epigenetic data of more than 100 chicken breeds from around the world. The team, which ...

What: In a massive scientific effort funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), hundreds of researchers have helped to map the connections between hundreds of thousands of neurons in the mouse brain and then overlayed their firing patterns in response to visual stimuli. This breakthrough is a critical piece of foundational science to build toward understanding how our brains process visual information to reconstruct the images we see every day.   Information processing in the human brain occurs ...

In 1962, when environmentalist and author Rachel Carson penned Silent Spring, alerting the world to the dangers of the pesticide DDT, it was the reproductive threat to birds – the bald eagle in particular – that spurred people to action. Six decades later, Rutgers University–New Brunswick researchers are taking the measure of another global environmental pollutant by drawing parallels to the crisis Carson identified. This time, the pollutant is mercury, and the sentinels are penguins living in the farthest reaches of the Antarctic Peninsula. “With mercury, there’s an analogy to DDT,” said John Reinfelder, a professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences ...

Before humans can colonize the moon or Mars, scientists and engineers must first develop techniques for building permanent structures and pressurized habitats in harsh, thin-atmosphere and low-gravity environments. Dr. Wei Li, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at The University of Texas at Dallas, is developing a virtual lunar welding platform to troubleshoot assembling large structures in such conditions. “As we try to return to the ...

Higher firearm violence in neighborhoods is linked to lower rates of people going to the dentist and higher rates of total tooth loss, known as edentulism, according to Rutgers researchers. Their study, published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for dental care utilization and complete loss of teeth and data from the American Violence Project for firearm violence incidents. The researchers examined 20,332 census tracts within the 100 largest cities in the United States from 2014 to ...

A new approach to streaming technology may significantly improve how users experience virtual reality and augmented reality environments, according to a study from NYU Tandon School of Engineering. The research — presented in a paper at the 16th ACM Multimedia Systems Conference on April 1, 2025 — describes a method for directly predicting visible content in immersive 3D environments, potentially reducing bandwidth requirements by up to 7-fold while maintaining visual quality. The technology is being applied in an ongoing NYU Tandon National Science Foundation-funded project to bring point cloud video to dance education, making ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2025 MINNEAPOLIS — Heavy drinkers who have eight or more alcoholic drinks per week have an increased risk of brain lesions called hyaline arteriolosclerosis, signs of brain injury that are associated with memory and thinking problems, according to a study published on April 9, 2025, online in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study does not prove that heavy drinking causes brain injury; it only shows an association. Hyaline arteriolosclerosis is a condition that ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2025 MINNEAPOLIS — While some studies have suggested that having a mother with Alzheimer’s disease may put you more at risk of developing the disease, a new study finds that having a father with the disease may be tied to a greater spread of the tau protein in the brain that is a sign of the disease, according to a study published on April 9, 2025, online in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study does not prove that having a father with Alzheimer’s results in these brain changes; it only shows an association. The study also showed ...

Why this matters: Arsenic levels in brown rice were found to be higher for U.S. consumers than in white rice, despite people often looking to brown rice as a healthier alternative. There is significant arsenic risk for U.S. children under 5 who consume brown rice, as arsenic is a toxic chemical element that can lead to health problems. Arsenic levels in U.S.-grown rice were found to be considerably lower than rice grown outside the country, suggesting there is concern to U.S. consumers who eat rice grown outside the country. EAST LANSING, Mich. – Whether you buy rice at the grocery store or order a side of it while ...