Robots have never felt as close to becoming a part of everyday life as they do today. Their widespread use now seems likely in the near future. But as technology advances, important social questions remain. Are we ready to live and work alongside robots? Many people worry about safety, the loss of human contact, high costs, and the potential for robots to take over human jobs. These concerns are especially important when it comes to caregiving robots that assist older adults.   A new study by researchers at Chiba University in Japan reveals a general openness to using home-care ...

Cambridge researchers have discovered why living in a disadvantaged neighbourhood may be linked to an increase in an individual’s risk of dementia. In research published today, they show how it is associated with damage to brain vessels – which can affect cognition – and with poorer management of lifestyle factors known to increase the chances of developing dementia. Dementia disproportionately affects people who live in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Individuals living in such areas show greater cognitive decline throughout their lives ...

People need to feel that climate change is affecting them now or that taking action is a patriotic act for their country to overcome apathy towards environmental efforts, a new global study has found.   In a paper published in Communications Psychology today, a global team of researchers led by the University of Birmingham have found that motivational interventions to successfully make climate action more important to people include showing how climate change is happening now and affecting them or others like them.   The research team worked with participants from six countries ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA – What if clinicians could place tiny electronic chips in the brain that electrically stimulate a precise target, through a simple injection in the arm? This may someday help treat deadly or debilitating brain diseases, while eliminating surgery-related risks and costs. MIT researchers have taken a major step toward making this scenario a reality. They developed microscopic, wireless bioelectronics that could travel through the body’s circulatory system and autonomously self-implant in a target region ...

Earth is reflecting less sunlight, and absorbing more heat, than it did several decades ago. Global warming is advancing faster than climate models predicted, with observed temperatures exceeding projections in 2023 and 2024. These trends have scientists scrambling to understand why the atmosphere is letting more light in.  A new study, published Nov. 5 in Nature Communications, shows that reducing air pollution has inadvertently diminished the brightness of marine clouds, which are key regulators of global temperature.  Between 2003 and 2022, clouds over the Northeastern Pacific and Atlantic ...

A new method vastly improves on the existing approach for single-cell genetic sequencing, enabling scientists to read the genomes of individual cells and viral particles in the environment more quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively. In a new study in Nature Microbiology, researchers from Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences and Atrandi Biosciences provide the first environmental application of the approach, which they call environmental microcompartment genomics. Sequencing the microbiome in a sample of surface seawater from the Gulf of Maine, the researchers showcased the method’s advantages compared ...

Frankfurt. Black holes are considered cosmic gluttons, from which not even light can escape. That is also why the images of black holes at the center of the galaxy M87 and our Milky Way, published a few years ago by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, broke new ground. “What you see on these images is not the black hole itself, but rather the hot matter in its immediate vicinity,” explains Prof. Luciano Rezzolla, who, along with his team at Goethe University Frankfurt, played a key role in the findings. “As long as the matter is still rotating outside the event horizon – before being inevitably pulled in – it can emit final signals of light that we ...

A poorly characterized protein, historically thought to be a chaperone or enzyme, may actually be a key player in prostate cancer. In a systematic CRISPR screen, scientists from Arc Institute, UCSF, and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center have identified PTGES3, known as the third prostaglandin E synthase protein as an unexpected regulator of the androgen receptor. This discovery, published November 5 in Nature Genetics, not only redefines PTGES3’s biological role in regulating gene expression, but also reveals a promising new target for treating ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Ancient trees may have played a key role in regulating Earth’s climate during the last ice age — by breathing less efficiently.   A new study, led by a researcher at Penn State and published today (Nov. 5) in the journal Nature Geoscience, examined chemical fingerprints in subfossil wood, or preserved trees, from across North America to understand how plants responded to the low carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and cooler ...

Key points Viruses have the ability to ‘do so much with so little’ when they infect and ‘take over’ our cells Understanding how small viruses can do so much has been a major challenge Researchers have found an answer, which could change how we view viral biology New antivirals and vaccines could follow the discovery by Australian researchers of strategies used by viruses to control our cells. Led by Monash University and the University of Melbourne, and published in Nature Communications, the study reveals how rabies virus manipulates so many cellular processes despite being armed ...

The most sophisticated modelling to date forecasts that under the current global emissions pathway the Great Barrier Reef could lose most of its coral by the end of the century, but curbing climate change and strategic management will help coral resilience. A research team led by The University of Queensland simulated different future climate scenarios driven by a range of plausible global emissions trajectories. Dr Yves-Marie Bozec from UQ’s School of the Environment said the comprehensive modelling of individual corals included ...

A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change by an international team of scientists, from the IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP) at Pusan National University in South Korea, presents new evidence that ocean turbulence and a process known as “horizontal stirring” will increase dramatically in the Arctic and Southern Oceans due to human-induced Global Warming and decreasing sea ice coverage.​ “Shaken, not stirred” - it is widely known how James Bond prefers his Martinis. Stirring works by stretching a fluid into thin streaks, which eventually helps to create turbulence, ...

Like the astronomical explosion that kickstarted the universe, bowel cancer has a “Big Bang” moment which determines how it will grow, according to new research from Cancer Research UK and Wellcome Trust-funded scientists. Researchers at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, Fondazione Human Technopole in Milan and Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden have found that the “Big Bang” moment for bowel cancer is created by cancer cells successfully hiding themselves from the immune system – a process called immune escape. During this process, bowel cancer cells disrupt genes which allow the cancer to be detected by the ...

A new study led by the University of Michigan shows that changes in climate are also changing the size of fishes in Michigan's inland lakes. Using data that covered 75 years and nearly 1,500 lakes, researchers have shown that, for several species, old and young fish in 2020 were significantly smaller than their typical size in 1945. "Climate change is altering the size of different organisms around the world, including fishes in lakes here in Michigan," said Peter Flood, a postdoctoral research fellow at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability, or SEAS. "And most of those changes we're seeing in Michigan fishes are declines in size through time." Flood ...

Elevated carbon dioxide levels generated as a result of climate change could significantly increase the temperatures found within the canopies of the world’s woodlands and forests, new research has suggested. A study by researchers from the UK, Ghana and the USA used thermal imaging technology and other sensors to measure the leaf temperatures found at CO2 levels forecast to occur in 2050. It found that temperatures within the forest canopies rose by around 1.3°C as a direct consequence of increases in CO2 – from an average of 21.5°C under current conditions to 22.8°C at the predicted 2050 ...

A commonly prescribed antibiotic could help reduce the risk of some young people developing schizophrenia, new research suggests.  Experts found that patients of adolescent mental health services who were treated with the antibiotic doxycycline were significantly less likely to go on to develop schizophrenia in adulthood compared with patients treated with other antibiotics.  Experts say the findings highlight the potential to repurpose an existing, widely used medication as a preventive intervention ...

Delta.g, the UK quantum technology company pioneering quantum gravity sensing for subsurface intelligence, today announced the appointment of Ewen Stevenson as Chair of its Board of Directors, effective immediately. Ewen Stevenson is a veteran banker with over 20 years of senior management experience and a record in strategic transformation, value creation, innovation, and leadership. He is currently Chair of Serendipity Capital who led Delta.g’s recently closed seed funding round.  Prior to Serendipity Capital, he served as Group Chief Financial Officer of HSBC Holdings, following four years as Group Chief Financial Officer of The Royal Bank of Scotland. Prior ...

Because policies to address pollution are costly to implement and impose social burdens, it is important to understand the full benefits of pollution-reducing programs. An article in Health Economics provides compelling evidence that one such program offered considerable benefits for infant health, especially in vulnerable populations. Based on an analysis of more than a decade of US birth records, the research shows that the Nitrogen Oxide Budget Trading Program—a cap-and-trade initiative to reduce ozone pollution—significantly improved infant health outcomes, particularly among Black, low-income, and single mothers. The program ...

Cyberwarfare between nation states has become increasingly common in recent years. To address several important questions that this phenomenon raises, scientists developed a game theoretical model of cyberwarfare between nations. Their research, which is published in Economic Inquiry, focuses on factors that determine the severity and outcomes of cyber conflicts. With a two-country model—where nations invest in offensive or defensive cyber capabilities across networked systems—the investigators considered different scenarios where the Attacker is the ...

A growing body of evidence implicates cellular senescence—when cells age and permanently stop dividing—as an important contributor to metabolic dysfunction that can lead to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. A review in the Journal of Internal Medicine explores the research connecting senescent cells to metabolic diseases and highlights the potential of “senotherapeutics” in treatment strategies. The authors note that senescent cells accumulate in metabolic tissues where they secrete factors that disrupt tissue ...

Nitrogen metabolism of gut bacteria can provide health benefits. Specifically, gut microbes metabolize dietary nitrates and nitrites and prevent the formation of cancer-causing compounds called nitrosamines. New research published in The FEBS Journal sheds light on these processes and pinpoints which types of bacteria are most important. Investigators found that Escherichia coli—and to a lesser extent, species of the genera Lactobacillus, Bacteroides and Phocaeicola—can efficiently metabolize different forms of nitrogen, thus ...

Lithium-metal batteries are among the most promising technologies for energy storage. They offer significantly more energy in less space — and at a lower weight. However, one phenomenon slows down their development: tiny, needle-like metal structures called dendrites, made of lithium. They can grow uncontrollably inside the battery and cause devastating short circuits. Until now, solid electrolytes, including polymer-based electrolytes, have been considered a way to suppress this growth. “Electrolytes are responsible for transporting lithium ions back and forth between the two electrodes inside a battery — making ...

An Osaka Metropolitan University team has used stem cells extracted from adipose, the body’s fatty tissue, to treat spine fractures in rats similar to those caused by osteoporosis in humans. These cells offer the advantages of being easy to collect, even from elderly individuals, and causing little stress to the body, suggesting a non-invasive way of treating bone diseases. Osteoporosis is a disease that causes bones to become brittle and prone to fractures. Due to the aging of the population, the number of patients in Japan is estimated to ...

The Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Institute of Science Tokyo is proud to announce that it will host the PCST Japan Symposium 2025, to be held from 11–13 November 2025. This joint international symposium marks the first time the Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) Network brings a symposium to Japan, and the seventh conference of the Japan SciCom Forum (JSF). The symposium will bring together researchers, practitioners, educators, and policymakers from across Asia and beyond to explore the strategic development of science communication in non-Western contexts. It is organised around two central questions that guide its themes: ‘how can we establish ...

Recently, a research group led by Prof. SUN Xiaobing from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, investigated the impact of multiangular polarimetry on the quantification of marine aerosol remote sensing applications. Their findings were published in the Optics Express. Aerosols are one of the most uncertain components in the quantification of climate radiative forcing, while polarimetry helps to improve the characterization of the microphysical properties of atmospheric aerosol. In this study, the team investigated the importance of the spectral range, the spectral band, the number of viewing angles, and ...