A team of University of Florida scientists has been awarded a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to tackle one of South Florida’s most urgent environmental threats: groundwater flooding and saltwater intrusion caused by sea level rise. During the three-year project, scientists on a multidisciplinary team at UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), will develop a decision-support system to help local leaders make science-based, cost-effective choices about land use, infrastructure, climate adaptation and flooding mitigation. “This ...

New research published in Cell has found that the environment inside our bodies, specifically, the pH level within cells, has a powerful influence on the immune system. The research team identified a key molecular sensor that detects changes in intracellular pH and helps regulate the body’s immune defense. This sensor affects how cells respond to bacterial infections and may also influence susceptibility to inflammatory diseases and cancer. These findings open up a new way of thinking about ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Inhaling agricultural dust may pose significant risks to gut health for workers in animal agriculture, a University of California, Riverside, study has found.  Led by Declan McCole, a professor of biomedical sciences in the UCR School of Medicine, the study expands on prior findings that hog farm dust causes airway inflammation. The researchers now report in the Journal of Applied Toxicology that inhaling this dust also alters the gut microbiome and impairs intestinal function, including increased “leaky gut” or intestinal permeability. Leaky ...

A new international study suggests that ancient viral DNA embedded in our genome, which were long dismissed as genetic “junk”, may actually play powerful roles in regulating gene expression. Focusing on a family of sequences called MER11, researchers from Japan, China, Canada, and the US have shown that these elements have evolved to influence how genes turn on and off, particularly in early human development.   Transposable elements (TEs) are repetitive DNA sequences in the genome that originated from ancient viruses. Over millions of years, they spread throughout the genome via copy-and-paste mechanisms. Today, TEs make up nearly half of the human genome. While they ...

Osaka, Japan – Ulcerative colitis (UC) causes misery for millions worldwide. It affects the large intestine, causing pain, cramping, and frequent bowel movements with bloody diarrhea. Although some people go through periods when they feel well, the disease will suddenly flare up, causing another cycle of pain, diarrhea, and weight loss. There is currently no cure. The intestinal flora plays a vital role in UC, but the exact role is unclear. In healthy people, the intestinal flora contains a wide variety of microbes that help digestion and provide benefits for the whole body. In contrast, the intestinal flora of people with UC is unbalanced, with fewer beneficial microbes ...

Chinese researchers have recently challenged the long-held belief that "all life depends on sunlight." In a study published in Science Advances, the researchers identified how microbes in deep subsurface areas can derive energy from chemical reactions driven by crustal faulting, offering critical insights into life deep below Earth's surface. The research was led by Prof. HE Hongping, a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and Prof. ZHU Jianxi, both from the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry of CAS. Long regarded as inhospitable to life ...

(IDAHO FALLS, Idaho) – The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has been chosen to serve as the chief digital officer for the Semiconductor Manufacturing and Advanced Research with Twins USA Institute (SMART USA). This Manufacturing USA Institute, funded by the National Institute for Standards and Technology CHIPS for America program and launched in 2025, is led by Semiconductor Research Corporation Manufacturing Consortium Corporation. The SMART USA program is partnering with the Department of Energy to tackle the semiconductor industry’s toughest challenges, leveraging the department’s decades-long investments ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. — Just 9% of plastic worldwide is recycled. Due to waste mismanagement, nearly three-quarters of it ends up in landfills or the environment.  So how can plastic recycling be more efficient? A review article by University at Buffalo researchers summarizes the latest technologies and methods guided by process systems engineering approaches, from chemical solvents that can dissolve specific plastics to automated plastic sorting aided by artificial intelligence. Selected as the cover article ...

Everyone knows that if you want to enjoy the full experience of the dawn chorus in the forests of Central Europe, or carry out scientific research on bird species, you have to get up very early in the morning. Until now however, detailed data about daily and seasonal patterns in birdsong have only been available for a few species, as the observations required are time-consuming. A research team from the University of Göttingen and the Northwest German Forest Research Institute has now, for the first time, analysed the song ...

The Dan David Prize is the world’s largest history prize, recognizing up to 9 outstanding early and midcareer scholars and practitioners in the historical disciplines each year. Each Dan David Prize winner is awarded $300,000 to acknowledge their achievements and support future work. We are pleased to announce that nominations for the 5th cycle of the new Dan David Prize are now open. The deadline for nominations for the 2026 Prize is September 24, 2025. Nominees can come from anywhere in the world and work in any field related to the study of the human past, both within academia and outside it. The list of previous winners ...

Teaching a robot new skills used to require coding expertise. But a new generation of robots could potentially learn from just about anyone.  Engineers are designing robotic helpers that can “learn from demonstration.” This more natural training strategy enables a person to lead a robot through a task, typically in one of three ways: via remote control, such as operating a joystick to remotely maneuver a robot; by physically moving the robot through the motions; or by performing the task themselves while the robot watches and mimics.  Learning-by-doing ...

Researchers have discovered an unusual case where two well-known cancer-related mutations—APC and KRAS—coexisted in a woman with familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) and a history of endometrial cancer. This case may reveal new insights into how different genetic mutations can cooperate across organ systems to promote cancer development. FAP is a rare inherited condition that causes hundreds to thousands of polyps to grow in the colon, significantly increasing colorectal cancer risk. It is primarily caused by mutations in the APC gene, which normally acts to suppress tumors by regulating cell growth through the Wnt/β-catenin pathway. In contrast, ...

An international research team has conducted the first comprehensive global-to-local assessment of the direct health burden of COVID-19, spanning 920 locations worldwide. Utilizing the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2021 analytical framework, the study examined data from 2020 and 2021 across five spatial levels—global, international regional, national, subnational, and local. It quantified the pandemic’s impact through core health metrics: incidence (new cases), prevalence (existing cases), mortality (deaths), and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), which ...

The recent release of the rcssci R package represents a significant advancement in the way researchers visualize and analyze complex relationships between continuous variables and their outcomes. The package introduces an innovative methodology for creating more refined and aesthetically pleasing Restricted Cubic Spline (RCS) plots, offering four distinct styles for enhanced data interpretation. These improvements not only increase the statistical clarity of the results but also provide a more user-friendly interface for researchers working across various types of regression models. “We’ve seen a need in the research community for a more intuitive and visually ...

A new study published in the journal One Earth reveals that the way ecosystems collapse—abruptly or gradually—may depend on internal complexity, much like how magnetic materials behave under stress. The study, led by Professor John Dearing at the University of Southampton with colleagues from Rothamsted Research, Bangor University, and Edinburgh University, challenges the prevailing assumption that climate tipping points always happen suddenly. Instead, it shows that some large-scale Earth systems may be experiencing gradual ...

Nearly one-third of the nation’s K-12 U.S. public schools mandate mental health screening for students, with most offering in-person treatment or referral to a community mental health professional if a student is identified as having depression or anxiety, according to a new study.   About 40% of principals surveyed said it was very hard or somewhat hard to ensure that students receive appropriate care, while 38% said it was easy or very easy to find adequate care for students. The findings are published in the journal JAMA Network ...

About The Study: In older patients with cancer and type 2 diabetes, glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) use was associated with lower all-cause mortality compared with dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor (DPP4i) use, with no significant difference relative to sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitor. The survival benefit over DPP4i persisted across age, sex, non-Hispanic white race, obesity status, and several cancer types (colorectal, lung, and breast).  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jingchuan Guo, MD, PhD, email guoj1@ufl.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.21887) Editor’s ...

About The Study: Over time, physician exit from traditional Medicare has increased. This result is consistent with earlier findings, but exits remained high even after the pandemic, which likely accelerated some physicians’ exit. The findings may reflect multiple factors, including the greater burden of new communication methods (e.g., portal messages) and demands for clinical documentation. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Hannah T. Neprash, PhD, email hneprash@umn.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2025.2267) Editor’s ...

Over the past decade, the advent of immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) therapy has transformed cancer treatment. Unlike conventional cytotoxic and targeted therapies, immunotherapy leverages both the innate and adaptive immune systems to target and eradicate tumors within the tumor microenvironment (TME). The TME is a highly organized ecosystem shaped by the intricate interactions between its diverse cellular and non-cellular components, which include tumor cells, immune cells, microbiota, endothelial cells, fibroblasts, and the extracellular matrix. Consequently, gaining a thorough ...

Researchers from the University of Tokyo in collaboration with Aisin Corporation have demonstrated that universal scaling laws, which describe how the properties of a system change with size and scale, apply to deep neural networks that exhibit absorbing phase transition behavior, a phenomenon typically observed in physical systems. The discovery not only provides a framework describing deep neural networks but also helps predict their trainability or generalizability. The findings were published in the journal Physical Review Research. In recent years, it seems no matter where we look, we come across artificial intelligence ...

Scientists at China Pharmaceutical University have launched GseaVis, a groundbreaking R package designed to transform how researchers visualize and interpret Gene Set Enrichment Analysis (GSEA) results in biomedical research. Gene Set Enrichment Analysis is a powerful computational method widely used to determine whether predefined sets of genes show statistically significant differences between biological states, such as healthy versus diseased conditions. However, effective visualization of GSEA results ...

“This case highlights that lipoleiomyomas can present many years after attaining menopause.” BUFFALO, NY — July 18, 2025 — A new case report was published in Volume 12 of Oncoscience on July 2, 2025, titled “Navigating diagnostic complexity: A case report on uterine lipoleiomyoma, unveiling its benign nature amidst characteristics resembling liposarcoma.” In this report, Seetu Palo, first corresponding author Mishu Mangla and colleagues from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences describe a rare case where a benign uterine tumor closely resembles a malignant tumor in an elderly patient. ...

Background and objectives Histopathology is the gold standard in cancer diagnosis. However, attenuated total reflectance (ATR)-Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy has shown diagnostic potential in other settings. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the sensitivity and specificity of the ATR-FTIR spectroscopy in evaluating breast lesions. Methods This study was conducted on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded biopsy blocks received at Ladoke Akintola University of Technology Teaching Hospital between ...

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) remains a leading cause of vision loss globally, with significant advancements in treatment options for both dry and wet AMD. As highlighted by Huang and colleagues, "Current therapies for dry AMD have limited effectiveness in halting the progression of geographic atrophy (GA), underscoring the need for innovative approaches". One of the most notable breakthroughs is the FDA approval of pegcetacoplan and avacincaptad pegol, targeting the complement system to slow GA progression. Pegcetacoplan, a C3 inhibitor, reduced GA lesion growth by 19–22% ...

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition caused by organ dysfunction resulting from the body's dysregulated response to infection. Annually, sepsis affects more than 31 million people worldwide, with a mortality rate of approximately 30%. The disease is characterized by rapid progression, poor prognosis, and high mortality, posing significant challenges in critical care medicine. Early diagnosis and intervention are crucial for improving patient outcomes. In a study published in the journal "Med Research," a team of researchers ...