Medicine Technology 🌱 Environment Space Energy Physics Engineering Social Science Earth Science Science
Science 2026-03-10

How does snow gather on a roof?

WASHINGTON, March 10, 2026 — No two snowflakes may be the same, but models that fail to take these variations into consideration often fall short when calculating the way snow accumulates on roofs. In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, researchers from Harbin Institute of Technology in China modeled the way snow gathers on a roof based on snowflake size and distribution. “In cold regions, snow load is a critical factor in structural design,” said author Qingwen Zhang. “However, traditional models often simplify snow as a uniform material with a single particle size, overlooking the natural heterogeneity of snowflake sizes and distributions.” This simplification ...
Read more →
Social Science 2026-03-10

Modeling how pollen flows through urban areas

WASHINGTON, March 10, 2026 — Due to climate change, plants’ pollination season has been growing longer and longer. As a result, people are exposed to allergens for extended periods each year, raising a major public health concern. In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, researchers from Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University and two French universities, the University of Rouen Normandy and the University of Lille, developed an advanced computational model of outdoor airflow through trees. They used ...
Read more →
Medicine 2026-03-10

Blood test predicts dementia in women as many as 25 years before symptoms begin

Researchers from the University of California San Diego have found that a novel blood-based biomarker can predict a woman’s risk of developing dementia as many as 25 years before symptoms appear. The study, published on March 10, 2026 in JAMA Network Open, shows that higher levels of phosphorylated tau 217 (p-tau217) — a protein linked to the brain changes seen in Alzheimer’s disease — were strongly associated with future mild cognitive impairment and dementia among older women who were cognitively healthy at baseline, meaning at the start of the study before any memory or thinking problems were detected. “Our ...
Read more →
Medicine 2026-03-10

Female reproductive cancers and the sex gap in survival

About The Study: In this population-level cohort study of 20 low-mortality countries, females ages 35 to 60 experienced disadvantage in cancer mortality compared with males—a consistent pattern observed across birth cohorts and over time. These findings underscore the ongoing need for action on the prevention, early detection, and treatment of early-onset female reproductive cancers.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Vladimir Canudas-Romo, PhD, email vladimir.canudas-romo@anu.edu.au. To access the embargoed study: Visit ...
Read more →
Medicine 2026-03-10

GLP-1RA switching and treatment persistence in adults without diabetes

About The Study: In this large cohort of adults with overweight or obesity without diabetes, fewer than 1 in 4 patients remained on any glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) after 12 months. Switching between GLP-1RA agents was common and may reflect active therapy management rather than nonengagement, particularly as new formulations and weight management agents emerge.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Luyu Xie, PharmD, PhD, email luyu.xie@utsouthwestern.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our ...
Read more →
Social Science 2026-03-10

Gnaw-y by nature: Researchers discover neural circuit that rewards gnawing behavior in rodents

Researchers at the University of Michigan have discovered that the constant gnawing of rodents isn't just a reflex or a consequence of a tough diet. It also triggers a release of dopamine in the brain—which acts as a biochemical reward or incentive—through a newly identified neural circuit. Although the circuit was discovered in mice, it could also be at work in other mammals, the researchers said, adding to a growing body of evidence that there's a deeper connection between our brains and our oral health and habits. "In the old point of view, everyone sort of believed that gnawing was ...
Read more →
Medicine 2026-03-10

Research alert: How one receptor can help — or hurt — your blood vessels

Researchers at the University of California San Diego have uncovered how a single protein triggers two opposite responses in blood vessels — one inflammatory and one protective. This protein, a cell-surface receptor called protease-activated receptor-1 (PAR1), plays a critical role in maintaining the structural integrity of our blood vessels. Understanding how PAR1 switches between healing and harmful signaling pathways could pave the way for new treatments for conditions marked by vascular inflammation and leakage, including sepsis, heart attack and stroke. PAR1 sits on the surface of the thin layer of cells lining blood vessels ...
Read more →
Science 2026-03-10

Lamprey-inspired amphibious suction disc with hybrid adhesion mechanism

“In complex cross-media environments, existing attachment mechanisms face significant physical constraints,” said Junzhi Yu, corresponding author and Professor at Peking University. “Traditional suction cups easily fail underwater due to fluid washing, or they lose their vacuum seal on rough surfaces. We needed a unified mechanism that could break through the dual barriers of environmental media and surface morphology.” To achieve this, the team looked to the lamprey. The ...
Read more →
Science 2026-03-10

A domain generalization method for EEG based on domain-invariant feature and data augmentation

“Domain bias caused by individual differences and device variations severely limits BCI’s practical application, while existing methods struggle with feature decoupling and noise sensitivity,” explained study corresponding author Jing Jin from East China University of Science and Technology. The core innovations include (a) a fixed structure decoupler to separate category-related and independent features; (b) fine-grained patch coding and gated channel attention for spatiotemporal feature extraction; and (c) an Interclass Prototype Network (IPN) to enhance feature discriminability. “This hybrid approach enables the model to learn robust domain-invariant ...
Read more →
Technology 2026-03-10

Bionic wearable ECG with multimodal large language models: coherent temporal modeling for early ischemia warning and reperfusion risk stratification

Myocardial ischemia, the primary driver of heart attacks, remains the leading cause of death and disability worldwide. Delays in diagnosis directly correlate with increased myocardial necrosis, higher complication rates, and elevated mortality. While traditional 12-lead ECG is the clinical gold standard for ischemia detection, its episodic nature fails to capture transient, unpredictable ischemic episodes during continuous ambulatory monitoring. Though wearable ECG devices have excelled at detecting arrhythmias like atrial fibrillation (with over 95% sensitivity), their utility ...
Read more →
Social Science 2026-03-10

JMIR Publications partners with the University of Turku for unlimited OA publishing

(TORONTO & TURKU, March 10, 2026) JMIR Publications, a leading open-access digital health research publisher, and the University of Turku (UTU) are pleased to announce a new Flat-Fee Unlimited Open Access Publishing Agreement. This partnership, effective January 1, 2026, through December 31, 2026, replaces individual Article Processing Charges (APC) with an Institutional Publishing Fee (IPF) that covers all UTU affiliated researchers. JMIR’s institutional partnerships have a track record of successfully reducing administrative burden, eliminating ...
Read more →
Space 2026-03-10

Strange cosmic burst from colliding galaxies shines light on heavy elements

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A recently detected flash of energy appears to have emanated from the wreckage of colliding galaxies, according to an international team of astronomers led by Penn State scientists. The burst, known as GRB 230906A, was likely caused by the collision of two neutron stars hundreds of millions of years ago and is now shedding light on how the universe creates some of its heaviest elements.   The signal, first detected by the NASA Fermi satellite in September 2023, belonged to a peculiar class of short gamma-ray bursts, explosions ...
Read more →
Physics 2026-03-10

Press program now available for the world's largest physics meeting

Next week, nearly 14,000 scientists from around the world will convene to share new research results from across physics at the American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit. The conference will be held in Denver and online everywhere March 15-20.   Press kit Press releases, tip sheets, and other materials are now available in the Global Physics Summit digital press kit. Registered journalists and public information officers will also receive emails with information daily for the duration of the meeting.   Press room  In-person press registrants will have access to a press room (meeting room 608 in the Colorado Convention ...
Read more →
Medicine 2026-03-10

New release: Wiley’s Mass Spectra of Designer Drugs 2026 expands coverage of emerging novel psychoactive substances

HOBOKEN, NJ – Wiley, a global leader in authoritative content and research intelligence for the advancement of scientific discovery, innovation and learning, today announced the 2026 release of Mass Spectra of Designer Drugs, the essential GC‑MS spectral database used by forensic laboratories worldwide for the rapid identification of illicit substances. As the landscape of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) continues to evolve—with growing numbers of synthetic cannabinoids, metabolites, fentanyl analogs, pharmaceutical drugs and metabolites, derivatives, ...
Read more →
Space 2026-03-10

Exposure to life-limiting heat has soared around the planet

Climate change since the 1950s has doubled the amount of time per year that millions of people around the world must endure heat so extreme that everyday physical activities cannot be done safely, a new study concludes. “Most heat studies focus on how hot it feels. This one asks a different question: What can a human body safely do in that heat?” said co-author Jennifer Vanos, an associate professor at Arizona State University in the School of Sustainability. An important goal of the research is to identify vulnerable populations ...
Read more →
Technology 2026-03-10

New AI agent could transform how scientists study weather and climate

Computer scientists and weather scientists have taken the first steps toward creating an AI agent capable of analyzing and answering questions in natural language, such as English, about data from AI-driven weather and climate forecasting models.  The research team from the University of California San Diego will present the first AI weather agent they developed, named Zephyrus, at the 14th International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR) April 23–27 in Rio de Janeiro. Recently, models driven by AI and deep learning have considerably improved weather forecasting. But analyzing the ...
Read more →
Medicine 2026-03-10

New study sheds light on protein landscape crucial for plant life

PULLMAN, Wash. — Research led by scientists at Washington State University has revealed insights on how plants form a microscopic landscape of proteins crucial to photosynthesis, the basis of Earth's food and energy chain. The discovery provides a new view of the molecular engine that converts sunlight into bioenergy and could enable future fine-tuning of crops for higher yields and other useful traits. Colleagues at WSU, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel used a novel, technology-powered approach to peer inside plant leaf cells and visualize the landscape of the photosynthetic membrane — the ribbon-like structure where plants ...
Read more →
Environment 2026-03-10

New study finds deep ocean microbes already prepared to tackle climate change

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Deep-sea waters are warming due to heat waves and climate change, and it could spell trouble for the oceans’ delicate chemical and biological balance. A new study, however, demonstrates that the microbe Nitrosopumilus maritimus may already be adapting well to warmer, nutrient-poor waters. Researchers predict that these surprisingly adaptable iron-dependent ammonia-oxidizing archaea will play an important role in reshaping ocean-nutrient distribution in a changing climate. The study’s findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Nitrosopumilus ...
Read more →
Technology 2026-03-10

ARLIS partners with industry leaders to improve safety of quantum computers

COLLEGE PARK, Md. – The Maryland Institute for Quantum Applications (MIQA) at the University of Maryland’s Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS) has launched a new research initiative under the SEQCURE program, sponsored by the Secretary of the Air Force’s Concepts, Development, and Management Office, to apply Zero Trust Architecture principles to quantum systems.  Working with its industry partners, ARLIS researchers are evaluating the security posture of different environments, providing recommendations to align emerging quantum technologies with national security standards. The six key areas that define the design and use of these ...
Read more →
Social Science 2026-03-10

Modernization can increase differences between cultures

Does modernization—economic growth, technological advancement, globalization, increased education, and urbanization—reduce cultural differences? Conventional wisdom suggests that as nations get richer and more educated, a globalized, modern culture emerges featuring low birth rates, high divorce rates, and an overall focus on the individual. Thomas Talhelm tests this hypothesis using the World Values Survey, which has collected data in a broad range of countries since 1981. Notably, variation in values between countries in the World Values Survey has grown from 1981–2017. ...
Read more →
Science 2026-03-10

Cannabis intoxication disrupts many types of memory

PULLMAN, Wash. — Smoking cannabis can do more than blur memories. It can reshape them. A new Washington State University study found that people who consumed THC were more likely to recall words that were never presented and struggled with everyday tasks such as remembering to do something later. Published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, the study is one of the most comprehensive looks yet at how cannabis affects memory. The findings suggest cannabis can impair not only simple recall, such as remembering a list of words, but also forms of memory people rely on in daily life, like remembering appointments, keeping ...
Read more →
Social Science 2026-03-10

Heat does not reduce prosociality

High temperatures have long been empirically linked to violence, conflict, and aggression at the societal level—a troubling pattern in a warming world. Alessandra Cassar and colleagues sought to explore the effect of high heat on individual egalitarianism, resource maximization, selfishness, spite, and competitiveness. The authors invited university students in Colombia, India, Kenya, Mexico, and the United States to play games that involved making choices about whether to share, whether to reduce another player’s payoff at a cost to oneself, as well as whether or not to compete. ...
Read more →
Medicine 2026-03-10

Advancing brain–computer interfaces for rehabilitation and assistive technologies

Motor imagery (MI) is the mental process of imagining a specific limb movement, such as raising a hand or walking, without physically performing it. These imagined movements generate distinct patterns of brain activity that can be recorded using electroencephalography (EEG). By decoding these signals, researchers can enable direct communication between the brain and computers, making MI-EEG a powerful tool for applications such as motor rehabilitation and the assistive control of wheelchairs and prosthetic devices. However, EEG signals generated during MI vary significantly across individuals ...
Read more →
Medicine 2026-03-10

Detecting Alzheimer's with DNA aptamers—new tool for an easy blood test

With aging populations on the rise, the need for better tools to diagnose and monitor Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common cause of dementia, has never been more urgent. This disease is characterized by the gradual loss of nerve cells, a process known as neurodegeneration, which begins years before the onset of obvious symptoms. One way to detect this damage is to look for signs of injury to nerve cells. A key emerging biomarker of neurodegeneration is neurofilament light chain (NfL), a structural protein component ...
Read more →
Medicine 2026-03-10

Chinese Neurosurgical Journal study develops radiomics model to predict secondary decompressive craniectomy

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) can trigger dangerous swelling inside the skull, raising intracranial pressure to life-threatening levels even after emergency surgery. In some cases, patients who initially undergo craniotomy to remove a hematoma deteriorate later and require a second, more invasive operation called decompressive craniectomy (DC). Because this escalation often occurs suddenly, clinicians have limited time to respond. Identifying high-risk patients earlier could transform intensive care management, enabling proactive monitoring and timely intervention before irreversible damage occurs. To address ...
Read more →