Understanding the acceleration of human impacts on the environment is key to addressing the complex planetary and social challenges of the Anthropocene. But even as the inter-relatedness of environmental, political, and social processes becomes clearer, the conditions that produce sustainable outcomes remain little understood.  Now, a new study examines the acceleration of social-ecological changes in the first kingdom in Poland, the Piast dynasty, identifying the factors that contributed to its failure. Using new high-resolution ...

In the largest study of its kind, researchers at the Florida Museum of Natural History have used data from a 120-year-old program managed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to quantify the effects of introduced species. The researchers included more than 5 million measurements from individual trees across much of eastern North America and showed the rate at which introduced species are spreading has increased over the last two decades. Additionally, native tree diversity is on the decline in areas where exotic species originally introduced by humans have encroached. This ...

The Krebs cycle is a series of chemical reactions that occur in the cells of living beings. It can produce energy from the degradation of certain types of molecules (lipids, sugars, proteins). This energy is then used by the cell to produce the energy essential to cell function. These fine layers of ice form on dust grains in space, and are irradiated by ultraviolet radiation and cosmic rays. Organic molecules that play a role in the chemical processes behind the origins of life. At the Nice Institute of Chemistry (CNRS/Université Côte ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — In 2024, more than 50 million people in the United States lived in counties with no air-quality monitoring, according to a new study from researchers in the Penn State College of Health and Human Development. Rural counties — especially counties in the Midwest and South — were less likely to have an air-quality monitoring site. Air quality measures are used to estimate people’s exposure to air pollution, which makes monitoring a critical public health tool, according to Nelson Roque, assistant professor of human development and family studies and ...

DDT residues persist in trout in some Canadian lakes 70 years after insecticide treatment, often at levels ten times that recommended as safe for the wildlife which consumes the fish     Article URL: https://plos.io/4lp9Fhx Article title: Legacy DDT and its metabolites in Brook Trout from lakes within forested watersheds treated with aerial applications of insecticides Author countries: Canada Funding: This research was supported by funding from the New Brunswick Wildlife Trust Fund (JK; F000-201; www.nbwtf.ca), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Capitalizing on the flexibility of tiny cells inside the body’s smallest blood vessels may be a powerful spinal cord repair strategy, new research suggests. In mouse experiments, scientists introduced a specific type of recombinant protein to the site of a spinal cord injury where these cells, called pericytes, had flooded the lesion zone. Once exposed to this protein, results showed, pericytes change shape and inhibit the production of some molecules while secreting others, creating “cellular bridges” that support regeneration of axons – the long, slender extensions of nerve cell bodies that transmit messages. Researchers ...

Honolulu, Hawaii — The Pediatric Academic Societies (PAS) are proud to announce the recipients of the prestigious PAS Trainee Travel Grants, recognizing 33 exceptional trainees for their contributions to pediatric research. Each award includes complimentary registration to the PAS 2025 Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, and a $500 travel grant to support their participation. These awards aim to encourage emerging talent and recognize excellence in pediatric research. Awardees were selected based on the quality of their submitted abstracts, with ...

Lucid dreaming is a surreal phenomenon in which people are consciously aware that they are in a dream. Çağatay Demirel, from Donders Center for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University Medical Center, and colleagues shed light on the neural correlates of lucid dreaming in their JNeurosci paper.   The researchers used a rigorous processing pipeline as they collected and assembled data from multiple labs to create what is, according to the authors, the largest sample size to date for this field of research. Comparisons of brain activity during lucid dreaming, rapid eye movement sleep, and wakefulness revealed distinct activity patterns for ...

One in ten people will have at least one seizure in their life, but effective treatments for seizures remain very limited, in part due to incomplete understanding of the brain mechanisms involved. Now, research in fruit flies has uncovered a role for two specific brain proteins that are necessary during brain development to prevent seizures. The two proteins, Imp and Sdc, are found in the developing brains of both flies and mammals, and are involved in the growth and development of neurons and brain circuits. A reduction of either protein during development makes flies prone to seizures without otherwise affecting their ability to move, the researchers found. ...

Tracing its roots to fundamental research conducted at Princeton, a new startup is upending decades-old approaches for the way the world extracts lithium and other materials, including nitrate and potash, that power today’s clean energy technologies and support modern agriculture. The company, Princeton Critical Minerals (formerly PureLi), which emerged from the University’s ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship, has developed a technology for boosting minerals production from evaporation ponds. These ponds currently generate around 40% of the world’s lithium and most of its naturally occurring nitrate. The technology is a black disc with a special, ...

There has been a troubling rise in adolescent mental health struggles and suicide rates over the past decade, with a dramatic increase following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This crisis has been accompanied by an increased demand for pediatric inpatient psychiatry units (IPUs) across the United States. However, despite the growing need, which has reached the point of bed shortages, the effectiveness of IPUs on teen mental health outcomes remains understudied. This study, led by Dr. Patricia Ibeziako from Boston Children’s Hospital, reviewed the electronic medical records ...

Newly published results of a randomized, controlled clinical trial in Japan among more than 170 children aged 1 to 6 who underwent surgery, show that by using EEG readings of brain waves to monitor unconsciousness, an anesthesiologist can significantly reduce the amount of the anesthesia administered to safely induce and sustain each patient’s anesthetized state. On average the little patients experienced significant improvements in several post-operative outcomes, including quicker recovery and reduced incidence of delirium. “I think the main takeaway is that in kids, using the EEG, we can reduce the amount of anesthesia we give them and maintain the same level of unconsciousness,” ...

For the first time, wild chimpanzees have been pictured eating and sharing fruit containing alcohol. A research team led by the University of Exeter set up cameras in Guinea-Bissau’s Cantanhez National Park. Footage of chimps sharing fermented African breadfruit – confirmed to contain ethanol (alcohol) – raises fascinating questions about if and why chimps deliberately seek out alcohol. Humans are believed to have consumed alcohol far back into our evolutionary history, with benefits for social bonding. And the new study suggests our closest relatives might be doing something ...

The percentage of children under 18 years old with anxiety and depression increased steadily from 2016 to 2022, according to publicly available data from the National Survey of Children’s Health that were analyzed by researchers from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. In contrast, there was no increase during that timeframe related to physical health problems, such as asthma, severe headache or migraine, and heart conditions. Results were published in JAMA Pediatrics. “Our findings underscore the critical need to prioritize youth mental health, which continued to worsen even as ...

About The Study: In this large, nationally representative sample of U.S. youths, the proportions of youths with anxiety or depression increased from 2016 to 2022. In contrast, youth physical health conditions like asthma and severe headache or migraine decreased, while behavioral or conduct problems and heart conditions were consistent. These findings suggest that deterioration in youth health was specific to depression and anxiety but not select physical health conditions. This study aimed to characterize trends in youth health ...

About The Study: In this survey study of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) health care workers, burnout and professional stress decreased on average following the pandemic, but burnout levels remain elevated compared with prepandemic levels. The VHA has made several efforts to reduce burnout and stress, and results showed some promise, but exploration of ways to reduce burnout to prepandemic levels is needed. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, David C. Mohr, PhD, email david.mohr2@va.gov. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.5954) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In this randomized clinical trial of prefrontal-cerebellar transcranial pulsed current stimulation in children ages 3 to 14 with autism spectrum disorder, 20 sessions over 4 weeks improved social functioning and sleep. These findings suggest that transcranial pulsed current stimulation may serve as a viable nonpharmacologic alternative for autism spectrum disorder. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Zhenhuan Liu, MD, PhD, email lzh1958424@163.com. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.5776) Editor’s ...

EMBARGOED UNTIL 11 a.m. on Monday, April 21, 2025 Contact: Jillian McKoy, jpmckoy@bu.edu  Michael Saunders, msaunder@bu.edu  ##  Nearly 30 million adults in the United States experience alcohol use disorder (AUD), but the vast majority of people with this condition do not receive treatment. A new study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), BU Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, and Boston Medical Center (BMC) researchers indicates that hospitals may be an ideal setting to close this gap in care.  Published in JAMA Internal Medicine, the study found that hospitalized patients with alcohol use ...

MSU has a satellite uplink/LTN TV studio and Comrex line for radio interviews upon request. Images and b-roll EAST LANSING, Mich. – When a medical examiner needs help identifying a deceased person and determining how that person died, they turn to forensic anthropologists. To aid in the identification of unknown human remains, forensic anthropologists are often called upon to create a biological profile, or an estimation of the unknown individual’s age, biological sex, social race (or ancestry) and stature. If you’ve watched the TV show, “Bones,” in which the FBI teams ...

“Our findings suggest that the Cel System supplement range may effectively reduce biological age and improve health metrics, warranting further investigation into its mechanistic pathways and long-term efficacy.” BUFFALO, NY — April 21, 2025 — A new research paper was published in Aging (Aging-US) Volume 17, Issue 3, on March 14, 2025, titled “Effects of a natural ingredients-based intervention targeting the hallmarks of aging on epigenetic clocks, physical function, and body composition: a single-arm ...

Background and Aims The incidence of metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) has been escalating annually, positioning it as the leading cause of chronic liver disease worldwide. Ursolic acid has demonstrated promising therapeutic efficacy in managing MASLD, thereby justifying the need for an in-depth exploration of its pharmacological mechanisms. This study aimed to investigate elucidate the therapeutic mechanisms by which ursolic acid modulates estrogen conversion in the treatment of MASLD. Methods Building upon prior studies that ...

New research from the University of Rochester suggests that experiencing feelings of pride and awe toward one's children can significantly enhance parental well-being. The study, which will be published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, found that these positive emotions contribute to greater life satisfaction and stronger parent-child bonds.  The research team, led by Princeton Chee, conducted a series of studies involving nearly 900 parents to examine how parental pride and awe affect various aspects of well-being.  "Parental pride and awe are common and beneficial feelings parents can have with their ...

Sound is a powerful source of information. By training algorithms to identify distinct sound signatures, sound can reveal what a person is doing, whether it's cooking, vacuuming or washing the dishes. And while it's valuable in some contexts, using sound to identify activities comes with privacy concerns, since microphones can reveal sensitive information. To allow audio sensing without compromising privacy, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University developed an on-device filter, called Kirigami, that can detect and delete human speech segments ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — A new study asked three questions about muscle protein synthesis in response to a nine-day diet and weight training regimen: First, does the source of protein — plant or animal-based — make any difference to muscle gain? Second, does it matter if total daily protein intake is evenly distributed throughout the day? And third, does a moderate but sufficient daily protein intake influence any of these variables? The answer to all three questions is “no,” the researchers found. Their findings are reported in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise. “The longstanding belief or ...

Ticks are more likely to carry the bacteria that can cause Lyme disease in areas where pheasants are released, new research shows. Pheasants are not native to the UK, but about 47 million are released here each year for recreational shooting. Researchers studied ticks in 25 woodland areas in South West England where pheasants are released – and 25 nearby control sites where no pheasants are released. They found that Borrelia spp. – the bacteria that can cause Lyme disease – was almost ...