Ghent, 23 October 2025 – A mutation previously linked to skin disorders like psoriasis may also play a surprising role in gut health, according to new research published by scientists at VIB-UGent and colleagues from UGent, the University of Barcelona, and University College London. This mutation activates skin immune responses but also affects the intestine. This finding, published in EMBO Molecular Medicine, reveals a new connection between genetics, the immune system, and the gut, which may have therapeutical implications.   Scientists under the leadership of Dr. Inna ...

A test deployed in many fertility clinics to assess the viability of embryos for use in IVF is likely to overestimate the number of embryos with abnormalities, suggests a study published today. Using a new technique for imaging embryos in real time, a team led by scientists at the Loke Centre for Trophoblast Research, University of Cambridge, showed that abnormalities can arise at a later stage of embryo development than previously thought. This means that the tests used in some clinics may be finding errors in cells that will go on to develop into the placenta – and abnormalities in placental cells are less likely to affect the health of the fetus. When an egg has been ...

Alzheimer’s disease is notorious for scrambling patients’ daily rhythms. Restless nights with little sleep and increased napping during the day are early indicators of disease onset, while sundowning, or confusion later in the day, is typical for later stages of the disease. These symptoms suggest a link between the progression of the disease and the circadian system — the body’s internal clock that controls our sleep and wake cycle — but scientists did not know the full nature of the connection. Researchers from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis ...

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are the delivery vehicles of modern medicine, carrying cancer drugs, gene therapies and vaccines into cells. Until recently, many scientists assumed that all LNPs followed more or less the same blueprint, like a fleet of trucks built from the same design.  Now, in Nature Biotechnology, researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, Brookhaven National Laboratory and Waters Corporation have characterized the shape and structure of LNPs in unprecedented detail, revealing that the particles come in a surprising variety of configurations. ...

Key points  Hydrogen gas is produced in the gut, with some expelled as flatulence Researchers have shed new light on how gut microbes make and use hydrogen This will help in understanding and maintaining overall gut health Farts are causing a stink in the research world, but in a positive way. Melbourne scientists have revealed how hydrogen is made and used in the human gut. Though infamous for making farts ignite, hydrogen also has a positive role supporting gut health. In this study published in Nature Microbiology, ...

A supersolid is a paradoxical state of matter—it is rigid like a crystal but flows without friction like a superfluid. This exotic form of quantum matter has only recently been realized in dipolar quantum gases. Researchers led by Francesca Ferlaino set out to explore how the solid and superfluid properties of a supersolid interact, particularly under rotation. In their experiments, they rotated a supersolid quantum gas using a carefully controlled magnetic field and observed a striking phenomenon: “The quantum droplets of the supersolid are in a crystal-like periodic order, all dressed by a superfluid between them”, explains ...

Some genetic disorders—such as cystic fibrosis, hemophilia and Tay Sachs disease—involve many mutations in a person’s genome, often with enough variation that even two individuals who share the same disorder might have a different combination of mutations. Complexities like these make it challenging to develop broadly applicable gene therapies for these disorders. Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin now have developed an improved method of gene editing that is precise, more efficient than other similar methods and can correct many disease-causing mutations ...

PRESS RELEASE EMARGOED UNTIL 08:00AM GMT, 23 OCOTBER 2025 Scientists from the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at Queen Mary University of London have developed a simple model to show how buoyant plastic can settle through the water column and they predict it could take over 100 years to remove plastic waste from the ocean’s surface. Published today in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, the study is the third and final paper in a trilogy that explores the long-term fate of microplastic ...

In the high-altitude and extremely remote region of Dolpo in north-west Nepal, there are numerous Buddhist temples whose history dates back to the 11th century. The structures are threatened by earthquakes, landslides and planned infrastructure projects such as the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. There is also a lack of financial resources for long-term maintenance. Researchers from the Institute of Architectural Theory, History of Art and Cultural Studies and the Institute of Engineering Geodesy and Measurement Systems at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) want to prevent ...

PISCATAWAY, NJ – When trained correctly on medically accurate information, ChatGPT can provide trustworthy information for pregnant women seeking medical advice for treating opioid use disorder, according to new research in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, based at Rutgers University. The research might one day lead to apps and websites for people seeking help for conditions that they may not want to discuss face to face with a health care provider. “Seeking health advice online is a ...

When dust sticks to a surface or a lizard sits on a ceiling, it is due to ‘nature’s invisible glue’. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have now discovered a quick and easy way to study the hidden forces that bind the smallest objects in the universe together. Using gold, salt water and light, they have created a platform on which the forces can be seen through colours.   In the lab at Chalmers, doctoral student Michaela Hošková shows a glass container filled with millions of micrometre-sized gold flakes in a salt solution. Using a pipette, she picks up a drop of the ...

Ewing sarcoma is one of the most common bone cancers seen in children, and if it spreads, it can be deadly. One study found that under a quarter of children with multi-metastatic Ewing sarcoma survived five years after their diagnosis. Now scientists have found that a drug called pazopanib had striking success in treating a small group of young patients. 85% of their patients survived two years after diagnosis, and two-thirds saw no disease progression. The team calls for larger studies which can develop this treatment further.  “Survival rates were higher than in historical controls, suggesting it may extend lives and, importantly, ...

Teenagers who don’t get enough sleep on school nights or have interrupted sleep are at greater risk of suicide, new research from the University of Warwick has found. Suicide is the one of the leading causes of death among adolescents in the UK. Despite teenagers’ well-known tendency to miss out on sleep—due to both biological and social factors—the long-term impact of this sleep loss on suicide risk has remained unclear. Now, researchers at the University of Warwick have demonstrated a longitudinal link between disrupted sleep in early adolescence and later suicide attempts, ...

From agriculture and urban land clearance to loss of habitat and feral animal predation, native wild animals and their food sources face a rising tide of threats caused by human activities. A new study led by Flinders University warns traffic noise is one more pressure faced by one of southern Australia’s rare songbirds, the threatened Southern Emu-wren (Stipiturus malachurus). “Anthropogenic (human) noise has the potential to negatively impact wildlife by disrupting communication and reducing overall fitness. This includes the effects ...

Agricultural non-point source (NPS) pollution is a major cause of water quality degradation, with pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus carried by farmland surface runoff being important sources. Statistics show that in 2017, the total nitrogen discharge from agricultural sources in China reached 1.4149 Mt, and total phosphorus was 212 kt. Among these, the nitrogen and phosphorus emissions from cropping alone accounted for 51% and 36% of agricultural source pollutants, respectively. However, current farmland runoff monitoring methods have obvious limitations: traditional runoff pool monitoring has a small ...

Agricultural green development is an important issue for global sustainable development, and the efficient utilization of nitrogen fertilizers and environmental emission reduction have always been core challenges faced by China’s agriculture. As a key input in food production, nitrogen fertilizers contribute 45% of China’s grain yield increase and 60% of protein supply in the food chain. However, China’s nitrogen use efficiency was only 42.6% in 2024, which not only causes resource waste but also leads to environmental problems such as about 400 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, 70% of global nitrous oxide emissions, and water eutrophication. ...

Australian ecologists have made a remarkable discovery about the mysterious and endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart: it is partial to climbing trees. Up until now, the small carnivorous marsupial was thought to be a ground dweller. The finding, published this month in Pacific Conservation Biology, is the first confirmed evidence that the Kangaroo Island dunnart can climb trees and shelter in hollows, using artificial nest boxes that were originally installed for pygmy-possums. The discovery is part of the Kangaroo Island Nest Box Project, a large-scale citizen science initiative led by UniSA scientist Associate Professor Sophie (Topa) Petit and Peter Hammond from the Kangaroo Island ...

What if the front line in the fight against climate change wasn’t in a high-tech lab or a global summit—but in the muddy, tangled roots of a mangrove forest? In the coastal heart of the Philippines, a quiet revolution is taking root. A new study published on September 5, 2025, in the open-access journal Carbon Research, shows that mangroves, those hardy, salt-tolerant trees lining tropical shorelines, are not just nature’s coastal defenders. They’re also carbon vaults, quietly locking away tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. And now, thanks to the work of Dr. Hannah Alexis Melquiades Asilo and her team at the University of the Philippines ...

Researchers have uncovered a surprising new role for nano-biochar, showing that it can drive the natural formation and accumulation of silver nanoparticles in rice roots. The study, published in Biochar, reveals how this tiny carbon material interacts with plant roots to transform silver ions into metallic nanoparticles, potentially affecting both plant health and the movement of metals in the environment. Silver is widely used in electronics, medicine, and antimicrobial products, which leads to the release of silver ions into soils and waterways. These ions are highly reactive and can pose risks to living organisms. In contrast, silver nanoparticles are more stable and less toxic. ...

Electronic waste is piling up around the world at a rate that far outpaces recycling efforts, partly because it’s so costly and time-consuming to recover useful materials from discarded gadgets. When processed improperly, spent electronics can expose workers and the environment to lead, mercury and other toxic chemicals. Without systemic changes, our global appetite for electronics could produce an annual 60 million tons of electronic waste by 2030. This conundrum inspired a team at the University ...

Prominent research studies have suggested that our planet is currently experiencing another mass extinction, based on extrapolating extinctions from the past 500 years into the future and the idea that extinction rates are rapidly accelerating. A new study by Kristen Saban and John Wiens with the University of Arizona Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, however, revealed that over the last 500 years extinctions in plants, arthropods and land vertebrates peaked about 100 years ago and have declined since then. Furthermore, the researchers found that the past extinctions underlying these ...

The discovery of a tiny foot bone millions of years old reveals Aotearoa New Zealand was once home to a songbird species with potentially unique courtship behaviours, new research shows. These days bowerbirds are only found in Australia and New Guinea but an international collaboration by the University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and the University of Cambridge shows they may have resided in Aotearoa 14-19 million years ago. The foot bone that was found in the St Bathans, Central Otago, fossil deposits bore a close similarity to bowerbirds, though belonged to a bird that was much smaller than living species. Co-author Associate ...

Scientists at ARUP Laboratories have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool that detects intestinal parasites in stool samples more quickly and accurately than traditional methods, potentially transforming how labs diagnose parasitic infections around the world. Identifying parasites under the microscope has long been a painstaking task requiring highly trained experts to manually scour each sample for telltale cysts, eggs or larva. Now, a deep-learning model, known as a convolutional neural network (CNN), achieves that work with a high degree ...

On Wednesday, October 29 at 14:00 (Beijing Time), environmental engineering expert Prof. Salah Jellali from Sultan Qaboos University, Oman, will present his pioneering work on nutrient-enriched biochar — a sustainable solution that transforms agricultural residues and industrial byproducts into powerful, slow-release eco-fertilizers. Unlike conventional biochar, which lacks essential nutrients, Prof. Jellali’s innovation leverages nutrient-rich wastewater and mineral waste streams to “supercharge” biochar, creating a high-performance soil enhancer that improves crop yields while closing ...

Restricted sugar intake during early life is linked to lower risks of several heart conditions in adulthood, including heart attack, heart failure, and stroke, finds a study published by The BMJ today using data from the end of UK sugar rationing in 1953.   The greatest protection against the risk of developing heart problems - and the longest delay in disease onset - was seen in people whose sugar intake was restricted from conception (“in utero”) to around 2 years of age.   Evidence ...