There’s an urgent need to quantify the role of fungal toxins (aflatoxins), found on agricultural crops, such as maize and peanuts (groundnuts), in the escalating rates of liver cancer in Ghana, as well as elsewhere in Africa and Asia, concludes a commentary published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health. Maize and peanuts are dietary staples in many Asian and African countries. And with one of the highest rates of liver cancer in Africa, at 16/100,000 of the population. Ghana represents a critical case study in furthering international ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- For many patients with schizophrenia, other psychiatric illnesses, or diseases such as hypertension and asthma, it can be difficult to take their medicine every day. To help overcome that challenge, MIT researchers have developed a pill that can be taken just once a week and gradually releases medication from within the stomach. In a phase 3 clinical trial conducted by MIT spinout Lyndra Therapeutics, the researchers used the once-a-week pill to deliver a widely used medication for managing the symptoms of schizophrenia. They found that this treatment regimen maintained consistent levels of the drug in patients’ ...

Smartphone apps that track menstrual cycles are a “gold mine” for consumer profiling, collecting information on everything from exercise, diet and medication to sexual preferences, hormone levels and contraception use, according to a University of Cambridge report. A report from Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy argues that the financial worth of this data is “vastly underestimated” by users who supply profit-driven companies with highly intimate details in a market lacking in regulation. The report’s authors caution that cycle tracking app (CTA) ...

Memory problems have long been considered the primary hallmark of dementia, but a team of researchers is now challenging this view. They argue that changes in sensory perception – from vision to balance – may be equally important indicators that many healthcare providers are currently missing. According to experts, current approaches to the care and support of people with dementia need an overhaul, relying too heavily on the assessment of memory functions, when the condition also impairs taste, touch, balance, hearing, or vision. Professor Andrea Tales, Professor of Dementia ...

An intensive low-energy diet programme, similar to the NHS Type 2 Diabetes Path to Remission, significantly improved eating disorder symptoms in people with type 2 diabetes and excess weight who were at risk of developing eating disorders, according to a University of Oxford study published today in The Lancet Psychiatry. Participants enrolled in a total diet replacement (TDR) programme experienced significant improvements in eating disorder symptoms which persisted six months after the programme finished when participants had regained some weight. This directly addresses a research gap highlighted by recent National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance on the use of ...

Whether it’s a personal challenge, for charity, or on your bucket list, marathons are one of the most sought-after goals for amateur and recreational runners worldwide.   Now, a world-first study from the University of South Australia and the University of North Dakota suggests that a person’s marathon potential may be identified through a simple check of their hands.   In a meta-analysis of 22 studies (representing 5293 participants and 12 countries) researchers found that a lower digit ratio – when a person’s ring finger is longer than their index finger – is a biomarker of cardiorespiratory fitness, ...

SAN ANTONIO — June 10, 2025 — Southwest Research Institute’s Dr. Craig DeForest discussed the latest accomplishments of NASA’s PUNCH (Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere) mission during a media event at the 246th American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska. As the spacecraft constellation completes commissioning, early PUNCH data showed coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, as they erupted from the Sun and traveled across the inner solar system. “These preliminary movies show that PUNCH can actually track space weather across ...

In brief: Climate behavior gap: Most Americans overrate the climate impact of actions like recycling and underrate high-impact choices like skipping long flights or eating less meat, a new study finds. Spillover risk: Interventions that focus only on personal behavior can reduce willingness to engage in collective climate action, such as voting or protesting. What works: Active learning boosts climate literacy and commitment to impactful lifestyle changes – but must be paired with strategies that also support collective action. Many Americans misjudge which personal behaviors have the biggest impact ...

California’s Central Valley — one of the nation's most critical agricultural regions and home to over 1.3 million people — is prone to flooding. Mapping the extent of winter floods has been challenging for experts, however, because clouds can obscure the view of satellites. Recent efforts to improve satellite flood mapping have been incorporated into a new study that offers insight into where winter flooding is occurring and inform how floodwaters can be used to replenish depleted aquifers.  The research, published June 4 in ...

Rice University student engineers have earned top international honors for a novel device that could redefine how humans interact with virtual environments. Their project, a wearable haptic wristband, claimed first place in the IEEE Circuits and Systems Society (CASS) Student Design Competition held in London May 27. The team, known as WRIST (short for Wearable Radial Interface for Sensory hapTic feedback),includes students from mechanical engineering and electrical and computer engineering. Their winning ...

A new study from Emory University addresses the growing global crisis of antibiotic-resistant infections. Many of these drug-resistant bacteria are spread through hospitals, and there are few antibiotics available for treatment. The study, published in PNAS, looks at a particular bacterium called Acinetobacter baumannii, which is highly infectious, spread mostly in hospitals and typically infects immunocompromised patients. The researchers employed an entirely new strategy to identify weaknesses specific to resistant bacteria and then target these weaknesses with an alternate drug. They found that fendiline, a drug that acts as a calcium channel blocker and ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — How educators acquire and implement learnings from their students can play a critical role in environmental education, according to a new study from researchers in the Penn State Department of Recreation, Park, and Tourism Management. The researchers found a role reversal between teachers and students, as environmental educators reported improvement in teaching and leadership skills after learning from the existing knowledge and experiences of students in an environmental education program, demonstrating ...

Among the billions of neurons in the brain, fewer than 500 are responsible for suppressing binge drinking, according to new research by Gilles E. Martin, PhD, associate professor of neurobiology. Published in Nature Neuroscience, these findings provide insights into binge drinking behavior and alcohol dependency that may lead to new therapeutic targets. “It’s really hard to comprehend how only a few neurons can have such a profound effect on behavior,” said Dr Martin, a member of the Brudnick Neuropsychiatric Research Institute at UMass Chan. “This is exciting because we are starting to understand how only a handful of cells are involved in very specific behaviors. ...

Pigs have long been known, sometimes celebrated, as among the most intelligent of farm animals. Now, a new Dartmouth-led study provides evidence that pigs were first domesticated from wild boars in South China approximately 8,000 years ago. China has long been considered one of the locations for original pig domestication but tracking the initial process has always been challenging. The study is the first to find that pigs were eating humans' cooked foods and waste. The results are reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy ...

About The Study: Findings from this cohort study suggest that severe neonatal morbidity may be a significant risk factor for childhood mortality. Efforts to prevent severe neonatal morbidity, as well as early identification and long-term follow-up care, may help further reduce mortality.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Hillary Graham, MS, email hillary.graham@ki.se. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2025.1873) Editor’s Note: Please ...

Infants who survive serious health problems in the first few weeks of life have a higher risk of dying during childhood and adolescence compared to children who were healthy as newborns. This is according to a new study from Karolinska Institutet published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. The study covers over two million babies born in Sweden between 2002 and 2021, about 49,000 (2.4 per cent) of whom had serious health problems in the neonatal period, such as respiratory problems, neurological disorders or severe infections, but survived the first four weeks ...

The three recipients were recognized for their instrumental roles in developing the perovskite solar cell and for taking key steps toward its practical application. This year’s selection focused on the field of environmental and energy materials, with the aim of honoring exceptional achievements pertaining to “energy-related materials and technologies that pave the way toward a sustainable society”. In addition to pioneering the research field of perovskite solar cells, the awardees were responsible for incorporating a critical element, the solid-state hole transport layer, which led to a dramatic improvement of the cell’s stability and ...

Methane emissions from Canada’s non-producing oil and gas wells appear to be seven times higher than government estimates, according to a new study led by researchers at McGill University. The findings spotlight a major gap in the country’s official greenhouse gas inventory and raise urgent questions about how methane leaks are monitored, reported and managed. “Non-producing wells are one of the most uncertain sources of methane emissions in Canada,” said Mary Kang, Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at McGill ...

Traditional Amazonian communities will be using artificial intelligence to help scientists monitor biodiversity in the world’s largest tropical rainforest. The scientists are developing an AI-driven digital toolkit to enable traditional Amazonian communities to monitor and maintain socio-biodiversity in the Amazon region, as well as facilitate their engagement with the bioeconomy. The University of Leicester’s School of Geography, Geology and the Environment and Institute of Environmental Futures have launched a major new research initiative aimed at tackling the growing social-biodiversity and climate challenges facing the Amazon rainforest. Social ...

DARIEN, IL – A new study to be presented at the SLEEP 2025 annual meeting found that teens who get moderate — but not excessive — catch-up sleep on weekends have fewer symptoms of anxiety. Results show that teens who got up to two more hours of sleep on weekends than on weekdays exhibited fewer anxiety symptoms compared with those who did not sleep longer on weekends. However, longer durations of catch-up sleep on weekends were associated with slightly more internalizing symptoms. “The results show that both sleeping less on weekends than weekdays and sleeping substantially more on weekends were associated with ...

Deep within our nerve cells, a molecule is at work that has no beginning and no end. Instead of a straight chain, as is it common for most RNA strands, it forms a closed loop. Known as circular RNAs (circRNAs), these molecules are crucial for development, thought, and synaptic function, yet their high prevalence in neurons has long been a scientific mystery. How does the brain produce so many of them? Now, Max Planck researchers from Freiburg have discovered a crucial mechanism that explains the remarkable abundance of circRNAs in the nervous system. The study reveals that the protein ELAV ...

1. Research Background Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a highly prevalent metabolic disorder worldwide. Beyond glucose dysregulation, it exerts significant effects on the central nervous system. Epidemiological and neuroimaging evidence indicates that individuals with T2DM are at substantially increased risk of cognitive decline and dementia, which is closely linked to degenerative changes in brain structure—particularly within subcortical regions such as the hippocampus, amygdala, caudate, and thalamus. These regions play ...

(Toronto, June 10, 2025) JMIR Publications celebrates its remarkable success in the latest Scopus CiteScore rankings. Providing a current view of journal impact, CiteScore uses Scopus data spanning 2021 to 2024. A total of 26 JMIR Publications’ journals have been awarded a CiteScore this year, demonstrating the exceptional research quality across its portfolio. This accomplishment reinforces the organization’s dedication to progressing the digital health domain. A Closer Look at the CiteScore Results:  First quartile performance: 12 journals ranked within the first quartile (Q1) in their fields, of which 6 journals ranked ...

CAR-T cells are specialized immune cells genetically modified to recognize and attack cancer cells. Researchers at Nagoya University in Japan and their collaborators have developed new CAR-T cells to target malignant tumors. While similar treatments have worked well for blood cancers, treating solid tumors is more difficult. Their method, published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, targeted a protein found in high amounts on many types of cancer cells (Eva1), and successfully eliminated tumors in lab mice. CAR-T ...

The International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR) Embryo Models Working Group has released updated recommendations for the oversight and regulation of stem cell-based embryo models (SCBEM), aiming to address rapid advancements and ensure responsible scientific progress. The proposed recommendations are detailed in a new paper published today in Stem Cell Reports. SCBEMs are three dimensional structures that replicate key aspects of early embryonic development, offering unprecedented potential ...