LA JOLLA (March 11, 2026)—Neurodegenerative diseases affect more than 57 million people globally. The incidence of these diseases, from Alzheimer’s to Parkinson’s to ALS and beyond, is expected to double every 20 years. Though scientists know aging is a major risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases, the full mechanisms behind aging’s impact remain unclear. One major mechanistic influence on aging is epigenetic change: the way small chemical tags on top of our base genetic code shift over time to alter gene ...

PHILADELPHIA— The global ocean faces major threats—from illegal fishing to vanishing coastal habitats to plastic pollution. Now, a new cohort of scientists will work to bridge the knowledge gaps hindering effective ocean protections. The Pew Charitable Trusts announced today that seven fellows—based in Australia, the United States, Canada, Japan, and Thailand—will receive $150,000 grants over three years to pursue conservation-focused research aimed at strengthening ocean health and the communities that depend on it. Their work includes tracing illegal and unreported fisheries with advanced genetic techniques, improving reef restoration in Southeast Asia, ...

A new study led by Pierre Close’s team (GIGA, Laboratory of Cancer Signaling, and WELRI Investigator) reveals how subtly disrupting the way tumors produce their proteins can trigger a potent antitumor immune response.   Researchers from the University of Liège and international collaborators have discovered an unexpected way to to stimulate the immune system against cancer: by subtly disrupting how tumour cells manufacture their proteins. The study, recently accepted for publication in Nature Communications, reveals that cancer cells rely on a highly precise protein-production system to remain to evade immune attack. When this system is perturbed, tumours can suddenly become ...

Volume 22, Issue 2 of Current Pharmaceutical Analysis has been published online. The issue includes full-length research articles, review papers, and a correspondence, covering topics such as advanced analytical characterization, drug formulation analysis, and emerging trends in pharmaceutical science. All articles in this issue are published as open access and can be freely viewed and downloaded on ScienceDirect. For complete content, visit: https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/current-pharmaceutical-analysis/vol/22/issue/2 END ...

Fukuoka, Japan—Kyushu University researchers have directly observed, for the first time, how individual polymers—chain-like molecules—behave when in contact with solid surfaces. Published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society on March 11, 2026, and selected to be featured as an ACS Editors' Choice, the study reveals a previously unseen behavior in which molecules repeatedly stick to and release from the surface. The findings may contribute to enhancing the performance of adhesives for joining different materials. About 30% of global energy consumption is linked to transportation. One promising strategy to reduce this is by making vehicles lighter, ...

DURHAM, N.C. – Children born with single‑ventricle heart disease, a rare and serious heart defect, often undergo multiple surgeries in their first years of life. A new study shows the challenges for these children can last well into adolescence and sometimes throughout their lives. Researchers from Duke Health and the Pediatric Heart Network followed 549 children with single ventricle heart disease for 16 years and found that 87% either died or developed a major health problem over time. Only 12% reached adolescence without a significant ...

The disposable vapes ban in the UK could lead to young adults switching to alternative products, including cigarettes, new research led by the University of Bristol has found.  In response to rising concerns about youth vaping, the UK Government introduced a ban on disposable vapes last year (from 1 June 2025). While the ban was intended to curb underage use, its possible impact on around the 2.5 million adults in the UK who rely on disposable vapes is unclear. The new qualitative research, published in PLOS Global Public Health today [11 ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE According to a recent multi-institute PLOS One study led by the Multisensory Research Lab at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins Medicine, time of hearing loss onset is a key determinant of patient confidence and self-reported sound localization abilities — the ability to perceive and locate objects in an environment — even in individuals who use hearing aids or who have received vision rehabilitation training.  The National Institutes of Health-supported study highlights factors that shape how people with dual sensory ...

Key Takeaways While women living in rural regions are known to face a higher risk of advanced breast cancer, a new analysis found that even within rural America, outcomes differ sharply based on region and other factors. Women living in the South, Black and Hispanic women, and women without insurance are significantly more likely to be diagnosed with Stage 3 or 4 breast cancer. Region-specific solutions, including rural surgeon training and targeted health policies, may help reduce disparities. CHICAGO — Where a woman lives significantly affects whether ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Wavelogix, a manufacturer of novel, patented concrete strength sensors invented at Purdue University’s College of Engineering, has received a $500,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase IIB grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships. The grant builds upon an SBIR Phase II grant awarded in 2024. The Phase IIB project is scheduled to end in December 2026. Luna Lu, Wavelogix’s ...

Californians have long dealt with wildfire smoke as a seasonal fact of life, but those fires have become more intense and frequent, raising the profile of wildfire smoke as a public health issue. Now, a study led by researchers at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography finds that the time between multi-day smoke events is shrinking — leaving communities with less time to recover before smoke returns.  The new study, published March 11 in the journal GeoHealth, found that in California the window of cleaner air between smoke waves shrank by more than 60% from 2006 to 2020. The study also finds that ...

Employment can be a powerful gateway to independence, dignity and belonging. Yet for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), that gateway remains limited. Although work supports better health, social connection and a sense of purpose, only about 15% of individuals with IDD are employed in competitive, integrated work settings. This disparity persists despite federal programs like supported employment, which offers ongoing job coaching to help people with significant disabilities find and keep competitive jobs, and customized employment, which adapts job roles to match the strengths and needs of both employees and employers. This highlights a critical gap ...

Medical debt is associated with deferred dental care, medical care, and mental health care, even among people with health insurance, according to a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The study found that 42.3% of people with medical debt delayed dental care compared with 17.7% of those without—almost 2.4 times as many; 23.0% of people with medical debt delayed medical care compared with just 5.3% of those without—about 4.3 times as many; and 14% of people with medical ...

The American Association of Immunologists (AAI) is pleased to announce the appointment of Anand Balasubramani, PhD, as its inaugural Chief Scientific Programs Officer (CSPO), effective March 25, 2026. This newly established executive role reflects AAI’s commitment to strengthening its scientific programming, expanding its thought leadership, and supporting the rapidly evolving field of immunology. Dr. Balasubramani brings more than a decade of leadership experience in scientific publishing, program development, and ...

Prior authorization, a process that requires physicians to obtain approval from health care insurers before certain treatments are covered, may keep patients from filling prescriptions for two critical heart failure drugs, a new study shows.  Led by NYU Langone Health researchers, the analysis focused on angiotensin receptor-neprilysin inhibitors (ARNIs) and sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 (SGLT2) inhibitors, which are pillars of modern heart failure treatment. The drugs have no generic alternatives and can cost hundreds of dollars out of pocket. While they have been shown to substantially reduce the risk of death when added to standard therapy, ...

Three principles - transparency, credit, and accountability – should form the foundation for “responsible authorship”, argues a working group comprising scholars, scientists and journal editors. In an article published March 10 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the group, led by PLOS’ Chief Scientific Officer Veronique Kiermer, states that contributions worthy of authorship should be determined by who has accountability for the research, and that all who claim the credit implied by authorship must assume that accountability. Who ...

Managing complex medical conditions often requires the simultaneous use of multiple different drugs, referred to as polypharmacy. While necessary, this significantly increases the risk of drug–drug interactions (DDIs), which can either enhance or decrease therapeutic effects or trigger adverse drug reactions (ADRs), potentially leading to longer hospital stays or even life-threatening outcomes. In recent years, researchers have increasingly turned to deep learning models to predict DDIs. Although these models often outperform traditional methods, they are usually tested under idealized conditions, in which training and test data are randomly split, failing to reflect real-world ...

Cerebral blood flow is essential for normal brain function and often perturbed in neurological disease. If one shines a source of coherent light on perfused tissue, the detected speckles, or “grains” of light fluctuate, or “dance”, at a rate proportional to blood flow in the volume  sampled by the light. In brain tissue, this concept can be harnessed to measure the cerebral blood flow index (CBFi). However, to date, implementations of this principle for noninvasive adult human brain monitoring—collectively known as diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS)—have achieved limited brain sensitivity. This is because the brain is 1–2 ...

Ultrashort mid-infrared (mid-IR) laser pulses are essential for applications such as molecular spectroscopy, nonlinear microscopy, and biomedical imaging, but their generation often relies on complex and power-intensive systems that are difficult to implement outside of specialized laboratories. These systems usually require high pump powers, elaborate optical setups, and precise alignment, which can limit their widespread adoption and practical use in everyday research and clinical settings. In a paper made available online on 28 November 2025 and published in Volume 62, Issue 1 of the IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics on 01 February 2026, ...

A collaborative research team led by Professor Kaori Sakurai at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology, together with Associate Professor Hiroaki Itoh and Professor Masayuki Inoue at Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, the University of Tokyo, has uncovered a previously unknown mechanism of action of yaku’amide B, a structurally complex peptidic natural product derived from deep-sea sponge found in the waters near Yakushima Island, Japan. Natural products often exhibit multifaceted biological activities due to their structural complexity, interacting transiently with multiple biomolecules. Yaku’amide B ...

Antibiotic treatments can affect the composition of the community of bacteria living in the gut, known as the gut microbiome, for a long time. A new study shows that certain types of antibiotics can be linked to changes in the gut microbiome as long as four to eight years after treatment. The findings have now been published in the scientific journal Nature Medicine. Antibiotics can be life-saving in serious infections, but epidemiological studies have also indicated links between high antibiotic use and an increased risk of certain health conditions, such as type 2 diabetes and gastrointestinal infections. The reasons for ...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The effects of spinal cord injuries are complex and multifaceted. People lose not only the ability to control the movement of their limbs, but also the ability to receive sensory feedback from them. Both are critical to generate the coordinated movement involved in walking. Now, a team of researchers from Brown University, Rhode Island Hospital, and VA Providence Healthcare has shown progress in restoring two-way communication across a damaged site of the spinal cord. In a study in Nature ...

Electron movement and structures described in quantum physics allow researchers to better understand how and why materials like superconductors behave as they do. Rice University researchers Jianwei Huang and Ming Yi have developed a new capability, magnetoARPES, building on angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) that allows researchers to study quantum behaviors they have been unable to resolve using ARPES alone.  MagnetoARPES adds a tunable magnetic field, external to the sample, to ARPES. This allows researchers to probe the full electronic response to a magnetic field, giving insights into why certain collective behaviors of electrons develop. Magnetic ...

PORTLAND, Ore. – Drug delivery researchers have vastly improved the potential of genetic therapies by overcoming the challenge of consistently getting genes and gene-editing tools where they need to be within cells. Findings of the study spearheaded by Oregon State University College of Pharmacy graduate student Antony Jozić were published today in Nature Biotechnology. When gene therapies enter a cell, they are often sent to lysosomes, the cell’s trash and recycling centers, where therapeutic genetic material is broken down ...

Mussels baked by the billions. Insect larvae cooked inside scorched cherries. Baby birds plummeted to their deaths from their overheating nests. But some species did just fine during the 2021 North American heat wave, according to a new study published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution. With such events projected to become more frequent and intense due to climate change—and 2026 on track to be the hottest year ever—understanding these differing effects is vitally important, the researchers say. “The heat wave had widespread ecological effects, including an almost 400-per-cent increase in wildfire activity and negatively affecting more than three-quarters ...