OKLAHOMA CITY – For the millions of people living with lupus – a chronic autoimmune disease that can damage the kidneys, brain and other vital organs – treatment options remain limited and often come with serious side effects. A $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health will allow a University of Oklahoma researcher to continue investigating a protein that may help explain why the disease develops and how it might be treated more precisely. Carol Webb, Ph.D., a professor at the OU College of Medicine, has spent her career studying the protein ARID3a. Her research has shown that people with lupus ...

A new study published in Biochar presents a practical and regulation-compliant design for producing biochar on farms that could dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture while permanently removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Agriculture contributes around 12 percent of the United Kingdom’s total greenhouse gas emissions, with manure management alone responsible for nearly 10 percent of the sector’s emissions. At the same time, large volumes of crop residues such as straw are often underutilized, creating missed opportunities for climate mitigation. Researchers from the University ...

A new scientific review reveals how residues from traditional Chinese medicine production can be transformed into high performance biochar materials capable of removing toxic pollutants from water and soil. The work highlights a promising pathway to convert large volumes of herbal waste into valuable environmental solutions. As the traditional Chinese medicine industry continues to expand, so does the generation of herbal residues. These materials are typically discarded through landfilling, stacking, or incineration, creating environmental burdens and wasting potentially useful resources. At the same ...

Researchers have developed a novel engineered biochar that can simultaneously immobilize arsenic and cadmium in contaminated water and agricultural soils, offering a promising new strategy for addressing two of the world’s most dangerous toxic elements. The study, recently published in Agricultural Ecology and Environment, introduces a sulfur-ferrihydrite-modified biochar designed to tackle the complex challenge of co-contamination by arsenic and cadmium. These pollutants frequently occur together in agricultural regions impacted by mining, industrial emissions, and long-term fertilizer use, posing serious ...

Cleveland & New York – March 3, 2026 – Newly published research by Cleveland Clinic and Dyania Health demonstrates how a medically trained large language model system can accurately and efficiently screen electronic medical records (EMRs) to identify patients who are eligible for a rare disease clinical trial. Published in The Journal of Cardiac Failure, the official journal of the Heart Failure Society of America, the study offers real-world evidence that artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled medical chart review can improve the speed, accuracy and equity of trial enrollment. The ...

NEW YORK, March 3, 2026 — A new scientific study led by paleontologist Stephen Chester, an Anthropology professor at the CUNY Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, is shedding fresh light on how the earliest known primate relatives evolved and spread across North America after the extinction of the dinosaurs. The research—published as the cover article in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology—was conducted in collaboration with scientists from the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. It focuses on Purgatorius, a small, tree-dwelling mammal that lived about 66 million years ago and is considered the earliest known relative of all primates, ...

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — For years, treating gum disease has meant scraping away plaque, cutting out damaged tissue or turning to antibiotics that kill bacteria indiscriminately. While newer therapies can regenerate lost tissue, doctors still lack a precise way to stop the infection without harming the mouth’s healthy microbiome. New research from the University of Florida College of Dentistry offers a breakthrough. Researchers have discovered that the primary bacterium driving gum disease carries an internal “genetic brake” that controls its ...

If Canadian jurisdictions mandated warning labels on alcohol and minimum pricing tied to the number of standard drinks in a container, it could prevent hundreds of cancer diagnoses and deaths, according to a new study led by University of Victoria’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (CISUR). The research, published in Lancet Public Health, set out to see how different alcohol policy scenarios could potentially reduce the number of alcohol-related cancers in Canada. The researchers looked at five scenarios: two involving setting price minimums tied to standard drinks in a container — also known as minimum unit pricing—with prices set at $1.75 and $2.00 per ...

Highlights: A preliminary study has found higher levels of air pollution in New Jersey from the 2023 Canadian wildfires were associated with a higher rate of stroke and more severe strokes. During heavy wildfire smoke days, researchers found more people had strokes and those strokes tended to be more severe. The study does not prove that wildfires cause or worsen stroke. It only shows an association. Exposure to higher levels of ozone was associated with a higher incidence of stroke and more bleeding strokes. Exposure to higher levels of particulate matter ...

Understanding how cells are organized and how their molecular components interact in a coordinated and cooperative manner is a central goal of modern life sciences. To answer these questions, researchers need to observe many structures inside the same cell at once and map how they are arranged and interact. This requires “multiplexed super-resolution microscopy” – an advanced imaging approach that reveals cellular details far beyond the limits of conventional light microscopes. However, existing methods are often technically demanding, difficult to reproduce, and not well suited for fragile biological ...

Dr. John Apolzan, director of the Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism Laboratory at Pennington Biomedical Research Center, published an editorial on the importance of fruit intake to vascular health in the Journal of the American Heart Association, a leading peer-reviewed publication focused on cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health research. The editorial, “Fruit-Rich Dietary Pattern Improves Endothelial Function: Implications for Food Is Medicine,” is a commentary on the study “Effects of Increasing Total Fruit Intake With Avocado and Mango on Endothelial ...

SAN FRANCISCO—For people living with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), life-saving antiretroviral therapy keeps their HIV-infected immune cells from making new copies of the virus, preventing illness and transmission. Historically, these infected cells have been known as the “latent” HIV reservoir—implying that the HIV within the infected cells is completely inactive. “But notion that the entirety of the HIV reservoir is latent is actually a misleading description, because some reservoir cells can still be quite active,” says Nadia Roan, PhD, senior investigator at Gladstone ...

Could the deepest parts of the brain hold some of the secrets of sleep that still remain elusive to science? A team from Hackensack Meridian Health and its Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI) have produced a new in-depth study penetrating into the brain, finding that during the deepest sleep, breathing patterns and brain activity become more independent from one another - unlike lighter sleep or quiet wakefulness. The study was published in The Journal of Neuroscience in January, with the team led by CDI author Bon-Mi Gu, Ph.D., also of the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine. The research team includes Kolsoum ...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Cornell researchers have used high-resolution 3D imaging to detect, for the first time, the atomic-scale defects in computer chips that can sabotage their performance.  The imaging method, which was the result of a collaboration with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Advanced Semiconductor Materials (ASM), could touch almost every form of modern electronics, from phones and automobiles to AI data centers and quantum computing. The research published Feb. 23 in Nature Communications. The lead author is doctoral ...

NEW ORLEANS - Ochsner Children’s is proud to announce that chief executive officer, Dana Bledsoe, has joined the Board of Directors for Make-A-Wish Texas Gulf Coast and Louisiana. This appointment marks a significant step in the ongoing partnership between the two organizations, reinforcing a shared commitment to bringing hope, joy and strength to children battling critical illnesses across the region.  Strengthening partnerships to support our children  Since formally ...

Isaiah Kletenik, MD, and Julian Kutsche, of the Center for Brain Circuit Therapeutics within the Mass General Brigham Neuroscience Institute, are the senior and lead authors of a paper published in Cortex, “Lesions Causing Aphantasia are Connected to the Fusiform Imagery Node.”   Q: What challenges or unmet needs make this study important? Visual imagination, or “seeing in the mind’s eye,” is a unique function that allows people to relive past events, solve problems and envision the future. However, ...

Using AI to identify wildlife reveals a potential “transferability crisis”, researchers say.  Marketing for AI imaging systems often suggests that models can easily tackle novel scenarios across ecosystems and settings, much in the same way as human observers.  But in a new article, two University of Exeter researchers argue that this is based on a “flawed assumption”.  They ...

A prolonged drought in southeastern Connecticut reduced the stability of microorganisms responsible for a critical step in the nitrogen cycle in a coastal salt marsh, according to research led by a Connecticut College scientist and published in Estuaries and Coasts. The study was led by Anne Bernhard, professor of biology at Connecticut College. Bernhard and her co-author analyzed microbial communities in a salt marsh at the Barn Island Wildlife Management Area in Stonington, Connecticut, from 2006 to 2019. The period included a severe regional drought from 2013 to 2018. Researchers measured the abundance of microbial ...

Fuel cells are electrochemical devices that directly convert chemical energy from a fuel into electrical energy. Unlike batteries, which only store electricity, fuel cells can continuously generate electricity as long as both fuel and air are supplied. A variety of fuels are being considered for such fuel cells, but the exact chemistries of their electricity-releasing reactions are complicated and not entirely understood. Gaps in this knowledge are some of the most critical barriers to deploying fuel-flexible clean energy technologies. For example, fuel cells that use solid oxides are susceptible to “sulfur poisoning,” where trace impurities of that element quickly ...

One of the big mysteries in food allergy is why two people with similar levels of peanut specific antibodies can react so differently. It turns out the answer may be in the mouth and gut’s bacteria. A new study, led by researchers at McMaster University and published online in Cell Host & Microbe on March 3, 2026, shows for the first time how gut bacteria break down parts of an allergenic food and influence how a person reacts to peanuts. Peanut allergies are amongst the most common food allergies in Canada, ...

A team led by researchers at the University of Toronto has found an association between ultra-processed foods in early childhood, and behavioural and emotional development.  Specifically, the team found that higher ultra-processed food consumption is linked to behavioural and emotional difficulties including anxiety, fearfulness, aggression or hyperactivity. “The preschool years are critical for child development, and it’s also when children begin to establish dietary habits,” ...

When a new species is discovered, it’s tempting to imagine an adventure novel, said Chan Kin Onn of Michigan State University. “Most people have this image of an intrepid explorer braving an isolated mountain or some other remote place, and stumbling across a creature that no one has ever seen before,” Chan said. Sure, that still happens occasionally. “But most of the time it’s far less glamorous,” he added. Instead, the vast majority of new vertebrate species are “discovered” by revisiting known ...

Dr. Ekta Khurana, an associate professor of systems and computational biomedicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, has received a two-year, $1 million Challenge Award from the Prostate Cancer Foundation to work with researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on an AI-based method for early detection of treatment-resistant prostate tumor subtypes. Prostate Cancer Foundation Challenge Awards support cross-disciplinary teams of investigators to conduct bold research that might not receive funding otherwise. Dr. Khurana will be working with Dr. Iman Hajirasouliha, associate professor of systems biology and computational biomedicine at Weill ...

In an elderly-care themed skit during the 2026 Spring Festival Gala (Chunwan), a lifelike android was modeled on actress CAI Ming. Why are humanoid robots becoming so lifelike and indistinguishable from real humans? One key technology enabling virtual humans to express vivid emotions, recognize identities, and demonstrate embodied intelligence is three-dimensional (3D) facial keypoint detection. However, due to the lack of large-scale, accurately annotated 3D facial datasets, most current 3D facial ...

SAN ANTONIO — March 3, 2026 — To meet increasing demands for carbon capture and storage (CCS) services, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has completed updates to its subsurface safety valve (SSSV) facilities to accommodate testing for CCS applications. CCS mitigates carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by capturing CO2 from industrial or energy-related sources and transporting and storing the greenhouse gas safely underground to prevent release into the atmosphere. SSSVs are used in traditional oil and gas operations to serve ...