Research announcements from universities, hospitals and scientific institutions. Explore the stories, people and discoveries behind the headlines.
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Black and Hispanic older adults showed higher tau levels in memory-related brain regions than white participants - even before amyloid plaque buildup. But the link between these proteins and memory decline varied across groups, suggesting Alzheimer's biomarkers may not apply equally to everyone.
Read the releasePlants build leaves, stems, and flowers using strikingly similar developmental programs, yet shared regulatory DNA has been nearly impossible to find. A new computational tool called Conservatory reveals that core genetic instructions have persisted for 300 million years, hidden by constant genome reshuffling.
Read the releaseMice fed a high-fat Western-style diet developed gut permeability that allowed live bacteria to travel through the vagus nerve into the brain - without entering the bloodstream. Similar low-level bacterial loads appeared in mouse models of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.
Read the releaseAmong 288,000 teens and young adults with both ADHD and substance use disorder, those receiving ADHD medication had fewer hospitalizations, overdoses, and suicidal thoughts, with a 30% lower five-year mortality risk. Yet stimulant prescriptions dropped 15-17% after a substance use diagnosis.
Read the releaseContrary to longstanding assumption, ravens don't follow wolves to food. GPS tracking across Yellowstone shows the birds use spatial memory to revisit high-kill-density areas, flying over 150 km on direct paths to landscapes where wolves frequently hunt.
Read the releaseA 2.5-year GPS study in Yellowstone found ravens rarely follow wolves over long distances. Instead, they rely on spatial memory, returning to areas with historically high kill density from distances exceeding 150 kilometers.
Read the releaseBy recording nearly every movement of African turquoise killifish across their entire lives, researchers built a machine learning model that estimates age and predicts lifespan from daily activity patterns alone - with long-lived fish showing distinct behaviors from just weeks old.
Read the releaseDirect mechanical testing of lithium dendrites shows they fracture at tensile strengths exceeding 150 MPa - roughly 250 times stronger than bulk lithium at 0.6 MPa. A thin solid electrolyte interphase coating transforms soft lithium into rigid, brittle needles.
Read the releasePostmortem brain mapping of harbor seals, elephant seals, California sea lions, and coyotes revealed that pinnipeds possess direct cortex-to-brainstem vocal pathways absent in non-vocal-learning relatives - with harbor seals showing the strongest neural features for vocal flexibility.
Read the releaseContinuous behavioral tracking of 81 African killifish across their entire lifespans revealed that aging progresses through sudden transitions between stable stages, not as gradual decline. By midlife, movement and sleep patterns could predict how long an individual would live.
Read the releaseResearchers tracked scarlet monkeyflower populations for over a decade through California's extreme 2012-2016 drought. Populations with the most climate-associated genetic variation evolved fastest and recovered - the first full documentation of evolutionary rescue in the wild.
Read the releaseResearchers at UCSF discovered that the SRC enzyme, long thought to exist only inside cells, appears on the surface of bladder, colorectal, breast, and pancreatic tumor cells. Antibody therapies targeting surface SRC shrank tumors in mice.
Read the releaseIn mouse models, targeting microscopic precancerous pancreatic lesions with experimental KRAS inhibitors nearly doubled survival compared with treating established tumors - the first proof-of-concept for medical cancer interception in the pancreas.
Read the releaseUsing a new whole-embryo imaging method, University of Basel researchers created a comprehensive atlas linking the activity of thousands of genes to cell movement and maturation throughout zebrafish embryogenesis - now freely available online.
Read the releaseSpanish researchers found that microglia - the brain's immune cells - regulate fertility through the RANK protein. Removing RANK in animal models blocked puberty and caused infertility, and mutations in the RANK gene were identified in patients with a rare infertility syndrome.
Read the releaseScientists have measured the mechanical properties of lithium dendrites for the first time, discovering these battery-killing structures are strong and brittle - fracturing at tensile strengths exceeding 150 megapascals, roughly 250 times stronger than bulk lithium.
Read the releaseA University of Helsinki study found that treated wood surfaces support fewer bacteria with less species diversity than untreated wood, suggesting that surface treatment choices in construction could influence indoor microbial communities and hygiene.
Read the releaseSt. Jude Children's Research Hospital has created a Department of Genomic and Translational Neuroscience focused on rare and catastrophic pediatric neurological disorders, recruiting Carsten Bonnemann from the NIH to serve as its founding chair.
Read the releaseAnalyzing 19,395 senior employees at 772 Canadian firms over two decades, researchers found that women who reach director positions rely on more diverse networks - especially connections to other female leaders - than men, who advance primarily through current employment ties.
Read the releaseA randomized trial of 1,747 COVID-19 patients found that high-dose vitamin D3 did not reduce infection severity or hospitalizations. But among adherent participants, 21% reported persistent symptoms at eight weeks versus 25% on placebo - a borderline finding.
Read the releaseA randomized trial of 194 cervical cancer survivors found that a personalized counseling program called MAPS doubled 12-month quit rates (26.5% vs 12.5%) at a cost of $921 per additional quitter - but the advantage faded six months after counseling ended.
Read the releaseA cohort study published in JAMA Network Open found that exposure to adverse childhood experiences was associated with increased risk of treatment-resistant depression, even after accounting for shared familial factors through sibling comparisons.
Read the releaseA JAMA study estimates the increase in 12-month psilocybin use in Oregon and Colorado following state-level decriminalization, providing the first population-level data on how policy changes affected psychedelic use patterns.
Read the releaseA UC Davis analysis of Google search behavior and surgeon distribution across 210 U.S. markets found cosmetic procedure demand rose 22% post-pandemic, with the fastest growth in the Midwest - regions often lacking board-certified plastic surgeons.
Read the releasePersonalized feedback can double weight loss in behavioral programs, but it takes clinicians 26 minutes per person per week to write. A new NIH-funded study will develop a hybrid human-automated system to make that feedback available at scale.
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