A team of engineers has made major strides in generating the tiniest earthquakes imaginable.   The team’s device, known as a surface acoustic wave phonon laser, could one day help scientists make more sophisticated versions of chips in cellphones and other wireless devices—potentially making those tools smaller, faster and more efficient.  The study was conducted by Matt Eichenfield, an incoming faculty member at the University of Colorado Boulder, and scientists from the University of Arizona and Sandia National Laboratories. The researchers ...

Artificial intelligence promises to accelerate scientific discovery and open new frontiers of inquiry. But new research from James Evans (Faculty Co-Director of Novel Intelligence; Max Palevsky Professor of Sociology & Data Science; and Director of the Knowledge Lab) and colleagues reveals how AI tools are expanding individual scientists’ capabilities but narrowing the collective scope of science. Published in Nature, the study analyzed 41.3 million research papers to find that scientists who use AI publish 3.02 times as many papers, receive 4.85 times ...

The organic light-emitting diode (OLED) technology behind flexible cell phones, curved monitors, and televisions could one day be used to make on-skin sensors that show changes in temperature, blood flow, and pressure in real time. An international collaboration, led by researchers from Seoul National University in the Republic of Korea and Drexel University, has developed a flexible and stretchable OLED that could put the technology on track for this use and a range of new applications. Recently reported in Nature, their work improves on existing technology by integrating a flexible, phosphorescent polymer layer and transparent electrodes made from MXene nanomaterial. The result is an ...

Polyamines are small molecules naturally present in all cells and are critical in guiding cellular decisions, whereas an alteration in the abundance of these metabolites is invariably observed in pathological scenarios such as cancer or ageing. Despite decades of research, the mechanisms through which polyamines control cellular decisions has remained obscure. A collaborative study recently published in the prestigious journal Nature and led by scientists in CIC bioGUNE, reports the discovery of a mechanism that reformulates our understanding about the actions of polyamines in health and disease. Using an integrated approach that combined molecular simulations, ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional nationwide study of resident physicians in high-burnout specialties, longer work hours were associated with higher stress and self-perceived competency, but not with burnout. This suggests that work hours alone may not explain high burnout levels in residency; a more comprehensive approach beyond work hour restrictions is needed to support resident well-being in training. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Sydney F. Tan, MD, email stan75@wisc.edu. To access the embargoed ...

About The Study: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, parental quality of life was lowest during the premature infant’s hospitalization. A family-centered approach, with timely and tailored support from the neonatal intensive care unit through the postdischarge period, is essential to protect and promote parental well-being. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Zubair Amin, MHPE, email paeza@nus.edu.sg. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The ...

LA JOLLA (January 14, 2025)—Dealing with an infection isn’t as straightforward as simply killing the pathogen. The body also needs to carefully steer and monitor its immune response to prevent collateral damage. This regulation, called disease tolerance, is crucial to protecting our tissues while the immune system tackles the infection head-on. To survive an infection, your body must activate a tolerance mechanism that is compatible with the specific progression of your disease. So, if your body is changing over the course of your lifetime, does that mean the specific mechanisms it uses to survive an immune onslaught change, too? Salk scientist Janelle Ayres, ...

New research involving the University of East Anglia (UEA) reveals how fast the world’s river deltas are sinking and the human-driven causes. Home to hundreds of millions of people, until now it was unclear what the rate of delta elevation loss is, or what is driving delta subsidence. In a new study published today in Nature, scientists report that land subsidence caused by humans - through the extraction of groundwater - is the main culprit. The study, led by the University of California, Irvine and involving researchers ...

EMBARGOED until 14 January 2026 at 16:00 (London time), 14 January 2026 at 11:00 (US Eastern Time) HOUSTON – (Jan. 14, 2026) – There are hundreds of cell types in the human body, each with a specific role spelled out in their DNA. In theory, all it takes for cells to behave in desired ways — for example, getting them to produce a therapeutic molecule or assemble into a tissue graft — is the right DNA sequence. The problem is figuring out what DNA sequence codes for which behavior. “There are ...

Since the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) went into operation, red dots in its images have puzzled researchers around the world. Now, researchers from the University of Copenhagen have explained these enigmatic findings, revealing the most violent forces in the universe concealed in a cocoon of ionized gas. The discovery is published in Nature today. Since December 2021, when the James Webb super telescope saw first light, some 1.5 million kilometres from Earth, researchers around the world have been scratching their heads over unexplained red dots among stars and galaxies in the images ...

A joint research team led by Tae‑Woo Lee, Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Seoul National University, and Yury Gogotsi, Professor at Drexel University, has overcome long-standing limitations of next-generation stretchable light-emitting devices by developing the record efficiency fully stretchable organic light-emitting diode (OLED). The study was published in Nature on January 15.   A fully stretchable OLEDs is defined as a devicein which all constituent layers exhibit intrinsic mechanical stretchability. With the rapid growth of the field of wearable electronics, the demand for displays that can be directly laminated onto the skin and visualize ...

Embargo details: “3D-printed low-voltage-driven ciliary hydrogel microactuators” has been scheduled for publication in Nature on 14 January 2026 at 16:00 (London time), 14 January 2026 at 11:00 (US Eastern Time). The embargo will lift at this time.   Stuttgart – Cilia are micrometer-sized biological structures that occur frequently in nature. Their characteristic high-frequency, three-dimensional beating motions (5 – 40 Hz) play indispensable roles inside the body. In the human brain, ciliary motion is crucial for neuronal ...

Extreme summer precipitation events in China have grown increasingly frequent and intense, posing severe threats to human life, property, and socioeconomic development. Accurate forecasting of extreme precipitation is crucial for improving disaster prevention and mitigation. Ensemble forecasting quantifies prediction uncertainty by generating multiple simulations through strategic perturbations, thereby estimating the probability distribution of future atmospheric states. However, traditional initial perturbation methods using linear singular vectors (SVs) are insufficient to capture the nonlinear evolution of mesoscale convective ...

The world’s first academic review into bamboo consumption has identified a surprising range of health benefits, including helping control blood sugar, fighting inflammation, improving gut health and acting as an antioxidant. Bamboo is the fastest growing plant on earth, with some varieties growing up to 90cm per day. China and India are the world’s largest producers and although bamboo shoots are already a staple in many Asian diets, the new research indicates it could have an important role to play in diets worldwide. Bamboo is packed with protein, has moderate levels of fibre, is low in fat, contains amino acids, ...

Using nearly a decade of data (2015–2023) from 800+ U.S. hospitals and more than 700,000 patients overall, Northwestern researchers found that when Asian American heart failure patients are separated by ethnicity, rather than grouped together as “Asian,” important differences in care emerge across groups including Filipino, Vietnamese, Chinese, Asian Indian, Korean and Japanese patients.  For example, Filipino and Vietnamese patients were least likely to receive complete, guideline-recommended heart failure care. The study wasn’t designed to identify causes, but authors note the disparities may reflect differences ...

A team led by investigators at the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute has discovered that a particular marker on tumor cells circulating in the blood indicates whether a patient with lung cancer will experience a lasting response to a newly approved immunotherapy called tarlatamab. The findings, which are published in Cancer Discovery, could allow clinicians to easily and noninvasively determine which patients should receive the drug.   “Isolating cancer cells from the blood has tremendous potential to guide immune-related cancer therapies, and our group has created cutting edge ...

SAN ANTONIO — January 14, 2026 — Southwest Research Institute’s (SwRI) Dr. Michael Davis has been named a Fellow of the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Davis is an astrophysicist who specializes in the design and testing of space instruments including those used for ultraviolet (UV) imaging and spectroscopy of remote planets, galactic astrophysics, and Earth’s plasmasphere. He was named a senior member of SPIE in 2021, and this latest honor puts him in the most elite category of membership. Founded in 1955, SPIE promotes the global optics and photonics community through conferences, publications and professional ...

Exposure to “Forever Chemicals” Linked to Higher Risk of Gestational Diabetes, Major Review Finds Largest and most comprehensive systematic review and meta-analysis to date links PFAS exposure to insulin resistance and altered insulin secretion, identifying pregnancy as a key vulnerable period New York, NY (January 14, 2026) — Exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a class of highly persistent environmental chemicals commonly referred to as “forever chemicals,” is associated with a higher risk of gestational diabetes mellitus and altered markers of insulin ...

Cambridge, Massachusetts, January 14, 2025 - Insilico Medicine (“Insilico”, HKEX:03696), a clinical-stage biotechnology company driven by generative artificial intelligence (AI), today announced the demonstration of its Nach01 multimodal foundation model deployed on Microsoft Discovery, Microsoft’s science-focused platform designed to accelerate research and development through agentic AI. This collaboration highlights Microsoft Discovery’s extensibility with third-party AI models and illustrates how R&D organizations can adopt unified, AI-native ...

Against the background of accelerated global warming, the atmospheric moisture content has increased significantly and the hydrological cycle has intensified, leading to pronounced rises in both the frequency and intensity of extreme precipitation events globally. Northeast China, a region highly sensitive to climate change, has experienced increasing occurrence of clustered extreme heavy precipitation events in recent years. Improved knowledge of synoptic regimes and moisture accumulation responsible for clustered extreme heavy precipitation events (CEPEs) is essential for enhancing short-term forecasting skill and disaster prevention and mitigation. Researchers ...

A toxin secreted by cholera bacteria can inhibit the growth of colorectal cancer without causing any measurable damage to the body. This is shown by a new study by researchers at Umeå University, Sweden. Systemic administration of the purified bacterial substance changes the immune microenvironment in tumours, and the results may open the way for research into a new type of cancer treatment. "The substance not only kills cancer cells directly. It reshapes the tumour environment and helps the immune system to work against the tumor without damaging healthy tissue," says Sun Nyunt Wai, professor at Umeå University and one of the lead authors behind ...

A substance poisonous to humans — hydrogen cyanide — may have helped create the seeds of life on Earth. At cold temperatures, hydrogen cyanide forms crystals. And, according to computer models reported in ACS Central Science, some of the facets on these crystals are highly reactive, enabling chemical reactions that are otherwise not possible at low temperatures. The researchers say these reactions could have started a cascade that gave rise to several building blocks of life. “We may never know precisely how life began, but understanding how some of its ingredients take shape is within reach. Hydrogen cyanide is likely one source of this chemical ...

Foams are everywhere: soap suds, shaving cream, whipped toppings and food emulsions like mayonnaise. For decades, scientists believed that foams behave like glass, their microscopic components trapped in static, disordered configurations. Now, engineers at the University of Pennsylvania have found that foams actually flow ceaselessly inside while holding their external shape. More strangely, from a mathematical perspective, this internal motion resembles the process of deep learning, the method typically used to train modern AI systems. The discovery could hint that learning, in a broad mathematical sense, may be a common organizing ...

Fluorophores are chemical compounds or molecules that absorb light energy at one wavelength and re-emit it as light at a longer, lower-energy wavelength, acting as glowing tags or markers. The absorption process is known as excitation, and the re-emission is visible as fluorescent light, which makes these molecules crucial for biological imaging, diagnostics, and tracing cellular molecules like proteins or lipids under normal or various infectious conditions. Fluorophores with red-light absorption properties are ideal for bioimaging. Red light refers ...

Spinal deformities such as scoliosis and kyphosis are among the most serious complications of neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1), a genetic disorder that affects about one in 3,000 people. These deformities often begin in childhood, worsen rapidly, and can lead to chronic pain, reduced mobility, and may require major surgery. Despite their frequency and severity, there are currently no approved drug treatments to prevent NF1-related spinal deformity. In a new study published in Volume 13, Issue 103 of the journal Bone Research on December ...