Widowed parents who enjoy close relationships with their adult children still struggle with loneliness, according to the first study of its kind. Published in the peer-reviewed journal Aging & Mental Health, the analysis spanning 25 years was based on interviews with more than 5,500 men and women including those whose spouse had died. The findings contradict commonly held assumptions that indicate widowed parents experience much lower levels of loneliness than those without children. Although the bond between bereaved women and their offspring is strengthened, the authors of this new study say this is insufficient to fill the emotional void left after the death of ...

Irvine, Calif., July 14, 2025 — In new research, University of California, Irvine astronomers describe how more than 200 known exoplanets are likely much larger than previously thought. It’s a finding that could change which distant worlds researchers consider potential harbors for extraterrestrial life.   “We found that hundreds of exoplanets are larger than they appear, and that shifts our understanding of exoplanets on a large scale,” said Te Han, a doctoral student at UC Irvine and lead author of the new Astrophysical Journal Letters study. “This means we may have actually found fewer Earth-like planets so far than we thought.”   Astronomers ...

Bubbles burst when their caps rupture. Children discover this phenomenon every summer day, but it also underpins key mechanisms for the spread of pollutants, contaminants, and even infectious disease through the generation of aerosol droplets. While bubble bursting has been extensively studied in pure substances, the impact of contaminants on bursting dynamics has not received widespread attention. Researchers in The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have conducted a systematic study to investigate bubble ...

SAN FRANCISCO—A novel AI-powered retina tracker can analyze retinal images with near-perfect accuracy in under one second, according to a study being presented Monday at ENDO 2025, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in San Francisco, Calif. The researchers say the findings offer hope for sight-saving screenings for diabetic retinopathy and other eye diseases that are fast, affordable, and accessible worldwide. “The application, an AI-based model integrated into Simple Mobile AI Retina Tracker (SMART), uses cutting-edge deep learning algorithms to analyze retinal fundus images quickly and accurately, on internet-powered ...

SAN FRANCISCO—Adrenal hormone function was restored in animal studies, potentially paving the way for a functional cure for primary adrenal insufficiency in humans, according to research being presented by Aspect Biosystems on Monday at ENDO 2025, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in San Francisco, Calif. Primary adrenal insufficiency, most commonly due to Addison’s disease or congenital adrenal hyperplasia, is a life-threatening condition that typically requires lifelong adrenal hormone replacement. However, the current hormone replacement therapies have a significant treatment burden and fail to mimic the natural circadian rhythms of hormone ...

SAN FRANCISCO—Obesity and type 2 diabetes in adolescence can interfere with bone development, potentially increasing the risk of fractures and osteoporosis later in life, according to a study being presented Monday at ENDO 2025, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in San Francisco, Calif. The teen years are the most critical for building lifelong bone strength, according to lead researcher Fida Bacha, M.D., of Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. “While adults with type 2 diabetes are known to have increased risk ...

SAN FRANCISCO—People with the rare growth hormone disorder acromegaly have a significantly higher risk of developing various types of cancer, often at ages younger than typically seen in the general population, according to a study being presented Monday at ENDO 2025, the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting in San Francisco, Calif. “Our findings suggest that acromegaly may play a bigger role in cancer risk than previously thought, highlighting the need for increased awareness and early cancer ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 14 July 2025    Follow @Annalsofim on X, Facebook, Instagram, threads, and Linkedin         Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent.     ----------------------------     1. ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 14 July 2025    Follow @Annalsofim on X, Facebook, Instagram, threads, and Linkedin         Below please find a summary of a new article that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summary is not intended to substitute for the full article as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on behalf of the organization they represent.     ----------------------------  Aluminum ...

Carbon emissions continue to increase at record levels, fueling climate instability and worsening air quality conditions for billions in cities worldwide. Yet despite global commitments to carbon neutrality, urban policymakers still struggle to implement effective mitigation strategies at the city scale. Now, researchers at Notre Dame’s School of Architecture, the College of Engineering and the Lucy Family Institute for Data & Society are working ...

SANTA CRUZ, Calif.—Imagine a world where just six out of every 100 newborns make it to their teenage years, the rest unable to survive post-apocalyptic environmental conditions that have become too strange and dangerous for human life. That’s the plight of California’s once-thriving Chinook salmon, a population that now sees 94% of its juveniles die within the few weeks they spend trying to reach the sea from the freshwater sources where they first hatched. This tragic reality is almost entirely due to how their native waterways in the state’s Central Valley have been turned ...

Macquarie University researchers have demonstrated a technique to dramatically narrow the linewidth of a laser beam by a factor of over ten thousand – a discovery that could revolutionise quantum computing, atomic clocks and gravitational wave detection. In research published in APL Photonics on 14 July 2025, the team described using diamond crystals and the Raman effect – where laser light stimulates vibrations in materials and then scatters off those vibrations – to narrow the linewidth of laser beams by factors exceeding ...

Oak trees change their fine roots and ‘energise’ soil microbes by supplying them with a cocktail of small organic compounds, all to supplement the trees’ supply of essential nutrients when exposed to higher levels of carbon dioxide. This according to a study conducted at the unique University of Birmingham Institute of Forest Research’s Free Air CO2 Enrichment (BIFoR-FACE): a very large outdoor forest research facility. In a study published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) today (Monday 14 July), researchers at BIFoR-FACE facility discovered that trees growing in a CO2-rich atmosphere tactically choreograph in-soil trading ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn the attention to the far-reaching social implications of emerging infectious diseases, bringing to mind similarly impactful events like the Black Plague in early modern Europe or the Spanish Flu after World War I. However, how emerging epidemics shape the development of political mistrust and instability has been underexplored so far. In a recently published article in the PNAS, political scientists Ore Koren (Indiana University Bloomington and currently a Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Konstanz) and Nils Weidmann (University of Konstanz) give empirical evidence that individuals ...

A new tool allows researchers to probe the metabolic processes occurring within the leaves, stems, and roots of a key citrus crop, the clementine. The big picture goal of this research is to improve the yields, flavor and nutritional value of citrus and non-citrus crops, even in the face of increasingly harsh growing conditions and growing pest challenges.  To build the tool, the team – led by the University of California San Diego – focused on the clementine (Citrus clementina), which is a cross between a mandarin orange and a sweet orange.  The effort is expected to expand well beyond the clementine in order to develop actionable information for increasing the productivity ...

With another hot Texas summer underway, the threat of dehydration always looms. Though this condition can range from inconvenient to life-threatening, it's tough to track. Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin are working to change that with the invention of a new non-invasive, wearable sensor designed to measure a user's hydration levels continuously, in real time. Such a device could help a football player stay hydrated on a hot September afternoon, keep a firefighter battling a blaze from getting too dried out, or just let an office worker know when it's ...

Hoboken, N.J., July 14, 2025 — Quantum networking is being rapidly developed world-wide. It is a key quantum technology that will enable a global quantum internet: the ability to deploy secure communication at scale, and to connect quantum computers globally. The race to realize this vision is in full swing, both on Earth and in space.  Now, a new research result, developed in a collaboration between Igor Pikovski at Stevens Institute of Technology, Jacob Covey at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Johannes Borregaard at Harvard University, suggests that quantum networks are more versatile than previously thought. In the ...

Over the last 3,800 years, agro-pastoral activities have accelerated alpine soil erosion at a pace 4-10 times faster than their natural formation. The history of this erosion has just been revealed for the first time by a research team led by a CNRS scientist1. The team has shown that high-altitude soil was degraded first, under the combined effect of pastoralism and forest clearing to facilitate the movement of herds. Medium- and low-altitude soil was then eroded with the development of agriculture and new techniques such as the use of ploughs, from the late Roman period to the contemporary period. ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — UC Santa Barbara researchers and collaborators from campus biotech spinoff Integrated Biosciences, as well as Harvard, MIT and genomics company Illumina Ventures are using optogenetics — the use of light to probe the functions of living tissue — to find compounds to help our bodies more effectively help themselves in times of physiological stress. Using an optogenetic platform developed in synthetic biologist Max Wilson’s lab at UCSB, they have already discovered dozens of molecules that can act as pan-antivirals and, specifically, two chemical scaffolds that could serve as promising development candidates ...

NIMS has developed a new theory that explains why tunnel magnetoresistance (TMR) —used in magnetic memory and other technologies— oscillates with changes in the thickness of the insulating barrier within a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ). This oscillation was clearly observed when NIMS recently recorded the world’s highest TMR ratio. Understanding the mechanisms behind this phenomenon is expected to significantly aid in further increasing TMR ratios. This research was published as a letter article in Physical ...

A new study led by researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) found that early-life exposure to antibiotics can impair an infant's developing immune system, and that a naturally occurring metabolite may hold the key to reversing that damage.  Published in Cell, the study uncovered how antibiotic exposure during pregnancy and infancy may permanently weaken the immune system's ability to fight respiratory infections like the flu. By analyzing both mouse models and human infant lung tissue, the researchers discovered that early antibiotics disrupt the gut microbiome's ability to produce inosine, a molecule that serves as an important signal ...

Tumor cells carry specific genetic mutations that actively drive the growth and spread of cancer. When mutations in particular genes are present, standard treatments such as chemotherapy or radiation often become significantly less effective, requiring more targeted therapeutic approaches instead. One of these genes is called KEAP1. Mutations in the E3-ligase KEAP1 are the focus of a new research project at Julius-Maximilians-Universität of Würzburg (JMU). José Pedro Friedmann Angeli, Professor of Translational Cell Biology at the Rudolf Virchow Center – Center for ...

    Photo of U-M smart manufacturing lab   Aiming to overcome barriers that prevent digital twins from delivering on their promise to improve manufacturing, the University of Michigan and Arizona State University are inviting industrial partners to participate in a new Center for Digital Twins in Manufacturing.    "Everyone's building digital twins, but we're trying to build the glue or connectivity that enables digital twins to work together—to be composable, ...

An effective measure to fight nutrient deficiency is to increase the nutrient content of food, particularly staples that are cheap to produce and widely consumed. Scientists do this by breeding crop varieties that are higher in iron, zinc, vitamins and other nutrients, a process called biofortification. But many factors must align for biofortified crops to be successful. They need to grow at least as well as conventional varieties, seeds need to be produced and distributed at scale, and producers require incentives to adopt new varieties. Most importantly, consumers need to actually want to eat the new ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: July 14, 2025 CONTACT: Camille Jewell cjewell@vancomm.com or 202-248-5460   NASHVILLE — At the Society of NeuroInterventional Surgery’s (SNIS) 22nd Annual Meeting today, researchers presented findings about how pregnancy can worsen the rupture risk for brain arteriovenous malformations, abnormal connections between arteries and veins whose rupture can result in serious brain injury or death.      During pregnancy, hormonal shifts and the increased demand ...