A new study led by researchers at the University of Oxford has shown that the shape and orientation of coastlines significantly influenced extinction patterns for animals living in the shallow oceans during the last 540 million years. In particular, animals living on convoluted or east-west orientated coastlines (such as those found in the Mediterranean and Gulf of Mexico today) were more likely to go extinct than those living on north-south orientated coastlines. The findings, published today (15 Jan) in Science, provide new insight towards understanding patterns of biodiversity distribution throughout ...

In a Review, Nils Opel and Michael Breakspear discuss how artificial intelligence (AI) can be responsibly and effectively integrated into mental health care, given the unique clinical, ethical, and societal challenges of the field. “It is tempting to be blinded or bewildered by the technological appeal of AI and its superhuman accomplishments,” write the authors. “We suggest that the opportunities and contradictions of AI can be reconciled by avoiding this technology-centric allure and instead adopting a human-centered approach…” AI is poised to reshape mental health care. Recent advances in machine ...

Using satellite data and the physics of ice flow, researchers have mapped Antarctica’s hidden subglacial bedrock landscape – one of the Solar System’s least mapped planetary surfaces – in unprecedented detail, revealing previously unseen geological structures shaping the ice sheet from below. The findings not only improve ice sheet models but can also guide future geophysical surveys and reduce uncertainty in projections of ice loss and sea-level rise. Hidden beneath Antarctica’s massive ice sheet lies a complex landscape of mountains, valleys, plains, ...

Beige fat surrounding blood vessels actively works to keep high blood pressure in check, according to a new study in mice, promoting healthy vascular function even during obesity. The findings support the notion that therapeutic activation of thermogenic fat tissue could help reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. High blood pressure is a leading cause of heart disease and stroke and is a major risk factor for early death. Adipose tissue, or fat, plays an active role in regulating blood pressure. However, growing evidence suggests that it’s ...

Even at amounts considered safe under regulatory frameworks, chronic exposure to the pesticide chlorpyrifos accelerates physiological aging and shortens the life spans of wild fish, according to a new study based in China. The findings raise concerns about the long-term impacts of low-level environmental pesticide contamination. Traditionally, to define risk, chemical safety regulations have relied on the acute dangers of short-term exposure to high doses. While this method captures immediate toxicity, it assumes that exposure to much lower concentrations is more ...

By tracking swarms of very small earthquakes, seismologists are getting a new picture of the complex region where the San Andreas fault meets the Cascadia subduction zone, an area that could give rise to devastating major earthquakes. The work, by researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of California, Davis and the University of Colorado Boulder, is published Jan. 15 in Science. “If we don’t understand the underlying tectonic processes, it’s hard to predict the seismic hazard,” said coauthor Amanda Thomas, professor of earth and planetary sciences at UC Davis. Three of the great tectonic ...

EMBARGOED: May be published no earlier than 2 p.m. ET on Thursday, Jan. 15.  Long-term exposure to low levels of a common agricultural pesticide can accelerate physiological aging and shorten lifespan in fish — a finding from new research led by University of Notre Dame biologist Jason Rohr with potentially far-reaching implications for environmental regulations and human health. The study, published in Science, shows that chronic exposure to the insecticide chlorpyrifos at concentrations ...

A domestic research team led by Professor Tae-Woo Lee (Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Seoul National University, Republic of Korea & SN Display Co., Ltd) has developed a hierarchical-shell perovskite nanocrystal technology that simultaneously overcomes the long-standing instability of metal-halide perovskite emitters while achieving record-breaking quantum yield, operational stability, and scalability. This breakthrough paves the way for next-generation vivid-color display technologies. The results were published in the world’s leading academic journal ...

FRANKFURT. Maintaining cellular order is a major logistical challenge: Individual mammalian cells contain billions of protein molecules, which must be synthesized, deployed, and removed with precision. In the ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS), proteins destined for degradation are tagged with chains of several ubiquitin proteins and then degraded by the proteasome. The crucial step is the target selection: E3 ligases are enzymes that act as molecular “broker” by binding specific target proteins and coordinating the transfer of ubiquitin from ...

The discovery of seven naturally-mummified cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) in caves in northern Saudi Arabia reveals that at least two subspecies of the endangered cats inhabited the Arabian Peninsula before their local extinction. The findings, reported in Communications Earth & Environment, may open new possibilities for the reintroduction of cheetahs to the peninsula. Cheetahs once inhabited much of Africa as well as Western and Southern Asia, but now live in just 9% of their historic range. In Asia their range has decreased by 98%, and they are thought to have been locally extinct on the Arabian Peninsula since the 1970s. ...

More people with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are turning to coaches for guidance. Those coaches, who often have ADHD themselves, offer similar services to psychologists but don’t think of their work as clinical, according to a study to be published (Jan. 15) in JAMA Network Open.   It's the first major survey of this rapidly growing field and a prerequisite to studying how ...

About The Study: In this cohort study, fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and ozone exposure was independently associated with worse cardiac remodeling and function in patients with breast cancer treated with cardiotoxic therapy. These findings highlight the importance of modifying environmental exposures to mitigate cardiovascular disease risk. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Bonnie Ky, MD, MSCE, email bonnie.ky@pennmedicine.upenn.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.52323) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In this cohort study of patients in Norway discharged alive after critical injury, a 9-fold increased risk of suicide after 2 years was observed. These findings suggest that follow-up is warranted for possible psychological distress in this patient group. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Anders Rasmussen, MD, email anders.rasmussen@sykehusetinnlandet.no. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.54168) Editor’s ...

About The Article: This JAMA Insights discusses post–intensive care syndrome (PICS), including how it is assessed and diagnosed as well as suggestions for treatment and prevention. A 9-minute video will be available with the article online at the embargo time that documents the story of an intensive care unit survivor who developed PICS. The video features interviews with clinicians and researchers to explore what PICS is, what causes it, and ways to help patients. Corresponding Author: To contact ...

About The Article: This Viewpoint explores how financial settlements related to the U.S. opioid epidemic are being spent and how the funds could be used on potentially lifesaving interventions. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Christopher Robertson, JD, PhD, email ctr00@BU.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2025.25660) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, ...

In his theoretical model published in 2011, Canadian Allan MacDonald predicted that by twisting two graphene layers at a given angle, in the region of one degree, the interaction of electrons would produce new emerging properties. Seven years later, Spaniard Jarillo-Herrero and his team provided the experimental confirmation, fabricating bilayers of graphene rotated at this “magic angle” that transformed the material’s behavior, giving rise to new properties like superconductivity. “Their work has opened up new frontiers in physics by demonstrating that rotating matter to a given angle allows us to control its behavior, obtaining ...

University of Virginia School of Medicine researchers have revealed how the popular, low-carb ketogenic diet protects against epilepsy seizures and possibly neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Keto, as the diet is commonly known, has been used to reduce seizures in patients with medication-resistant epilepsy since the 1920s. Doctors, however, have been uncertain exactly how the diet does this, even as they identified potential benefits for other brain disorders. A team led by UVA’s Jaideep Kapur, MBBS, PhD, co-director of UVA’s Brain Institute, has found answers. This discovery could ...

(Toronto and Oslo, January 14, 2026)  JMIR Publications, a leading open-access digital health research publisher, and Sikt (Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research) are pleased to announce a new pilot partnership that brings JMIR’s Flat-Fee Unlimited Open Access Publishing model to Norway. University College of Molde (Høgskolen i Molde) is the first institution to join the trial program. “Our partnership with Sikt is further progress in our mission to advance open science and empower researchers globally,” said Dennis O’Brien, VP ...

Of all the types of breast cancer, triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is the most aggressive and lacks specific therapies. TNBC also is more likely to metastasize, or travel through the blood stream to spread to other organs, which causes most of breast cancer-related deaths each year. Until now, tracking circulating tumor cells (CTC), a powerful indicator of cancer metastasis, has been challenging because there are very few markers that specifically identify these cells. Looking to find a better way to follow metastasis progression, researchers at Baylor College of Medicine developed a procedure to enhance the ...

The last time you scrubbed a streaky window or polished a porcelain appliance, you probably used a chemical called ammonia.  Also known as ammonium hydroxide when mixed with water, ammonia is more than a common household cleaner. More than 170 million metric tons of it are produced globally every year, with most of it ending up as fertilizer for corn, cotton and soybeans.  UIC researchers are scaling up a system for farmers to produce ammonia in their own backyards. The method, which uses renewable electricity and Earth’s natural resources, appears in the journal PNAS.  “So many people around the world need food. ...

The Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science (KRISS, President Lee Ho Seong) has developed a key materials technology that accelerates the commercialization of all-solid-state batteries (ASSBs)—next-generation batteries designed to intrinsically eliminate the risks of fire and explosion. The Emerging Material Metrology Group at KRISS demonstrated ultra-dense, large-area solid electrolyte membranes by applying a method that coats solid electrolyte powders with multifunctional compounds, reducing production costs to one-tenth of conventional levels. Lithium-ion secondary batteries, which are widely used in electric vehicles ...

Hoboken, NJ., January 12, 2026 — Disinfecting drinking water prevents the spread of deadly waterborne diseases by killing infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses and parasites. Without disinfection, even clear-looking water can carry pathogens that can cause severe and even life-threatening illness, especially in children, older adults, and people with weakened immune systems. Before water disinfection processes were put in place, outbreaks of waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and dysentery routinely claimed lives, decimating cities and even countries. Disinfecting drinking water is ...

A new study from researchers at Mass General Brigham finds that patients who undergo unscheduled or unplanned cesarean deliveries are at substantially increased risk for experiencing acute psychological stress during childbirth, with effects that can persist for months and impact maternal mental health and early bonding with infants. Results are published in Pregnancy. The study, which followed more than 1,100 women who gave birth at Massachusetts General Hospital, a founding member of the Mass General Brigham healthcare system, found that over 1 in 4 patients who had an unscheduled cesarean delivery experienced clinically significant acute stress shortly after birth, compared with about ...

As 2026 kicks off with a wave of “future-proof your health” messaging, new research offers practical, food-first evidence on what eating for healthy aging can look like.   In an 18-week randomized crossover feeding trial in adults 65 and older, participants following two different plant-forward dietary patterns lost weight while maintaining key markers of functional independence, grip strength and chair-rise performance, alongside improvements in multiple biomarkers tied to physical and cognitive aging.1*  The ...

A new single-cell profiling technique has mapped pre-malignant gene mutations and their effects in solid tissues for the first time, in a study led by investigators at Weill Cornell Medicine and the New York Genome Center. The research, published Dec. 31 in Cancer Discovery, demonstrates a practical method for simultaneously measuring specific DNA mutations and gene activity in thousands of individual cells from human tissue. The technique is expected to be useful for studying pre-cancerous cells and may ultimately guide early ...