In a study publishing June 12 in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports Sustainability, researchers conducted the most comprehensive analysis to date on lithium supply and demand in China, Europe, and the USA. Despite that domestic lithium production in some of these regions could grow as much as 10 times by 2030, it would still fall short of the soaring demand for electric vehicles (EVs) without expanding imports or technological innovation. “Lithium today is as important as gasoline in the industrial revolution,” says author Qifan Xia of East China Normal University in Shanghai. “While lithium reserves are substantial around the world, they are distributed ...

Your breath is one of a kind. A study published June 12 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology demonstrated that scientists can identify individuals based solely on their breathing patterns with 96.8% accuracy. These nasal respiratory “fingerprints” also offer insights into physical and mental health.  The research stemmed from the lab’s interest in olfaction, or the sense of smell. In mammals, the brain processes odor information during inhalation. This link between the brain and breathing led researchers to wonder: since every brain is unique, wouldn’t ...

The population across developed countries is getting older and the associated frailty and debilitation are becoming major health problems. This gradual muscle loss is accelerated by the poor capacity to repair damage and injury, especially after falls or surgeries. Low muscle mass in the elderly — known as sarcopenia — leads to increased frailty and movement problems. Patients with sarcopenia are more likely to be hospitalized and develop other comorbidities, largely due to falls and fractures that tend to create health declines that quickly spiral out of control.   “We knew that a major contributor is the muscle stem cells that are needed to repair ...

All of us produce a growth factor – called IL-15 – which effectively protects us from cancers. It’s role is to boost the production of immune cells that can rapidly detect and kill cancer cells when they first appear. One of these cell-types is appropriately called Natural Killer Cells. The problem is that cancer cells evolve numerous strategies to suppress immune cells like NK cells, even when these cancer cell are producing the immune boosting factor IL-15, and too often the cancer cells win. ...

Gland, Switzerland (IUCN) –Experts from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) have analysed how targeted management of invasive alien species (IAS) can reduce extinction risks for threatened species across the European Union (EU), in line with the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. Published in the open-access journal NeoBiota, and funded by the European Commission, a new study identifies where and how targeted action against IAS (species that have been introduced to areas outside their ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study, U.S. drug overdose death rates entered a new wave of sustained deceleration in 2023 after 2 decades of increase. This shift may reflect changes in drug markets, treatment access, harm reduction efforts, and population-level risk. Although the decline is encouraging, persistent disparities highlight the need for targeted interventions and improved understanding of the underlying drivers.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Lori Ann Post, PhD, email lori.post@northwestern.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The ...

About The Study: This study found that initiating fecal immunochemical test screening at age 40 to 49 was associated with further reduction in colorectal cancer (CRC) mortality and incidence compared with starting screening at age 50. These results provide strong empirical support for lowering the CRC screening age, with substantial public health implications. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Tony Hsiu-Hsi Chen, PhD, email chenlin@ntu.edu.tw. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2025.1433) Editor’s ...

By Benjamin Boettner (BOSTON) — About 30% of all respiratory tract infections are caused by coronaviruses, leading to widespread illnesses and, in some cases, to epidemic and even pandemic outbreaks, as we experienced with the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the development of groundbreaking technology that enables the design of prophylactic vaccines, access to those vaccines is not equal across the globe, especially in low-resource countries, and also other hesitations prevent their adoption.  In addition, coronavirus variants are emerging ...

Out-of-body experiences – where people feel like spirits disconnected from their physical form – may be a coping mechanism triggered by trauma or other overwhelming stress, new University of Virginia School of Medicine research suggests. That idea challenges the common assumption that out-of-body experiences, or OBEs, are solely a symptom of mental illness. Based on data from more than 500 people, the researchers, including UVA Health’s Marina Weiler, PhD, instead argue for a more nuanced perspective: that OBEs may represent an underlying issue that could be a better treatment target than the out-of-body experiences ...

WASHINGTON — In a new study, researchers carried out the most extensive coordinated comparison of optical clocks to date by operating clocks and the links connecting them simultaneously across six countries. Spanning thousands of kilometers, the experiment represents a significant step toward redefining the second and ultimately establishing a global optical time scale. “The accurate time and frequency signals provided by atomic clocks are essential for many everyday technologies — like GPS, managing power grids and keeping financial transactions in sync,” said  Helen Margolis, head of time and frequency ...

A third of the world’s population struggles with water scarcity. In many of these areas, fog holds water that could provide a lifeline — if only it could be captured. Harvesting that water more efficiently has become the work of researchers from two colleges at Virginia Tech, who recently improved on their original fog harp design with a model that more closely resembles another musical instrument: a guitar. Their latest findings have been published by the Royal Society of Chemistry. Harvesting water from resources such as fog is not a new idea. Archaeologists have found evidence of ancient ...

We live in the age of -omics. We have genomics to study complete sets of DNA. We have proteomics focused on all the proteins within our cells. And we have metabolomics for metabolites like sugars and lipids. Despite their massive reach and intense focus, these fields have blind spots. They’re both in the margins and all around us. Today, we know we’re as much a product of our surroundings as our genetics. The question then becomes, “How do we measure the impacts of all these external factors in conjunction with one another—and with the biology ...

The American Cancer Society estimates that more than 313,780 cases of prostate cancer will be diagnosed in the United States in 2025, resulting in approximately 35,770 deaths. Bone metastasis — a stage of prostate cancer where the disease spreads to the bones — is the leading cause of prostate cancer-related death and currently remains incurable. “This stage of prostate cancer is devastating to the patient, as it often affects the bones of the spine, resulting in severe pain from fractures and spinal cord compression, along with significant neurological and functional disabilities,” Srinivas Nandana, Ph.D., ...

Scientists with the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC have created an engineered model of the supportive tissue found within a lymph node to study human health.   Working with scientists at the University of Virginia, the researchers are building a bioengineered model of a human lymph node, which performs essential roles in the immune system throughout the body.  The goal of the research, which published in April in APL Bioengineering, is to provide scientists with a model that accurately mirrors dynamic fluid flow — a natural part of how lymph nodes ...

The MIT Press is proud to announce that it will be adding Goldsmiths Press books to its open access platform, Direct to Open (D2O), starting in 2026. The partnership expands the offerings freely available through D2O, and furthers both press’ missions in building a more open and accessible future for academic publishing. Launched in 2021, D2O is the MIT Press’s bold, innovative framework for open access monographs that shifts publishing from a solely market-based purchase model where individuals and libraries buy single ...

Getting used to carbon monoxide T. kivui grows at high temperatures and is able to produce organic substances from simple molecules such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen. These properties can be used to utilize the bacterium in connection with biomass gasification plants, for example, in order to valorlize synthesis gas produced there from waste biomass such as agricultural residues or wood waste. For example, T. kivui can be used to sustainably produce acetic acid through gas fermentation and, after appropriate genetic modification, ethanol or isopropanol – raw materials ...

The architecture and processes underlying visual word recognition represent some of the most intricate systems in human cognition. The seemingly simple act of reading a word involves not only a complex interplay between cognitive layers but also relationships between the word’s spelling, phonology, and meaning. Over time, research has revealed that our mental systems rely on specific, consistent mappings between these properties to perform fast and accurate word recognition.   In particular, multiple studies have shown that orthographic-semantic ...

Since the time of the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, cancer has been recognized as being sensitive to heat. Today, this principle forms the basis of hyperthermia treatment—a promising cancer therapy that uses controlled heat to kill tumor cells while sparing healthy ones. Unlike chemotherapy or radiation, hyperthermia works by heating cancerous tissue to temperatures around 50 °C, causing cancer cell death while simultaneously activating the body's immune system against the tumor. This approach holds particular ...

Hyponatremia, or low blood sodium concentration, is typically viewed as a symptomless condition—until recently. A research team led by Professor Yoshihisa Sugimura, including Dr. Haruki Fujisawa, Professor Atsushi Suzuki, Professor Tsuyoshi Miyakawa, and Professor Akihiro Mouri, from Fujita Health University, Japan, has demonstrated that chronic hyponatremia (CHN) can directly cause anxiety-like behaviors in mice by disrupting key neurotransmitters in the brain. Their findings, published online in the journal Molecular Neurobiology on May 14, 2025, reveal that CHN alters monoaminergic signaling in the amygdala, a brain region ...

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change, the world urgently needs clean and renewable energy sources. Hydrogen is one such clean energy source that has zero carbon content and stores much more energy by weight than gasoline. One promising method to produce hydrogen is electrochemical water-splitting, a process that uses electricity to break down water into hydrogen and oxygen. In combination with renewable energy sources, this method offers a sustainable way to produce hydrogen and can contribute ...

A rich and varied mix of microbes in the mouth, particularly bacteria, is not only important for our oral health, but may hold clues for other conditions. A new study led by researchers at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing finds that a lower diversity of microbes in the mouth is associated with depression. The mouth is home to between 500 billion and 1 trillion bacteria—the second-largest community of microorganisms in our bodies, after the gut. A growing number of studies point to the connection between the oral microbiome and our overall health, from diabetes to dementia, a relationship thought to be driven by inflammation and disruptions to the immune system. A recent ...

“China virus”, the Chinese virus — at the start of the 2020 pandemic, you likely often encountered this epithet in the media. The use of geographically-based labels to define the disease (COVID-19) and the virus causing it (SARS-CoV-2) had significant consequences on public opinion, fueling and amplifying — sometimes with very serious outcomes — prejudices against specific people and countries, accused of having a causal role in spreading the contagion. The neutral designation COVID-19, proposed for the disease by the WHO in mid-February 2020, was quickly adopted globally. However, ...

Thanks to lab-grown miniature intestines, researchers at Uppsala University have successfully mapped how aggressive Shigella bacteria infect the human gut. The study opens the door to using cultured human mini-organs to investigate a wide range of other serious infections.  Understanding how human-specific bacteria make us sick is challenging, as laboratory animals rarely reflect human physiology. In a new study published in Nature Genetics, researchers show that it is now possible to use cultured mini-organs to map how bacteria colonise the human intestinal mucosa. The team focused specifically on Shigella, a bacterium that causes severe ...

  New Danish research reveals ocean currents as a major source of mercury contamination in the Arctic Despite global reductions in mercury emissions, mercury concentrations in Arctic wildlife continue to rise. A new study published in Nature Communications by researchers from Aarhus University and the University of Copenhagen reveals that ocean currents may be transporting legacy mercury pollution to the Arctic—posing a long-term threat to ecosystems and human health. “We’ve ...

Using advanced single-nuclei RNA sequencing (snRNA-seq) and a widely used preclinical model for Alzheimer’s disease, researchers from Mass General Brigham and collaborators at SUNY Upstate Medical University have identified specific brain cell types that responded most to exercise. These findings, which were validated in samples from people, shed light on the connection between exercise and brain health and point to future drug targets. Results are published in Nature Neuroscience.  “While we’ve long known that exercise helps protect ...