Early medical abortion at home up to 12 weeks of pregnancy is safe, effective, and comparable to hospital care, finds a 5 year review of cases in Scotland, where this timeframe is legally permitted, and published online in the journal BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health. It’s time to extend the current legal limit of 10 weeks to 12 weeks to enable women in the rest of the UK and Europe to choose this option, conclude the researchers. During the COVID-19 pandemic, legislation was introduced throughout Scotland, England, and Wales to allow women to ...

Scientists have unveiled a new approach to detecting gravitational waves in the milli-Hertz frequency range, providing access to astrophysical and cosmological phenomena that are not detectable with current instruments.   Gravitational waves—ripples in spacetime predicted by Einstein—have been observed at high frequencies by ground-based interferometers such as LIGO and Virgo, and at ultra-low frequencies by pulsar timing arrays. However, the mid-band range has remained a scientific blind spot.   Developed by researchers at the Universities of Birmingham and Sussex, the new detector concept uses cutting-edge optical cavity and atomic clock technologies ...

HOUSTON – (Oct. 2, 2025) – A team of researchers at Rice University has developed a new membrane that selectively filters out lithium from brines, offering a faster, cleaner way to produce the element at the heart of nearly every rechargeable battery. According to a study published in Nature Communications, the new membrane achieved one of the highest selectivities for lithium among similar membranes while using considerably less energy. The membrane design can be adapted to target the recovery of other valuable minerals, such as cobalt and nickel, and plugs ...

Don't love the gym? Neither does exercise scientist Ryan Montalvo. But he goes anyway. While any workout can seem daunting, the physical stress of exercise often affords long-term benefits. One advantage is that it triggers a physiological response that allows our cells to adjust to meet future energy demand in what’s known as a hormetic response. With an early career research grant from the American College of Sports Medicine Research Endowment, Montalvo will explore how this response to exercise-induced stress might help overcome noncommunicable diseases. Working ...

A study comparing evacuation patterns in response to two 2024 hurricanes, Milton and Helene, found that people in coastal areas with frequent hurricane exposure were much more likely to travel out of harm’s way compared to people in inland areas who were more likely to stay put. Researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health led the study. Their findings appear in the journal Environmental Research Letters.   These geographic differences are likely due to a combination of factors, including access to transportation infrastructure, social norms, and risk perception, ...

Expanding the depth and breadth of scientific expertise that defines Stem Cell Reports, the official journal of the International Society for Stem Cell Research, 13 distinguished researchers have joined the Editorial Board. Their appointment broadens representation across the diverse and international landscape of stem cell science and reinforces the Board’s commitment to championing the journal, raising its global visibility, and ensuring rigorous, high-quality peer review. “I am delighted to welcome our new editorial board members to Stem Cell Reports, said Janet Rossant, editor-in-chief. “Their breadth of expertise ...

A team of scientists from the University of Chicago, the University of California Berkeley, Argonne National Laboratory, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has developed molecular qubits that bridge the gap between light and magnetism—and operate at the same frequencies as telecommunications technology. The advance, published today in Science, establishes a promising new building block for scalable quantum technologies that can integrate seamlessly with existing fiber-optic networks. Because the new molecular qubits can interact at telecom-band frequencies, the work points toward future quantum networks—sometimes called the “quantum internet.” ...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic has been selected to lead a groundbreaking research project focused on improving indoor air quality and safety in healthcare settings by the Advanced Research Project Agency for Health (ARPA-H). The project, part of the ARPA-H BREATHE program, aims to develop new ways to monitor and improve air in real time, helping protect public health in buildings nationwide. Mayo Clinic will lead the Hospital Air QUality (HAIQU): Breathing Life into Patient Care project, focusing on improving indoor air quality in hospitals to enhance health. "Maintaining high indoor ...

Down syndrome is associated with accelerated aging. It is estimated that up to 90% of individuals with the condition develop Alzheimer’s disease before the age of 70. A study by researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil identified high levels of neuroinflammation in young individuals with Down syndrome, an additional factor explaining the high prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease in older people with the condition. The discovery paves the way for strategies to prevent and monitor the disease. The study, which was published in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia and ...

The human repairome, REPAIRome, will allow researchers around the world to rapidly check out how each of the 20,000 human genes affects DNA repair. Created by researchers at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), it is published today in the journal Science. The human repairome is ‘a powerful resource for the scientific community’, the authors write in Science. It has ‘implications for human health, including cancer treatment’. It also allows progress ‘towards full control of CRISPR-Cas gene-editing technologies’, they add. The repairome ...

Advances in artificial intelligence-assisted protein engineering are enabling breakthroughs in protein design, but they also introduce biosecurity challenges related to potential production of harmful proteins. Though screening software to detect harmful proteins exists, a new multi-month analysis of such software reports that this software has vulnerabilities; some proteins of concern could evade detection. Critically, the study also offers a way to improve detection rates of proteins of concern going forward. AI-assisted protein design (AIPD) enables powerful advances in medicine and biology, enabling researchers to modify existing proteins or design wholly new ones ...

Wildfire disasters worldwide are growing notably in frequency and cost, according to a new study, with nearly half of the most damaging events over the last 44 years occurring in just the past decade, driven largely by increasingly extreme fire weather in vulnerable, densely populated regions. The findings, informed by an analysis of global reinsurance data and international disaster reports, reveal a concerning trend and highlight the need to adapt for a more fire-prone world. Humans have coexisted with wildfires for millennia, but climate change, land mismanagement, and expansion into flammable landscapes ...

Catastrophic wildfires – those causing massive damage and soaring suppression costs – are increasing in frequency and intensity worldwide, a trend expected to worsen with climate change. In a Policy Forum, Robert Gray and colleagues use British Columbia (BC), Canada, as a case study of a government at a crossroads: continue reactive spending on suppression and recovery or invest in strategies to reduce future wildfire risk. “Although we focus on BC, this same tough question, along with lessons learned and our main recommendations, apply to regional ...

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have detected the molecule phosphine beyond our Solar System, according to a new study, finding it in the atmosphere of the cold brown dwarf Wolf 1130C. The presence of the phosphorus-containing molecule phosphine (PH3) is well established in the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, as well as in some giant stars. Although models predict that PH3 should be similarly common in gas giant exoplanets and brown dwarfs, searches for the molecule in the atmospheres of those objects have shown it to be in very low abundance, if not totally absent. Using the JWST NIRSpec instrument, Adam Burgasser ...

Directed evolution is a laboratory technique that mimics natural selection and allows scientists to evolve genes and the proteins they encode. Traditionally, this technique has been used in microbes, mammalian cells, or in test tubes. Now, researchers led by Prof. GAO Caixia from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology (IGDB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and Prof. QIU Jinlong from the Institute of Microbiology of CAS have developed a new system that enables rapid and scalable directed evolution of diverse genes directly ...

The fossil of a tiny fish found in southwestern Alberta provides new insight into the origin and evolution of otophysans, the supergroup of fish that includes catfish, carp and tetras, which today account for two-thirds of all freshwater species. The specimen, studied by researchers at Western University, the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Palaeontology and international collaborators, is a skeleton of a fish about 4 cm long from the Late Cretaceous period (the age of the iconic Tyrannosaurus Rex, about 100.5 million to 66 million years ago.) A new kind of fish entirely, it ...

When we talk about microbiota, we usually think of the one inhabiting our gut. But there is another, less known and equally vital: the plant microbiota. In an article featured on the cover of Science (October 2, 2025), Professor Niko Geldner and his team at the University of Lausanne (Unil) unveil the subtle alliances and rivalries that unfold between bacteria and roots, hidden beneath the soil. Roots and microbes The plant microbiota, or “phytobiome,” brings together communities of bacterial and fungal microorganisms that can be partners, allies—and sometimes enemies. The part most closely associated with roots is called the “rhizospheric” ...

When saltwater fish long ago evolved to live in fresh water, many of them also evolved a more sophisticated hearing system, including middle ear bones similar to those in humans. Two-thirds of all freshwater fish today — including more than 10,000 species, from catfish to popular aquarium fish like tetras and zebrafish — have this middle ear system, called the Weberian apparatus, which allows them to hear sounds at much higher frequencies than most ocean fish can, with a range close to that of humans. University of California, Berkeley paleontologist Juan Liu has now used the structure of this Weberian apparatus in a newly discovered ...

Phosphorus is one of six key elements necessary for life on Earth. When combined with hydrogen, phosphorus forms the molecule phosphine (PH3), an explosive, highly toxic gas. Found in the atmospheres of the gas giant planets Jupiter and Saturn, phosphine has long been recognized as a possible biosignature for anaerobic life, as there are few natural sources of this gas in the atmospheres of terrestrial planets. On Earth, phosphine is a byproduct of decaying organic swamp matter. Now a team of researchers, led by University of California San Diego Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics ...

Key takeaways: By analyzing rare nitrogen isotopes in 5-million-year-old plankton fossils, researchers reconstructed past Pacific Ocean conditions to better forecast the future. Even during the warmer Pliocene Epoch, nutrient-rich upwelling in the tropical Pacific remained stable, sustaining marine productivity. The findings challenge predictions of a fisheries collapse. TAMPA, Fla. (Oct. 1, 2025) – A team of scientists has uncovered a rare isotope in microscopic fossils, offering fresh evidence that ocean ...

CAMBIRDGE, MA -- At the heart of all lithium-ion batteries is a simple reaction: Lithium ions dissolved in an electrolyte solution “intercalate” or insert themselves into a solid electrode during battery discharge. When they de-intercalate and return to the electrolyte, the battery charges. This process happens thousands of times throughout the life of a battery. The amount of power that the battery can generate, and how quickly it can charge, depend on how fast this reaction happens. However, little is known about the exact mechanism of this reaction, or ...

Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a synthetic fluorine-based polymer with a wide range of applications, including non-stick cookware production and electrical and optical fiber cable coating, owing to its high durability, thermal stability, and low friction. Ironically, its durability also presents an environmental challenge for its disposal. PTFE is mainly disposed of via incineration, landfilling, and defluorination. However, incineration requires high energy and involves the release of hydrogen fluoride, which is highly corrosive. Meanwhile, landfilling leads to an environmental burden of undegraded PTFE. By contrast, defluorination, in ...

Bioengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a powerful new technology that can map the entire network of RNA-protein interactions inside human cells — an achievement that could offer new strategies for treating diseases ranging from cancer to Alzheimer’s. RNA-protein interactions regulate many essential processes in cells, from turning genes on and off to responding to stress. But until now, scientists could only capture small subsets of these interactions, leaving much of the cellular “conversation” hidden. “This technology is like a wiring map of the cell’s conversations,” said ...

Adolescence is a period of social reorientation: a shift from a world centered on parents and family to one shaped by peers, schools, and broader networks. This expansion is critical for healthy development, but it also heightens susceptibility to social stressors. When those stressors lead young people to withdraw — choosing solitude more often than connection — the brain itself may be altered. Using brain imaging and behavioral data, Caterina Stamoulis, PhD, and her team in the Division of Adolescent/Young Adult Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital have found that adolescents who are ...

When University of Texas at Arlington researcher Paul J. Fadel and his colleagues launched a study on vascular health in people with chronic kidney disease, they expected to better understand a long-standing belief. For years, scientists have pointed to a blood marker called ADMA—asymmetric dimethylarginine—as a warning sign for vascular problems. But the team’s findings, recently published in the American Journal of Physiology-Renal Physiology, told a different story. Instead, another blood marker, SDMA—symmetric dimethylarginine—long considered mostly inactive, showed a stronger connection to vascular health than ADMA. “The ...