People with favourable socioeconomic conditions, such as high incomes or education levels, face a reduced risk of age-related diseases and show fewer signs of biological ageing than peers of the same age, finds a new study led by University College London (UCL) researchers. Social inequalities appear to have a direct impact on the biological ageing process, according to the authors of the Nature Medicine paper. The scientists found that people with more social advantages had fewer proteins in their blood that are linked to the ...

The Nano Materials Research Division at the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), led by Dr. Tae-Hoon Kim and Dr. Jung-Goo Lee, has successfully developed a groundbreaking grain boundary diffusion process that enables the fabrication of high-performance permanent magnets without the use of expensive heavy rare earth elements. This pioneering technology, marks the world’s first achievement in this field. Permanent magnets are key components in various high-value-added products, including electric vehicle (EV) motors and robots. However, conventional permanent magnet manufacturing processes have been heavily dependent on ...

23% of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 between 2021 and 2023 developed long-COVID, and in more than half of them the symptoms persisted for two years. These are the main conclusions of a study conducted by ISGlobal, a centre supported by the ”la Caixa” Foundation, and in collaboration with the Germans Trias i Pujol Research Institute (IGTP), as part of the European END-VOC project. The risk of developing long-COVID depends on several factors, according to the results published in BMC Medicine. After overcoming an initial ...

Violence is trapping women across Northern Ireland in cycles of trauma and homelessness, with some facing further abuse in temporary accommodation, despite moving there to find a place of safety. The research from Heriot-Watt University and University of Edinburgh was commissioned by the Community Foundation for Northern Ireland and funded by the Oak Foundation. It is based on in-depth interviews with women with lived experience of violence over five areas of Northern Ireland. The areas include Belfast and Derry, one smaller urban area in County Down, and two more rural areas of County Antrim and County Fermanagh. The report also covers findings from focus groups with frontline workers ...

Researchers from Brazilian, Argentine, and Uruguayan institutions analyze the barriers that low- and middle-income countries face in disseminating research on intensive care medicine, particularly in the treatment of critically ill patients. Published this month in The Lancet, the study highlights how historical and economic biases perpetuate inequalities and suggests changes to make the scientific publishing system more inclusive and representative of the global community. Low- and middle-income countries are home to 85% of the world's population and bear a disproportionate burden of critical illnesses. ...

PHILADELPHIA— Prior exposures to specific types of seasonal influenza viruses promote cross-reactive immunity against the H5N1 avian influenza virus, according to new research from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Older adults who were exposed to seasonal flu viruses that circulated prior to 1968 were found to be more likely to have antibodies that bind to the H5N1 avian flu virus. The findings, published today in Nature Medicine¸ suggest that younger adults and children would benefit more from H5N1 vaccines, even those not tailored specifically to the current strain circulating in birds and ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Climate change and flagging investment in research and development has U.S. agriculture facing its first productivity slowdown in decades. A new study estimates the public sector investment needed to reverse course. In the paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers model both the dampening effects of climate change on U.S. agriculture and the accelerating effects of publicly funded research and development (R&D) – and use the estimates to quantify the investment in research required to maintain agricultural productivity through 2050. They find that a 5% to 8% per year growth in research investment ...

Key takeaways Curiosity about a mistake that left tiny dots on a germanium wafer with evaporated metal films led to the discovery of beautiful spiral patterns etched on the surface of the semiconductor by a chemical reaction. Further experiments showed that the patterns arise from chemical reactions that are coupled to mechanical forces through the deformation of a catalyzing agent. The new system is the first major advance in experimental methods to study chemical pattern formation since the 1950s. Studying these complex systems will help scientists understand other natural processes, from crack formation in materials to how stress ...

OKLAHOMA CITY – Polycystic kidney disease (PKD), a family of genetic disorders that causes clusters of cysts to form on the kidney, is among the most common genetic disorders, affecting some 500,000 people in the United States. Roughly one in every 1,000 people will develop some form of cystic kidney disease during their lifetime, and nearly 40,000 Oklahomans have a chronic kidney disease, according to the Oklahoma Health Care Authority. For many patients, dialysis – a time-consuming and costly procedure – is one of few treatment options. A 2021 study ...

OKLAHOMA CITY – When mothers eat a diet high in fat and sugars, their unborn babies can develop liver stress that continues into early life. A new study published in the journal Liver International sheds light on changes to the fetus’s bile acid, which affects how liver disease develops and progresses. Bile acids typically help with digestion and absorb dietary fats in the small intestine, but when they reach excessive levels, they become toxic and can damage the liver. While the mother can detoxify the acids, the fetus lacks that ability. Bile acids may re-circulate to the mother for detoxification, but if they don’t, they build ...

More than 3 billion years ago, Mars intermittently had liquid water on its surface. After the planet lost much of its atmosphere, however, surface water could no longer persist. The fate of Mars’ water—whether it was buried as ice, confined in deep aquifers, incorporated into minerals or dissipated into space—remains an area of ongoing research, one of particular interest to LASP Senior Research Scientist Bruce Jakosky, former principal investigator of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) mission. Last week, in a letter to the editor ...

MADISON — Inside the human eye, the retina is made up of several types of cells, including the light-sensing photoreceptors that initiate the cascade of events that lead to vision. Damage to the photoreceptors, either through degenerative disease or injury, leads to permanent vision impairment or blindness.  David Gamm, director of UW–Madison’s McPherson Eye Research Institute and professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences, says that stem cell replacement therapy using lab-grown photoreceptors ...

High-grade glioma, an aggressive form of pediatric and adult brain cancer, is challenging to treat given the tumor location, incidence of recurrence and difficulty for drugs to cross the blood-brain barrier. Researchers from the University of Michigan, Dana Farber Cancer Institute and the Medical University of Vienna established a collaborative team to uncover a potential new avenue to address this disease. A study, published in Cancer Cell, shows that high-grade glioma tumor cells harboring DNA alterations in the gene PDGFRA responded to the drug avapritinib, which is already approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration to treat gastrointestinal ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL), in partnership with NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), has developed StarBurst, a small satellite (SmallSat) instrument for NASA's StarBurst Multimessenger Pioneer mission, which will detect the emission of short gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), a key electromagnetic (EM) signature that will contribute to the understanding of neutron star (NS) mergers. NRL transferred the instrument to NASA on March 4 for the next phase, environmental ...

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – March 13, 2025 – A study from researchers at Wake Forest University School of Medicine highlights a new approach in addressing conductive hearing loss. A team of scientists, led by Mohammad J. Moghimi, Ph.D., assistant professor of biomedical engineering, designed a new type of hearing aid that not only improves hearing but also offers a safe, non-invasive alternative to implantable devices and corrective surgeries.  The study recently published in Communications Engineering, a Nature Portfolio journal.  Conductive ...

Envision a world where unmanned aircraft deliver goods to your front door and transport passengers in flying taxis, cargo planes cross continents carrying vital trade goods, and fighter jets patrol battle zones—all without a human pilot at the controls. Those scenarios might seem a bit far-fetched now, but researchers are working diligently to develop these aircraft and ensure they operate safely. That’s why NASA has awarded a $1 million grant through its University Leadership Initiative (ULI) to a team from The University of Texas at Arlington Research ...

You may scarcely notice it, but much of what you do every day requires your brain to engage in perceptual learning. To safely cross an intersection or quickly retrieve something from your bag, you depend upon your brain to first assign meaning to sensory input from your eyes or fingertips. Usually, it’s effortless. Research from The Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps Institute for Biomedical Innovation & Technology shows a gene called Syngap1 enables touch-based perception, while certain mutations can lead to mixed signals. The research was made possible through grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute ...

Teeth recovered from a beloved zoo elephant that died in 2008 are helping University of Utah geologists develop a method for tracking the movements of large herbivores across landscapes, even for animals now extinct, such as mastodons and mammoths. Outlined in recently published findings, the technique analyzes isotope ratios of the element strontium (Sr), which accumulates in tooth enamel. For large plant-eating land mammals, the relative abundance of two strontium isotopes in teeth and tusks ...

For cancers of organs like the liver, the long-term impact of our diet has been well studied — so much so that we have guidance about red meat, wine and other delicacies. A new study from researchers at University of Florida Health looks at another kind of organ whose cancer risk may be affected by poor diet: the lungs. The study was funded by several National Institutes of Health grants and a collaboration between the University of Kentucky's Markey Cancer Center and the UF Health Cancer Center. “Lung ...

The early mammals that lived alongside the dinosaurs upwards of 150 million years ago (mya) were likely covered in dark and dusky greyish-brown fur, according to a quantitative reconstruction of Mesozoic mammal coloration, hinting at their shrouded and nocturnal nature. The findings, drawn from a comparative analysis of fossilized melanosomes, provide insights into the ecology and evolutionary history of early mammals. From communication to camouflage, animal coloration plays an important role in numerous behavioral ecological ...

The deliberate destruction of the Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine during the Russo-Ukrainian war unleashed a hidden environmental crisis, destroying ecosystems and releasing polluted sediments into downstream water systems, according to a new study. The findings provide critical new insights into the prolonged ecological risks of strategic dam destruction during warfare and the effects that may persist for years beyond war. “Our work highlights the far-reaching environmental consequences of the [Kakhovka Dam] destruction and raises concerns not only about the use of water as a weapon, but also about ...

The U.S. National Institutes of Health’s recent decision to impose a 15% cap on facilities and administrative (F&A) cost reimbursements threatens to undermine the quality and sustainability of university research by slashing indirect funding by $4 billion. In a Policy Forum, Jeongwon Choi and colleagues argue that this policy is fundamentally flawed, as it disregards the essential role of indirect costs, such as infrastructure, utilities, and administrative support, in enabling scientific research. The current system, governed by rigorous federal oversight and audits, ensures that F&A reimbursements are fair and necessary, varying across institutions based on actual costs. NIH’s ...

As the planet warms, Antarctica’s ice sheet is melting and contributing to sea-level rise around the globe. Antarctica holds enough frozen water to raise global sea levels by 190 feet, so precisely predicting how it will move and melt now and in the future is vital for protecting coastal areas. But most climate models struggle to accurately simulate the movement of Antarctic ice due to sparse data and the complexity of interactions between the ocean, atmosphere, and frozen surface.  In a paper published March 13 in Science, researchers at Stanford University used machine learning to analyze high-resolution ...

WEHI researchers have made a huge leap forward in the fight against Parkinson’s disease, solving a decades-long mystery that paves the way for development of new drugs to treat the condition.  First discovered over 20 years ago, PINK1 is a protein directly linked to Parkinson’s disease – the fastest growing neurodegenerative condition in the world. Until now, no one had seen what human PINK1 looks like, how PINK1 attaches to the surface of damaged mitochondria, or how it is switched on.    In ...

Researchers have advanced a decades-old challenge in the field of organic semiconductors, opening new possibilities for the future of electronics. The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge and the Eindhoven University of Technology, have created an organic semiconductor that forces electrons to move in a spiral pattern, which could improve the efficiency of OLED displays in television and smartphone screens, or power next-generation computing technologies such as spintronics and quantum computing. The semiconductor they developed emits circularly polarised ...