BUDAPEST, Hungary — A new study publishing in Current Biology on September 18 by the Department of Ethology at Eötvös Loránd University reveals that dogs with a vocabulary of toy names—known as Gifted Word Learners—can extend learned labels to entirely new objects, not because the objects look similar, but because they are used in the same way. In humans, “label extension” is a cornerstone of early language development. In non-humans, until now, it had only been documented in few so-called language-trained individual animals, after years of intensive training in captivity. But ...

The first amber deposits in South America containing preserved insects have been discovered in a quarry in Ecuador, reports a paper in Communications Earth & Environment. The finding provides a snapshot of a 112-million-year-old forest on the supercontinent Gondwana, and presents new possibilities for studying a currently little-known ancient ecosystem. Amber (fossilised tree resin) samples have a wide date range, with the earliest dated to 320 million years ago, but there is a notable increase in the number of samples in the fossil record between 120 million and 70 million years ago, during the Cretaceous era ...

Twenty-seven species of bacteria and fungi among the hundreds that live in people’s mouths have been collectively tied to a 3.5 times greater risk of developing pancreatic cancer, a study led by NYU Langone Health and its Perlmutter Cancer Center shows. Experts have long observed that those with poor oral health are more vulnerable to pancreatic cancer than those with healthier mouths. More recently, scientists have uncovered a mechanism that could help explain this connection, finding that bacteria can travel through swallowed saliva into the pancreas, an organ that helps with digestion. However, precisely which species may contribute to the condition ...

NEW YORK, NY (Sept. 18, 2025)--A brain imaging technique developed by Columbia researchers has identified areas in the brain’s cerebral cortex—just behind the forehead—that are most damaged by the repetitive impacts from heading a soccer ball. Their study also found that the damage leads to cognitive deficits seen in soccer players who head the ball frequently.   The study, published Sept. 18 in JAMA Network Open, was conducted in amateur adult soccer players from New York City.  “What’s ...

Wildfires burning across Canada and the Western United States are spewing smoke over millions of Americans – the latest examples of ashy haze becoming a regular experience, with health impacts far greater than scientists previously estimated.  Although wildfires have long been part of life in the Western U.S., warmer, drier conditions are fueling bigger blazes that occur more often and for longer. Smoke from these blazes is spreading farther and lingering longer than in the past. In a Sept. 18 study in Nature, Stanford University researchers estimate that continued global warming could lead ...

About The Study: In this decision analytical modeling study of COVID-19 burden in the U.S. in 2024 to 2025, ensemble projections suggested that although vaccinating high-risk groups had substantial benefits in reducing disease burden, maintaining the vaccine recommendation for all individuals had the potential to save thousands more lives. Despite divergence of projections from observed disease trends in 2024 to 2025—possibly driven by variant emergence patterns and immune escape—averted COVID-19 burden due to vaccination was robust across ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study examining racial and ethnic disparities in receipt of percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), racial and ethnic disparities persisted throughout the care process. The largest magnitude of disparity was PCI receipt if transferred, but the disparity with the largest impact was PCI receipt when initially presenting to PCI-capable hospitals. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Charleen Hsuan, JD, PhD, email chsuan@psu.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For ...

Article Summary: Sylvester researchers used leading-edge technology to study glioblastoma tumors at unprecedented detail. Looking at the locations of individual tumor cell types allowed them to find that “dispersed” glioblastoma cells are more malleable and more aggressive than their “clustered” counterparts. Their findings, corroborated in breast cancer samples as well, point to a possible new general principle of solid tumor biology.  MIAMI, FLORIDA (EMBARGOED UNTIL SEPT. ...

About The Study: In this cohort study, oral bacteria and fungi were significant risk factors for pancreatic cancer development. Oral microbiota hold promise as biomarkers to identify individuals at high risk of pancreatic cancer, potentially contributing to personalized prevention. Corresponding Authors: To contact the corresponding authors, email Jiyoung Ahn, PhD (jiyoung.ahn@nyulangone.org) and Richard B. Hayes, DDS, PhD (richard.b.hayes@nyulangone.org). To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamaoncol.2025.3377) Editor’s ...

Researchers at the ESRF - the European Synchrotron-, together with CNRS, ENS Lyon and the Institute of Marine Research in Norway, have unveiled how Atlantic Bluefin tuna transforms the toxic form of mercury into less harmful forms. Their study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, shows that the tuna’s edible muscle contains not only toxic methylmercury, but also mercury bound in stable, non-toxic compounds. Mercury contamination in seafood is a global health concern. Mercury (Hg) originates both from natural sources like volcanoes ...

The investigational drug elinzanetant significantly reduces hot flashes and night sweats for post-menopausal women, a large, international clinical trial has found. The OASIS-3 trial enrolled more than 600 postmenopausal women, ages 40 to 65, at 83 sites in North America and Europe. Participants were given either 120 mg of elinzanetant or a harmless placebo daily for 52 weeks. Elinzanetant recipients saw a more than 73% reduction in the frequency and severity of “vasomotor symptoms” – hot ...

“[…]we have identified FGF21 as a novel biomarker in ALS that is detected in multiple compartments including muscle, spinal cord, and circulation.” BUFFALO, NY — September 18, 2025 — A new research paper was published  in Volume 17, Issue 8 of Aging-US on August 9, 2025, titled “The myokine FGF21 associates with enhanced survival in ALS and mitigates stress-induced cytotoxicity.” In this study, led by first author Abhishek Guha and corresponding author Peter H. King from the University ...

Music therapy could significantly reduce heart rate, blood pressure and patient–ventilator asynchronies for patients admitted to the cardiac intensive care unit (ICU), according to research being presented at ACC Latin America 2025 taking place September 18-20 in Mexico City. Music therapy is the use of music and its elements to reduce stress and improve quality of life. A music therapist uses music therapy as a non-pharmacological and non-invasive intervention to improve a patient's physical, social, communicative, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual ...

Despite improved statin use and cholesterol control, cardiovascular disease risk rose in Mexico between 2016 and 2023, according to a study being presented at ACC Latin America 2025 that used region-specific tools to more accurately predict the local disease burden. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the world, costing billions each year in care. Factors such as socioeconomics, demographics, hypertension, cholesterol, air pollution, obesity and more can play a role in the types of cardiovascular disease (CVD) burden a country or region may be most impacted by. Most models to predict cardiovascular disease risk use data ...

WASHINGTON — Researchers have developed a flexible optical touch sensor that can simultaneously detect the strength and location of pressure with high sensitivity and stability. The advance in tactile sensing paves the way for next-generation robotic touch interfaces, advanced medical diagnostics and highly responsive wearable electronics. “Unlike conventional optical tactile sensors, which tend to have a single input-output path, our sensor design achieves multiple optical channels by embedding polymer ...

Achalasia is a disease caused by impaired movement of the esophagus. Patients experience food getting stuck and regurgitated, as well as chest pain. Currently, upper gastrointestinal endoscopy and high-resolution manometry are commonly used for diagnosis; however, these techniques are invasive. Achalasia has some distinct features that are visible on plain chest X-ray such as twisting or dilation of the esophagus, and fluid retention. However, these signs are vague in most cases, and for this reason, X-rays normally require swallowing barium to diagnose the condition. A research group from Osaka Metropolitan University ...

Global warming poses a growing threat to human health and work performance. Currently, about 3.6 billion people worldwide live in areas highly susceptible to climate change. From 2000 to 2019, more than 480,000 heat-related deaths occurred globally each year. Extreme heat also impairs focus and productivity and worsens mood by elevating stress hormones and disrupting sleep. In response to the increasing frequency of heat waves, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) scholars are developing next-generation personal cooling solutions that push the limits of conventional clothing and promote ...

A multi-institutional team led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators has been awarded a five-year, $20.8 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, for advanced preclinical development of a promising experimental HIV vaccine. A successful vaccine to prevent new HIV infections would be a major public health breakthrough. About 1.3 million people acquired HIV in 2024, according to the World Health Organization, and at the end of that year an estimated 41 million people were living with the ...

Women suffering from long COVID have a greater risk1 of experiencing abnormal uterine bleeding2. The symptoms of the illness intensify during the perimenstrual and proliferative phases of the menstrual cycle, notably fatigue, headaches, and muscle pain. This bidirectional relationship between long COVID and menstrual disorders has been revealed by a French-British research team co-led by a CNRS researcher3. An inflammatory reaction is suspected of being behind this connection, after the discovery of an immune cell cluster in the endometrium of the patients receiving treatment. ...

In global terms, the past year was distinguished not only by extreme drought but also by unusually heavy rainfall. These are the core findings of the report of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on the status of our planet's water resources that was published today. The regions most affected by severe drought conditions in 2024 were the Amazon basin and Southern Africa. There was excessive rainfall, for instance, in the African tropics and the resultant flooding resulted in the deaths of 2500 people while 4 million were forced from their homes. ...

A research group from the National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) has found that an alteration in the POT1 gene prevents lung tissue from regenerating, which over time makes breathing difficult. The mutation prevents telomeres, the structures that protect chromosomes, from repairing. According to the authors, understanding the effect of mutations like this “is critical to developing personalised therapies” against ‘telomere syndromes’, a group of diseases that includes pulmonary fibrosis and several cancer types. Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a potentially fatal disease currently without treatment, in which lung tissue develops scarring ...

Researchers at the Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University, report in ACS Nano, how proteins in cells can be controllably activated through heating, an effect that can be used to initiate programmed cell death. Cellular processes are governed by the activity of proteins.  Being able to control the functioning of proteins is therefore highly relevant for the development of biotechnological tools.  Doing so with high-enough spatial and temporal precision is hugely challenging, however.  One approach for tackling this challenge, called thermogenetics, is based on the thermal response of certain proteins, with slight heating or cooling resulting in (de)activation.  ...

Seoul National University College of Engineering announced that a joint research team led by Professor Young-Chang Joo (Department of Materials Science and Engineering) and Professor Jungwon Park (School of Chemical and Biological Engineering) has, in collaboration with Professors Dae-Hyun Nam (Department of Materials Science and Engineering) and Seoin Baek (KU-KIST Graduate School) at Korea University, become the first in the world to elucidate the reconstruction mechanism of copper alloy catalysts during electrochemical CO₂ conversion reactions.   The research sheds light on atomic rearrangements in catalyst ...

In a world where evolutionary biology often gets boiled down to simplistic hierarchies of "primitive" and "advanced" species, a new book by University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) biologist Kevin Omland offers a fresh, genomics-informed perspective. Understanding the Tree of Life, published by Cambridge University Press as part of its "Understanding Life" series, invites readers to rethink evolution as a continuous, branching process where all organisms—from humans to platypuses to bacteria—are interconnected cousins sharing a common ancestry. Omland draws on decades of research ...

More than a decade of acoustic recordings of grouper grunts are providing new insight into how sound can be used to monitor and manage vulnerable fish populations. The research by Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute focused on the red hind (Epinephelus guttatus), a commercially important Caribbean grouper species.   Red hind are protogynous hermaphrodites, starting life as females and later becoming males. Each winter, they travel more than 30 kilometers to offshore sites to spawn under the full moon in large gatherings. Males use rhythmic, low-frequency sounds ...