Access to respite services for family caregivers increases a palliative care patient’s probability of dying at home almost threefold, according to a McGill University-led study. Previous surveys suggest most Canadians with a serious illness would prefer to spend the end of their lives at home. In Quebec, fewer than one-in-10 palliative care patients die at home, a rate that has remained largely unchanged for two decades and lags behind the Canadian average of 15 per cent. Funded by Quebec’s health ministry as part of its action plan for equitable access to quality palliative and end-of-life care, the study set out to find which ...

Despite being one of the most familiar substances on Earth, water holds many secrets that scientists are still working to understand. When confined to extremely small spaces—such as within certain proteins, minerals, or artificial nanomaterials—water behaves in ways that are drastically different from its bulk liquid form. These confinement effects are critical for many natural and technological processes, including regulating the flow of ions through cell membranes and the properties of nanofluidic systems. One intriguing yet poorly understood state of ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Scientists analyzed the distribution of three potentially harmful tick species in Illinois, identifying regions of the state with higher numbers of these ticks and, therefore, at greater risk of infection with multiple tick-borne diseases. The study found that, of the three species tracked, the lone star tick, Amblyomma americanum, is most prevalent in southern Illinois; the black-legged tick or deer tick, Ixodes scapularis, is more common in northern and central Illinois; and the dog tick, Dermacentor variabilis, dominates the central and ...

GLENVIEW, IL— The American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) has been recognized as a Power of Associations Silver Award winner by the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) for two of its successful initiatives. CHEST’s First 5 Minutes®: Cultural Humility modules earned the Power of Conscious Inclusion Award, and the CHEST Community Connections program received the Power of Community Support Award. The Power of Conscious Inclusion Award recognizes associations that advance equity and inclusion across workforce, governance, operations, ...

Ice can dissolve iron minerals more effectively than liquid water, according to a new study from Umeå University. The discovery could help explain why many Arctic rivers are now turning rusty orange as permafrost thaws in a warming climate. The study, recently published in the scientific journal PNAS, shows that ice at minus ten degrees Celsius releases more iron from common minerals than liquid water at four degrees Celsius. This challenges the long-held belief that frozen environments slow down chemical reactions. “It may sound counterintuitive, but ice is not a passive frozen block,” says ...

A study published today in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology is the first time researchers have shown evidence that a single drug, already licensed for medical use, can stabilise nearly all mutated versions of a human protein, regardless of where the mutation is in the sequence.  The researchers engineered seven thousand versions of the vasopressin V2 receptor (V2R), which is critical for normal kidney function, creating all possible mutated variants in the lab. Faulty mutations in V2R prevent kidney cells from responding to the hormone vasopressin, leading to the inability to concentrate urine and resulting ...

Diamonds from South Africa’s Voorspoed mine have revealed the first natural evidence of nickel-rich metallic alloys forming deep in Earth’s mantle, between 280–470 km. A new study reveals that these inclusions coexist with nickel-rich carbonates, capturing a rare snapshot of a “redox-freezing” reaction whereby oxidized melts infiltrate reduced mantle rock. The growing diamond trapped both reactants and products of a diamond-forming reaction. This finding not only confirms long-standing predictions about mantle redox conditions but also highlights how such ...

The artificial intelligence models that turn text into images are also useful for generating new materials. Over the last few years, generative materials models from companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta have drawn on their training data to help researchers design tens of millions of new materials. But when it comes to designing materials with exotic quantum properties like superconductivity or unique magnetic states, those models struggle. That’s too bad, because humans could use the help. For example, after a decade of research into a class of materials that could revolutionize quantum computing, called quantum spin liquids, only a dozen material candidates have ...

Statement Highlights: An estimated 33-50% of heart attack survivors may experience some form of psychological distress, including depression, anxiety, psychosocial stress or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which can affect physical recovery and long-term health. People with persistent psychological distress lasting up to 12 months after a heart attack are nearly 1.5 times more likely to have a future cardiac event. More research is needed to confirm a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the conditions. Recognizing ...

Cats. Dust mites. Mold. Trees. For people with allergies, even a brief whiff of the airborne allergens these organisms produce can lead to swollen eyes, itchy skin and impaired breathing. Such allergens can persist indoors for months after the original source is gone, and repeated exposure can exacerbate, and even lead to, asthma. What if you could just flip a switch and disable them? You can, according to new University of Colorado Boulder research. “We have found that we can use a passive, generally safe ultraviolet light treatment to quickly inactivate airborne allergens,” said ...

Every season, scientists from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) go on field trips to the Pyrenees. Their mission: gather snapdragon flowers to understand their genetic makeup. In a recently published study in Molecular Ecology, they show how nature uses color genes to keep two varieties of snapdragons distinct, even when they share the same habitat.  On the border between France and Spain lies a mountain range that spans from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean Sea. The lush valleys and high peaks attract many tourists to the Pyrenees, ...

A recent analysis reveals a modest decline from 2016 to 2020 in new and additional opioid prescriptions for patients with cancer. Among those patients with metastatic cancer, prescribing remained stable for those reporting any pain and declined steeply for those reporting no pain. The findings are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. In response to the opioid crisis, public health efforts have sought to enact policies and regulations to reduce inappropriate opioid prescribing and prevent unsafe opioid use, including adverse outcomes such as opioid use disorder and opioid ...

“Trust in science is collapsing”—that’s the alarm we often hear. It’s not surprising, then, that recent years have seen major efforts to study the phenomenon and its dynamics in the general population. Far less attention, however, has been paid to the information professionals—journalists—who play a crucial bridging role between the world of scientific research and the public. A new paper in the Journal of Science Communication (JCOM) by a research group at the Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis (ITAS) of the Karlsruhe Institute of ...

Arnhem, 22 September 2025 – A new international study has uncovered a concerning lack of public understanding about cystitis and urinary tract infections (UTIs) –  common health issues that disproportionately affect women. The findings, which also highlight widespread misconceptions about prevention and treatment, underscore the urgent need for education to combat rising antibiotic resistance. In a survey of over 3,000 adults across France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK, 35% of respondents could not correctly define ...

Despite the expansion of virtual care in Ontario prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic, specialist physicians did not expand reach to patients living at great distances from where they provided care, found new research published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal). https://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.250166 “We found that widespread availability of virtual care, accompanied by remuneration changes, was not associated with substantial expansion of specialists’ practices to serve patients who lived farther away,” writes Dr. Natasha Saunders, ...

Childhood exposure to chemicals used to make plastic household items presents growing health risks that can extend long into adulthood, experts from NYU Langone Health report.   This is the main conclusion after a review of hundreds of the latest studies on the topic, publishing online Sept. 21 in the journal The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health. The article is being released to coincide with a gathering of experts the same week in New York City to discuss the global impact of plastics on human health. In their report, the authors outline decades of evidence that substances often added to industrial and household goods ...

Habit, not conscious choice, drives most of our actions, according to new research from the University of Surrey, University of South Carolina and Central Queensland University.  The research, published in Psychology & Health, found that two-thirds of our daily behaviours are initiated “on autopilot”, out of habit.   Habits are actions that we are automatically prompted to do when we encounter everyday settings, due to associations that we have learned between those settings and our usual responses to them.  The research also found that 46% of behaviours were both triggered by habit and aligned with ...

Engineers in Australia have developed a new building material with about one quarter of concrete’s carbon footprint, while reducing waste going to landfill. This innovative material, called cardboard-confined rammed earth, is composed entirely of cardboard, water and soil – making it reusable and recyclable. In Australia alone, more than 2.2 million tons of cardboard and paper are sent to landfill each year. Meanwhile, cement and concrete production account for about 8% of annual global emissions. Cardboard has previously been used in temporary structures and disaster shelters, such as Shigeru Ban’s iconic Cardboard Cathedral in Christchurch, New Zealand. Inspired ...

Agricultural soils across the world are increasingly polluted by heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, chromium, and arsenic. These toxic elements, often introduced through industrial wastewater, fertilizers, and manure, can accumulate in crops and threaten human health through the food chain. Long-term exposure is linked to kidney damage, osteoporosis, and even cancer. Protecting soil health and food safety has therefore become an urgent global challenge. In a new study published in Agricultural ...

Much excitement has built in recent years on the new class of incretin drugs that include glucagon-like-peptide-1 inhibitor (single agonists such as semaglutide) and also dual glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) and GLP-1 receptor agonists (dual agonists such tirzepatide). Billions of dollars is now being poured into research to develop new anti-obesity medications that exhibit stronger effects while minimising side-effect profiles. But the excitement is not just limited to existing mono- and dual-agonists. In a session at this year’s Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes ...

HERSHEY, Pa. — Approximately 7 million children in the United States between the ages of three and 17 have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention. Up to 50% of children with ADHD also have severe problems with impulsive aggression and persistent irritability, according to James Waxmonsky, professor of psychiatry and University Chair in Child Psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine. These children can experience intense and extended emotional ...

Adults with both Down Syndrome and congenital heart defects, also known as congenital heart disease (CHD), are showing remarkable resilience despite facing significant medical challenges, according to a new MUSC study in Pediatric Cardiology. The study found that adults ages 18 to 45 with both conditions are just as likely to work, volunteer and experience the same quality of life as those with Down Syndrome alone.  The study was conducted through the Pediatric Heart Network, a consortium of leading children’s hospitals that includes ...

In 2022, after Elon Musk bought what’s now X, the company laid off 80% of its content moderation team and made Community Notes the platform’s main form of fact-checking. Previously a pilot program at Twitter, Community Notes lets users propose attaching a comment to a specific post — usually to add context or correct an inaccurate fact. If other users with diverse views vote that the comment is useful, as measured by X’s algorithm, then the note is appended to the post. Other social media platforms, including Meta and YouTube, have since followed.  A University of Washington-led study of X found that posts with Community Notes attached were less prone ...

TUCSON, Ariz. — The University of Arizona and the University of New Mexico received a seven-year, $43.6 million federal grant to fund a broad range of research programs aimed at improving the health of people living in Arizona and New Mexico, while also training a new generation of scientists and staff.  The Clinical and Translational Science Award from the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences will fund the new Southwest Center for Advancing Clinical and Translational Innovation, or SW CACTI. The National Institutes of Health CTSA consortium includes 61 of the leading academic research centers in the country. ...

Richmond Hill, Canada, 19 September 2025 - For nearly half a century, the conflict between Türkiye and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) has not only killed tens of thousands of people but also caused deforestation, pollution, and land degradation in the region. The recent call by the incarcerated PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan for the group to disarm and dissolve offers a rare prospect for peace and order.  A new publication by the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment ...