Australian researchers have discovered that sleepy lizards (Tiliqua rugosus) can recognise the smell of smoke as a sign of approaching fire and attempt to escape, but they do not respond to the sound of fire. The study, published this month in Biology Letters, provides the first empirical test of an amusing anecdote: when zookeepers at a US zoo burnt their lunch, they noticed they were not alone in smelling the acrid smoke. Captive sleepy lizards became agitated by the smell wafting through the building, while other reptiles remained calm. Despite being mostly captive-bred, the lizards tongue-flicked, paced, and tried to escape—behaviour researchers now show ...

(Paris, France, Wednesday, 17 September 2025) A new international study presented today at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress 2025 reveals that adults with atopic eczema (AE) are significantly more likely to experience suicidal thoughts, with researchers uncovering the key factors driving this elevated risk.1 As one of the largest global investigations to examine the link between AE and suicidal ideation, the “Scars of Life” study surveyed 30,801 adults across 27 countries in 2024. Among ...

Maintaining weight loss with regular exercise rather than the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1RA) liraglutide, a drug used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity, seems to reduce atherosclerosis development in adults with obesity—a leading underlying cause of cardiovascular disease. The study of adults with obesity but not diabetes is by researchers from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and is presented at this year’s Annual Meeting of The European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), Vienna ...

Guideline development and inclusiveness The guideline was developed in line with internationally recognised standards, including the GRADE methodology and the RIGHT reporting statement, and reflects the EASD’s newly established Standard Operating Procedures for guideline development. Importantly, people with lived experience of type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes were active members of the Guideline Development Panel from the outset. Their contributions helped shape the clinical questions, interpretation of evidence, and formulation of recommendations, ensuring that the final guideline is firmly ...

GLP-1 receptor agonist drugs protect against diabetic retinopathy, a common complication of diabetes that can lead to sight loss, suggests new research being presented at the annual meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Vienna, Austria (15-19 September) and published in the journal Pharmaceutics. GLP-1 drugs such as semaglutide are widely used to treat type 2 diabetes and obesity.  They do this by mimicking the action of GLP-1, a hormone that helps the body make more insulin when needed, slows down digestion, curbs appetite and increases feelings of fullness. Many tissues around the body have GLP-1 receptors (proteins ...

New research presented at the Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes in Vienna, Austria (Sept 15-19) and simultaneously published in NEJM shows that daily treatment with the new once-daily GLP-1 agonist orforglipron results in substantial weight loss in people living with obesity that do not have type 2 diabetes. The study is by Dr Sean Wharton, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON, Canada and Wharton Weight Management Clinic, Burlington, ON, Canada, and colleagues. The study is sponsored by Eli Lilly, the manufacturer of orforglipron.  Orforglipron is a small-molecule, ...

URBANA, Ill. – Genes are the building blocks of life, and the genetic code provides the instructions for the complex processes that make organisms function. But how and why did it come to be the way it is? A recent study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign sheds new light on the origin and evolution of the genetic code, providing valuable insights for genetic engineering and bioinformatics. “We find the origin of the genetic code mysteriously linked to the dipeptide composition of a proteome, the collective of proteins in an organism,” said corresponding author Gustavo Caetano-Anollés, professor in the Department ...

Key points State and local officials in Florida maintain hundreds coops with what are referred to as sentinel chickens, which act as an early alarm system for the presence of mosquito-borne illnesses in an area. This alarm system just got an upgrade. An interdisciplinary team of experts, including a zoonotic disease specialist, a museum data scientist and a salamander biologist, have combined their skills and created a statistical model that accurately predicts the activity of West Nile virus in an area up to six months in advance. The model was trained using two decades of sentinel chicken data. The original data files ...

A new study illuminates how some areas of the country have been hit much harder than others by the fentanyl epidemic, which took more than 70,800 lives in 2022 alone. The research calls attention to a need for focused, coordinated efforts to prevent overdose deaths in the places where deaths from the opioid are rampant, said lead author Thomas Wickizer, a professor emeritus in The Ohio State University College of Public Health. The study appears in the journal Health Affairs Scholar. “We can look at this map and see there are certain areas which are experiencing this at an extremely dire rate, and energy and resources, including financial investments, should ...

One of the main factors driving prices in pharmaceuticals, such as cholesterol-lowering drugs and antibiotics, is the cost of production and materials. Researchers at the University of Maine Forest Bioproducts Research Institute (FBRI) have discovered a sustainable method to produce the key ingredient in a broad range of pharmaceuticals, which could help address high prescription drug costs in the U.S.  Among some of the most expensive medications are those that require a chiral center  ― a property in which a molecule cannot be superimposed with its mirror image, like right and ...

Aging, neurological diseases and our bodies’ stress response are all linked to the tiny power plants inside each cell known as mitochondria. To function properly, mitochondria must first read instructions from their DNA and then copy it over into mRNA in a process called transcription. Now, researchers at Thomas Jefferson University have reconstructed transcription in human mitochondria in unprecedented detail. The findings, published in Molecular Cell, show how the molecular machinery works and reveal potential drug targets for mitochondrial diseases. “When we understand ...

In a new study conducted at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, researchers from the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) have shown that the loss of a key male fertility gene leads to infertility and changes expression of hundreds of other important genes. The study was led by Professor Dr. Monika Ward from the Department of Anatomy, Biochemistry & Physiology and the Yanagimachi Institute for Biogenesis Research (YIBR). The team has been investigating a zinc finger Y-encoded gene called Zfy. This gene, encoded on Y chromosome in both mice and humans, is considered a male fertility factor. In mice, Zfy is present as two copies, Zfy1 and Zfy2. The researchers ...

AMHERST, Mass. — One of the biggest obstacles on the road to the low-carbon energy future is caused by the rare-earth element lithium, a critical component for the batteries that can store the abundant and sustainable energy from renewable sources. The element occurs naturally as a salt in briny oases, called salares, in some of the world’s harshest environments, including the “Lithium Triangle” high in South America’s arid Altiplano. Mining lithium has the potential to destabilize already sensitive environments that are host to rare flora and fauna, ...

New research has shown how harmful gambling is clearly linked to a marked and long-lasting increase in suicide attempts among young people in the UK. The study, by researchers at the University of Bristol, found that compared to someone who experiences no gambling harms, problem gamblers face triple the suicide risk one year later, and quadruple the risk four years on. Researchers analysed data from 2,801 people in the renowned Children of the 90s study, which has followed the health and development of 14,000 pregnant women and their families since the early nineties, and which continues ...

Catalysts play an indispensable role in modern manufacturing. More than 80% of all manufactured products, from pharmaceuticals to plastics, rely on catalytic processes at some stage of production. Transition metals, in particular, stand out as highly effective catalysts because their partially filled d-orbitals allow them to easily exchange electrons with other molecules. This very property, however, makes them challenging to model accurately, requiring precise descriptions of their electronic structure. Designing efficient transition-metal catalysts ...

When Rutgers theoretical astrophysicist Charles Keeton first saw an unusual picture shared by his colleague, he was intrigued. “Have you ever seen an Einstein Cross with an image in the middle?” his colleague Andrew Baker asked, referring to a rarely seen cosmic configuration. Keeton hadn’t. The implications were enormous. “I said, well, that’s not supposed to happen,” said Keeton, the Vice Provost for Experiential Learning at Rutgers University-New Brunswick. “You can’t get a fifth image in the center unless something unusual is going on with the mass that’s bending the light.” An ...

When Jill Knaus shuffled into the Adult Hydrocephalus Program at the University of Calgary she was hoping to find answers to her health concerns. She suddenly required the use of a cane or a walker. Her gait and balance were off, way off. Life wasn’t the same. “I wasn’t walking anymore, not properly. I wore through five pair of shoes because my feet were dragging when I tried to step,” says Knaus. “I couldn’t go for daily walks with my dog, Lucy.” Knaus chose to ...

Researchers at the University of Calgary studying a lethal lung disease called pulmonary fibrosis have found neurons, which were known to help detect pain, are also critical for reducing harmful lung inflammation that leads to the disease. Pulmonary fibrosis, also called lung scarring, is uncommon but it’s hard to treat and most people die within five years of diagnosis. Research to date has focused on how the lung lining gets damaged and the body’s attempts to repair the issue. The role of neurons — a complex network of cells within the nervous system that send messages between the brain, spinal cord and through the body ...

September 16, 2025 — Abbreviated, 15- to 30-minute medication visits have become common in psychiatry now that many insurers model their reimbursement patterns on internal medicine and surgery. To support practicing psychiatrists, a series of four columns in the Journal of Psychiatric Practice®, part of the Lippincott portfolio from Wolters Kluwer, describe how to feasibly combine brief psychotherapy with longitudinal pharmacotherapy. The final installment appears in the September issue. The authors are psychiatrists Samuel Dotson, MD, of Northeast Georgia Health System in Gainesville, GA and Emory University in Atlanta; John C. Markowitz, ...

MSU has a satellite uplink/LTN TV studio and Comrex line for radio interviews upon request. Why this matters:   Wiggling atoms in new quantum materials could lead to more efficient electronics that are smaller and faster. These new materials have surprising properties and could be key elements for next-generation quantum computers. EAST LANSING, Mich. – Researchers at Michigan State University have figured out how to use a fast laser to wiggle atoms in a way that temporarily changes the behavior of their host material. Their novel ...

The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology will host a public webinar on Monday, September 29, at 12 pm CT showcasing the key findings of Alliance research presented at the 2025 American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting. The clinical trial results discussed at the virtual meeting will include some of the latest information for people living with colorectal, squamous cell, and renal cell cancers.   “We are pleased to showcase the ground-breaking research that Alliance researchers presented at ASCO,” said Evanthia Galanis, MD, Group ...

The global climate crisis could significantly impact the natural replenishment of Brazilian aquifers, reducing the groundwater supply across the country. This is the conclusion of a study by scientists from the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Geosciences (IGc-USP) and the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). The scientists analyzed the impact of various climate scenarios on water availability by the end of the century. The study was published in the journal Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. Groundwater ...

A University of Arizona Comprehensive Cancer Center researcher received a $1.7 million grant from the Department of Defense to continue the Convergent Science Virtual Cancer Center, which broadens the scope of education for cancer research trainees through an emergent, cross-disciplinary approach known as convergent science.   The Convergent Science Virtual Cancer Center – a partnership between the U of A Cancer Center and the Convergent Science Institute in Cancer at the University of Southern California – strengthens scholars’ expertise in ...

Our brains are masters of efficiency. “Biology is very energy optimized,” says Yevgeny Berdichevsky, an associate professor of bioengineering and electrical and computer engineering at Lehigh University. “The amount of energy the brain uses at any given time is roughly equal to a light bulb in terms of wattage. Replicating those computations in hardware would demand orders of magnitude more power.”  Berdichevsky and his collaborators in Lehigh’s P.C. Rossin College of ...

Stanford Medicine researchers have developed an artificial intelligence tool to help scientists better plan gene-editing experiments. The technology, CRISPR-GPT, acts as a gene-editing “copilot” supported by AI to help researchers — even those unfamiliar with gene editing — generate designs, analyze data and troubleshoot design flaws. The model builds on a tool called CRISPR, a powerful gene-editing technology used to edit genomes and develop therapies for genetic diseases. But training on the tool to design an experiment is complicated and time-consuming — even for seasoned scientists. CRISPR-GPT speeds that process along, automating ...