Two major environmental shifts have triggered global transformations in large herbivore communities. A new study with researchers from the University of Gothenburg show how these ecosystems remained remarkably resilient despite extinction and upheaval. From mastodons to ancient rhinos and giant deer, large herbivores have been shaping Earth’s landscapes for millions of years. A new study, published in Nature communications, shows how these giants responded to dramatic environmental shifts – and how their ecosystems found ways to stay together, even as species disappeared. An ...

The idea of the front brake light has been around for some time, but no vehicle manufacturer has as yet implemented it. A research team led by Ernst Tomasch from the Institute of Vehicle Safety at Graz University of Technology (TU Graz) in collaboration with the Bonn Institute for Legal and Traffic Psychology (BIRVp) has now analysed their effect on road safety in an accident reconstruction study. The analysis of 200 real accidents at road junctions showed that – depending on the reaction time of road ...

The gender gap in education doesn’t always disadvantage women. In countries like Estonia, Iceland, or Sweden, women outperform men in key indicators such as tertiary education and lifelong learning. But that, too, is a gender gap. That’s the starting point for researchers at the Miguel Hernández University of Elche (UMH), who have developed a mathematical model to support European education authorities in improving performance and reducing gender disparities, regardless of which group is underperforming. “In many European ...

Birmingham spin-out Linear Diagnostics has been awarded £1m funding to finalise the development of a rapid test for sexually transmitted infections (STIs), in partnership with the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre (HRC) in Diagnostic and Technology Evaluation and the North East Innovation Lab, part of Newcastle Hospitals.  Linear is developing a low-cost, accurate, near-patient diagnostic platform, that aims to diagnose infection from a single sample faster than any commercially available alternative.  The funding from the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Invention for Innovation programme covers a three-year package ...

Geneva, 5 June 2025 – Tech sector carbon emissions continued their rise in recent years, fueled by rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and data infrastructure, according to Greening Digital Companies 2025. The report, produced by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) -- the UN agency for digital technologies -- and the World Benchmarking Alliance (WBA), tracks the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, energy use, and climate commitments of 200 leading digital companies as of 2023, the most recent year for which full data is available. While the annual report calls ...

Scientists with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History have discovered that a bacterial probiotic helps slow the spread of stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) in already infected wild corals in Florida. The findings, published today in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, reveal that applying the probiotic treatment across entire coral colonies helped prevent tissue loss. The new treatment provides a viable alternative to antibiotics, which only offer temporary protection and also run the risk of creating resistant strains of SCTLD. “The goal of using the probiotics is to get the ...

Wheat production is threatened by a major fungal disease: yellow rust. Researchers at the University of Zurich have found traditional wheat varieties from Asia that harbor several resistance-conferring genes. They may serve as a durable source of yellow rust resistance in commercial varieties in the future, highlighting the importance of genetic diversity for food security. Yellow rust, also known as stripe rust, is caused by a fungal pathogen named Puccinia striiformis f. sp. tritici. The plant disease affects around 88% of global bread wheat production ...

Osaka Metropolitan University researchers have gained clearer insights into the natural behavior of medaka, small fish that are useful as model organisms in the lab. Specially Appointed Dr. Yuki Kondo and Professor Satoshi Awata of the Graduate School of Science conducted continuous 24-hour observations of medaka raised in an environment close to their natural habitat and verified when the fish begin their reproductive behavior. Medaka spawning behavior in a natural environment begins around 1 a.m. and peaks between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. In addition, courtship behavior was frequently observed ...

Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, shifting tectonic plates - these are all signs that our planet is alive. But what is revealed deep inside the earth surprises laymen and scientists alike: Almost 3000 kilometres below the Earth's surface, solid rock is flowing that is neither liquid, like lava, nor brittle like solid rock. This is shown by a new study by geoscientists led by Motohiko Murakami, Professor of Experimental Mineral Physics at ETH Zurich. The study has just been published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. Half a ...

What does it take for a company to last for centuries? Ask most business analysts, and you’ll hear about innovation, financial acumen, or strategic pivots. But new research suggests another key to organizational survival: environmental sustainability. In a study recently published in Frontiers in Organizational Psychology, an international team of researchers reveals a robust link between organizations’ longevity and their commitment to environmentally sustainable business practices. The findings challenge the assumption that younger, more agile companies ...

A new study from Toho University reveals that female earwigs exhibit a similar pattern of exaggerated forceps growth as males, suggesting that both sexes may have evolved these traits through sexual selection. Do larger male elk have proportionally larger antlers? The answer is no. In fact, larger individuals tend to have disproportionately larger antlers—a phenomenon known as positive allometry. This pattern, where certain body parts grow disproportionately large relative to body size, is observed not only in mammals ...

A baby's makeup of gut bacteria — their microbiome — which starts to form as soon as they are born, could help protect against viral infections later in childhood, a new study suggests. As part of the largest study of UK baby microbiomes to date, researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and University College London (UCL) found that babies with a specific mix of gut bacteria at one week old, which was only found in some babies born vaginally, were less likely to be hospitalised for viral lower respiratory tract infections (vLRTI) in the first two years of life. This research, published today ...

The sodium glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT-2) inhibitor drug dapagliflozin, widely used to treat type 2 diabetes, also shows improvements for patients with progressive liver disease, finds a clinical trial from China published by The BMJ today. The results show that treatment with dapagliflozin improved metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) - a condition where excess fat accumulates in the liver, leading to inflammation - and liver fibrosis (a build up of scar tissue) compared ...

Giving a P2Y12 inhibitor anti-clotting drug to patients with coronary artery disease is associated with lower rates of cardiovascular death, heart attack and stroke compared with traditional aspirin, with no increased risk of major bleeding, finds a study published by The BMJ today. P2Y12 inhibitors are often given to patients alongside aspirin (“dual therapy”) after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) - a procedure to widen or unblock a coronary artery - to help prevent cardiovascular events including heart attack and stroke. After several months, patients ...

(Vienna, Austria, Thursday 5 June 2025) New 100-week data from the ongoing Phase 1/2 study of zigakibart, an investigational anti-APRIL monoclonal antibody, reinforce its potential as a disease-modifying treatment for IgA nephropathy (IgAN). Findings presented today at the 62nd ERA Congress demonstrate sustained proteinuria remission, stable kidney function, and a reassuring safety profile.1 IgAN is the most common form of glomerular disease worldwide and a frequent cause of chronic kidney disease. Its pathogenesis is marked by inflammation and progressive kidney damage, which can lead to kidney failure.² Many patients are unaware they have the condition until significant kidney ...

(Vienna, Austria, Thursday 5 June 2025) A major international study, being presented today at the 62nd ERA Congress, reveals that the long-accepted survival advantage of deceased-donor kidney transplantation does not extend equally to every patient and every donor organ.1,2 A large-scale analysis, drawing on data from the European Renal Association (ERA) Registry, examined five-year survival outcomes in 64,013 wait-listed adults across Catalonia, Denmark, France, Norway, and the UK who began dialysis between 2000 and 2019. Using a robust target trial emulation (TTE) framework designed to mirror ...

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) remains one of the most aggressive and deadly forms of blood cancer, even as treatments have advanced in recent years. Standard approaches like high-dose chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants can extend life but often come at the cost of severe side effects — and many patients still relapse due to drug-resistant cancer cells. A research team led by Natasha Kirienko at Rice University is working to change that by turning the cancer cells’ own energy ...

A study of almost 1000 pregnant women in Zimbabwe found that a daily dose of a commonly used, safe and inexpensive antibiotic may have led to fewer babies being born early. Among women living with HIV, those who received the antibiotic had larger babies who were less likely to be preterm.   One in four live-born infants worldwide is preterm (born at 37 weeks’ gestation or before), is small for gestational age, or has a low birth weight. The mortality rate for these small and vulnerable newborns is high, with prematurity now the leading cause of death among ...

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) reveals that the largest diphtheria epidemic in Western Europe for 70 years, which broke out in 2022 among migrants and in 2023 spread to other vulnerable populations in several European countries, is the result of contaminations occurring during migratory travel or in destination European countries, and not in the countries of origin. However, the geographical area and conditions of these initial contaminations are still unknown. A genetic link has also been established between the strain that circulated during the 2022 epidemic and an epidemic that occurred in Germany in 2025, suggesting ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 2025 MINNEAPOLIS — While many people with neuromuscular diseases currently face a future without a cure, a new study finds that a personalized exercise and coaching program could improve their fitness and overall health. The study is published on June 4, 2025, online in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study looked at people with a variety of neuromuscular diseases that cause muscle weakness and loss, including ...

An international research collaboration featuring scientists from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory discovered a fundamental universal principle that governs how microscopic whirlpools interact, collide and transform within quantum fluids, which also has implications for understanding fluids that behave according to classical physics. The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed new insights into vortex dynamics ...

An AI program trained to study the handwriting styles of centuries-old manuscripts from the Middle East suggests that many of the Dead Sea Scrolls might be older than previously thought, according to a study published June 4, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Mladen Popović from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and colleagues. This method could give researchers a new way to place undated manuscripts into the timeline of ancient history. While some ancient manuscripts have dates written on them, giving archaeologists a precise understanding of when they ...

Between 12 and 20% of women with a history of pregnancy or testing for pregnancy visited crisis pregnancy centers across four U.S. states, according to a new study by Maria Gallo and colleagues from The Ohio State University, U.S., published June 4, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One. Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) typically provide pregnancy and parenting resources and associate with organizations which promote missions focused on preventing abortion, opposing contraception, and advocating for abstinence outside of marriage. They are typically not medically licensed clinics, though they can be perceived as medical facilities or abortion clinics, and often provide ...

Six decades of data on North Atlantic phytoplankton reveal that their biomass has decreased up to 2% annually across most of the Atlantic Ocean, with potentially widespread implications for the wider food web under climate change Article URL: https://plos.io/4kq8QEt Article title: Large, regionally variable shifts in diatom and dinoflagellate biomass in the North Atlantic over six decades Author countries: Canada Funding: This work was supported by grants from the Simons Foundation (549935 to AJI, 549937 and 986772 to ZVF), the Ocean Frontier Institute (NWABCP to AJI and ZVF), and Discovery grant awards from the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada ...

GPT-generated educational materials for urological cancer patients, translated by AI into five languages, are rated by doctors as easier to read than human-authored versions while being just as clear, accurate and complete Article URL: https://plos.io/45jsop6 Article title: GPT-4 generates accurate and readable patient education materials aligned with current oncological guidelines: A randomized assessment Author countries: U.S., Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Russia, Switzerland Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. END ...