U of T Scarborough researchers have directly linked population decline in polar bears living in Western Hudson Bay to shrinking sea ice caused by climate change. The researchers developed a model that finds population decline is the result of the bears not getting enough energy, and that’s due to a lack of food caused by shorter hunting seasons on dwindling sea ice. “A loss of sea ice means bears spend less time hunting seals and more time fasting on land,” says Louise Archer, a U of T Scarborough postdoc and lead author of the study. “This negatively affects the bears’ energy ...

(Charlottesville, VA, Jan. 30, 2025) – The Center for Open Science (COS) is excited to announce that Lifecycle Journal, a 3-year research and development pilot on a new model of scholarly communication, is now open for submissions. Lifecycle Journal reimagines scholarly publishing in line with scholarly values of rigor, transparency, sharing, correction, and community evaluation. Lifecycle Journal offers a dynamic, community-driven approach to scholarly publishing, providing a new experience for authors, reviewers, and readers to critically engage with research throughout the entire research lifecycle. The traditional ...

Sheep have been intertwined with human livelihoods for over 11,000 years. As well as meat, their domestication led to humans being nourished by their protein-rich milk and clothed by warm, water-resistant fabrics made from their wool.  Now, an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers led by geneticists from Trinity College Dublin and zooarchaeologists from LMU Munich and the Bavarian State Collections of Natural History (SNSB) has deciphered the prehistoric cultural trajectory of this species by analysing 118 genomes recovered from archaeological bones dating across 12 millennia and stretching from Mongolia to ...

An international study has investigated the causes and impacts of the devastating flood disaster in the Himalayas in October 2023, which destroyed large areas along and surrounding the Teesta River in Sikkim, India. A research team from nine countries, including researchers from the University of Zurich (UZH), analyzed the complex drivers, causes and consequences of this flood cascade and reconstructed the exact time of its onset.  Massive damage caused by tsunami wave  On 3 October 2023, approximately 14.7 million cubic meters of frozen ...

ITHACA, N.Y. – Cornell University researchers have developed a recyclable alternative to a durable class of plastics used for items like car tires, replacement hip joints and bowling balls. Known as thermosets, this type of plastic boasts a “crosslinked polymer” chemical structure that guarantees longevity but has also made these petrochemical-based materials – which comprise 15%-20% of all polymers produced – impossible to recycle. “Currently, zero percent of the world’s thermoset materials are recycled – they’re either incinerated ...

The productivity of cacao trees decreases with time, forcing farmers to renew their plantations by either cutting down the old trees or establishing a new crop elsewhere. Frequently, new plantations are established in areas of the forest that are thinned out to accommodate new, young cacao trees. However, this comes with high economic and ecological costs. An alternative approach is to graft highly productive and native cultivars onto the existing older cacao trees. An international team led by scientists of the University of Göttingen found that cacao grafting is a useful measure to rejuvenate cacao plants, increasing their yield and profits with minimal impact on biodiversity. The ...

Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is leading a new £2 million initiative to help prevent food shortages that could potentially trigger civil unrest in the UK. The project, called Backcasting to Increase Food System Resilience in the UK, is being led by experts from Anglia Ruskin’s Global Sustainability Institute and has received £2,048,461 in funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council, part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Building on recent research that found that over 40% of food experts believe widespread civil unrest linked to food shortages, such as demonstrations and violent looting, is possible or likely in the UK within the next 10 ...

The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) and the interventional cardiology community mourn the passing of Frank J. Hildner, MD, FSCAI, a founding member and past president (1989-90) of SCAI. “Dr. Frank Hildner laid the foundation for SCAI’s growth and success. His visionary leadership helped guide SCAI through its formative years, ensuring it would become the trusted home for interventional cardiology. We are deeply grateful for his contributions and will continue to honor his legacy,” said SCAI President James B. Hermiller, MD, MSCAI. Recognizing the need for a dedicated platform for interventional cardiologists, Dr. ...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Finding patterns and reducing noise in large, complex datasets generated by the gravitational wave-detecting LIGO facility just got easier, thanks to the work of scientists at the University of California, Riverside.  The UCR researchers presented a paper at a recent IEEE big-data workshop, demonstrating a new, unsupervised machine learning approach to find new patterns in the auxiliary channel data of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, or LIGO. The ...

DALLAS, Jan. 30, 2025 – An organization that developed a health monitor to continuously track blood oxygen levels and one that launched a digital health platform to provide peer support to people recovering from addiction are the recipients of the 2025 Impact with Heart awards from the American Heart Association. The Association, a global force changing the future of health for all, annually recognizes leaders in innovative entrepreneurship that supports equitable health outcomes. According to the just released American Heart Association 2025 Heart Disease & Stroke Statistics report, heart disease continues ...

Research has shown that polarization undermines democracy by driving citizens to prioritize partisan preferences over democratic principles, encourages democratic gridlock and threatens democratic attitudes and norms, such as tolerance for opposition. Today, Americans are grappling with deep political divides, often seeing those on the other side as untrustworthy, unpatriotic and misinformed — a rift that threatens democracy. Could marriage counseling hold the key to a more unified country? A recent study, published in Political Behavior and co-authored by Laura Gamboa, an assistant professor of democracy and global affairs at the Keough ...

BOZEMAN – With the help of two major grants from the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a team in Montana State University’s College of Agriculture is furthering investigations of honeybee antiviral defense mechanisms with the goal of developing strategies to reduce honeybee colony deaths. According to Michelle Flenniken, a professor in MSU’s Department of Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology and co-director of the university’s Pollinator Health Center, annual honeybee colony losses have averaged roughly 38% in the ...

They’re one of the UK’s most loved staples, providing around half of our carbohydrate intake as a nation and supporting over 20,000 farm, transport and manufacturing jobs. Now, new research is focusing on ensuring reliable supplies of the potato all year round with a project that focuses on potato dormancy and extending storage life. To achieve year-round supplies in the UK, around 1.5 million tonnes of potatoes are kept in cold stores for up to eight months to prevent sprouting. However, following the withdrawal of a chemical that ...

Zaps of static electricity might be a wintertime annoyance, but to certain scientists, they represent an untapped source of energy. Using a device called a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), mechanical energy can be converted into electrical energy using triboelectric effect static. Many TENGs contain expensive, specially fabricated materials, but one team has instead used inexpensive store-bought tape, plastic and aluminum metal. The researchers report an improved version of their tape-based TENG in ACS Omega.  The research team, led by Gang Wang and Moon-Hyung Jang, previously stacked layers of a store-bought double-sided tape, plastic film and aluminum metal ...

A research team led by Dr Prof. Hitoshi Yamamoto of Rissho University and Dr Prof. Takahisa Suzuki of Tsuda University explored the conditions under which people would accept the moral judgments of AI. They focused on the behaviour of "not helping people with bad reputations (justified non-cooperation)," which is difficult for people to judge as good or bad, to investigate under what conditions people are more likely to accept AI's judgments over human judgments. The study revealed that people tend to be more accepting of AI's judgments when AI makes positive judgments and humans make negative judgments. The research results were published in the ...

Hamilton, ON, Jan. 30, 2025 – Researchers have shown that plumes of wildfire smoke can carry contaminants hundreds of kilometres, leaving a toxic and lingering footprint which has the potential to be re-released into the environment.   The frequency and severity of wildfires is expected to continue increasing due to climate change. In recent weeks, catastrophic wildfires have devasted Los Angeles, scorching tens of thousands of acres.    Canada’s 2023 wildfire season was the most destructive ever recorded, with an estimated 18.5 million hectares burned. The 2024 season was the second worst on record, with more than 5 million ...

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL: Jan. 30, 2025, 8:45 a.m. MST                                                                                            Denver, Colo. ― Congenital heart defects ...

Researchers report January 30 in the Cell Press journal Joule that a more efficient and environmentally friendly form of refrigeration might be on the horizon. The new technology is based on thermogalvanic cells that produce a cooling effect by way of a reversible electrochemical reaction. Thermogalvanic refrigeration is cheaper and more environmentally friendly than other cooling methods because it requires a far lower energy input, and its scalability means that it could be used for various applications—from wearable cooling devices to industrial-grade scenarios. “Thermogalvanic technology is on its way to our lives, ...

Lead pollution in the Aegean Sea region may have begun around 5,200 years ago, according to a paper published in Communications Earth & Environment. The findings suggest that lead pollution due to human activities began approximately 1,200 years earlier than previously thought, and that the expansion of the Roman Empire across the Aegean region led to a significant increase in lead pollution in the region around 2,150 years ago. Andreas Koutsodendris and colleagues analysed the lead content of ...

Studies of sediment cores from the sea floor and the coastal regions surrounding the Aegean Sea show that humans contaminated the environment with lead early on in antiquity. A research team led by geoscientists from Heidelberg University conducted the analyses, which revealed that human activity in the region resulted in lead contamination of the environment approximately 5,200 years ago – much earlier than previously known. Combined with the results of pollen analyses from the sediment cores, this contamination also offers insights into socioeconomic change in the Aegean, even reflecting historical ...

About The Study: This cohort study documented a large decrease in antidepressant use without an accompanying increase in psychotherapy during pregnancy. These findings, coupled with evidence of mental health challenges during and after pregnancy, suggest the need for increased focus on and discussion about mental health treatments by pregnant women and their clinicians.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Claire Boone, PhD, email claire.boone@mcgill.ca. To access the embargoed study: Visit our ...

About The Study: The overall prevalence of social isolation in this study was 3%, which is lower than other determinants of health, such as smoking, poverty, and inadequate health insurance. The results indicate 3 broad and likely interrelated populations at risk for social isolation, including racial and ethnic minority groups, those with financial insecurity (i.e., unemployed, uninsured, lower income), and those with chronic health conditions, with depression being a large factor.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Hao Yu, PhD, email hao_yu@hphci.harvard.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study, underrepresented in medicine internal medicine residents remained underrepresented compared with their program’s county populations. These findings should inform racial and ethnic diversity policies to address the continuing underrepresentation among graduate medical education physicians, which adversely impacts the care of historically underserved communities.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Jung G. Kim, PhD, MPH, email jung.kim3@nyulangone.org. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.57310) Editor’s ...

About The Study: This cross-sectional study found that the foods advertised during National Football League games, the most watched sporting events in the U.S., were frequently high in sodium, calorie, and fat content. Although the effectiveness of sports advertising and paid sponsorships on food consumption has been studied mostly among children and young adults, adults with prevalent conditions, such as heart failure, coronary artery disease, hypertension, diabetes and kidney failure, may also be vulnerable to deviations ...

The world is experiencing more frequent and intense heat waves, floods, hurricanes, and wildfires due to rising greenhouse gas emissions. The energy sector is one of the largest contributors to climate change, yet it also plays a crucial role in the strategies needed to mitigate and adapt to its effects, contributing to the achievement of ambitious climate goals. In this global context, Lithuania is undergoing a significant energy transformation as it moves toward a more sustainable and independent future. By aligning its energy ...