Since January’s wildfires flattened entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles, displacing 12,900 households and causing an estimated $30 billion in losses, California’s many other fire-prone communities have been eager for solutions to better protect themselves. A new UC Berkeley-led study provides these communities and their lawmakers with actionable data on how wildfire mitigation strategies can reduce the destructiveness of wildfires by as much as 50%. One option to reduce wildfire damage is home hardening, which ...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Cellular differentiation of stem cells into specialized cells requires many steps, including division, to create more cells; fate determination, which is a commitment to a specific lineage or developmental path; and migration, to integrate the cell into its final location. Previous in vitro work has shown that stem cells can spontaneously self-organize into groups of specialized cell types, yet little is known about how that happens in living animals — where densely populated microenvironments ...

A team of computer scientists led by the University of Colorado Boulder has developed a new artificial intelligence platform that automatically seeks out “questionable” scientific journals. The study, published Aug. 27 in the journal “Science Advances,” tackles an alarming trend in the world of research. Daniel Acuña, lead author of the study and associate professor in the Department of Computer Science, gets a reminder of that several times a week in his email inbox: These spam messages come from ...

           In recent years, fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that is 50 to 100 times stronger than morphine, has been a main contributor to the opioid crisis. One of the worst adverse effects of fentanyl abuse is opioid-induced cardiac arrest.  Although it is well known that opioid abuse can induce arrhythmias; the effects of fentanyl abuse on heart rhythms have not yet been thoroughly investigated.             In a recent study published in Circulation, first-author Gema Mondéjar-Parreño, PhD and senior author Joseph C. Wu, MD, ...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., August 28, 2025 – Raina Biosciences Inc., (“Raina”), an mRNA technology and therapeutics company, today announced the publication of data from its generative AI platform in Science. The data supports Raina's pioneering approach to mRNA design using its GEMORNA platform to generate novel sequences with superior drug properties over existing mRNA discovery methods. Founded by a team with deep RNA therapeutics and AI expertise, the Company’s mission is to transform the mRNA-based therapeutics landscape by accelerating drug discovery timelines and opening new therapeutic areas for mRNA ...

Yellowstone’s roaming bison herds enhance nutrient cycles and boost ecosystem health at landscape scales, according to a new study. The findings, which challenge conventional grazing wisdom, suggest that restoring large-scale migrations could unlock the species’ full ecological power. Historically, North America supported tens of millions of bison whose seasonal migrations transformed the continent’s vast grassland ecosystems. Today, these once massive herds of wild, free roaming bison are no more; only about 400,000 bison remain, and almost all exist in small managed herds on private land or within parks and reserves. ...

The Tijuana River’s polluted waters don’t just contaminate Southern California’s beaches – they also release toxic gases and aerosols that travel far beyond the riverbanks, threatening the health of nearby communities, according to a new study. The Tijuana River Valley, straddling the US-Mexico border, faces a severe and worsening pollution crisis as untreated sewage, industrial waste, and toxic runoff flow into the Pacific, causing prolonged beach closures and persistent environmental health risks. While most concern ...

A study of ancient horse genomes reveals the genetic changes that contributed to making the animals tame, strong, and rideable by humans thousands of years ago. The domestication of horses, which occurred at least 4,500 years ago, had a transformative effect on the evolution of human society, altering mobility, farming, and warfare. Across much of the world, horses served as a primary mode of human transportation until the rise of the combustion engine in the late 19th century. However, despite ...

Locked beneath a single-plate crust, Mars’ mantle holds a frozen record of the red planet’s primordial past, according to a new study of Martian seismic data collected by NASA’s InSight mission. The findings reveal a highly heterogenous and disordered mantle, born from ancient impacts and chaotic convection in the planet’s early history. “Whereas Earth’s early geological records remain elusive, the identification of preserved ancient mantle heterogeneity on Mars offers an unprecedented window into the geological history and ...

Osaka, Japan – All living beings, big or small, are formed through the hard work of many different cells. To keep the body ready for any challenge, cells need to be dynamic. Often, this means the same types of cell – for example, red blood cells – look and function differently to one another to work together en masse. While researchers know that these varied, or micro-heterogenous, cells exist in multiple bodily systems, the benefits of being heterogenous for how systems function are not yet known. However, in a study due to be published in PLOS Computational Biology, researchers from The University of Osaka, The University of ...

New York, NY [August 28, 2025]—When genetic testing reveals a rare DNA mutation, doctors and patients are frequently left in the dark about what it actually means. Now, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai have developed a powerful new way to determine whether a patient with a mutation is likely to actually develop disease, a concept known in genetics as penetrance. The team set out to solve this problem using artificial intelligence (AI) and routine lab tests like cholesterol, blood counts, and kidney function. Details of the findings were reported ...

On Aug. 28, scientists from Washington and Lee University, the National Park Service and the University of Wyoming published research in Science magazine shedding new light on the value of bison recovery efforts in Yellowstone National Park. Bill Hamilton, John T. Perry Jr. Professor in Research Science at Washington and Lee University, and Chris Geremia, a researcher with the National Park Service at Yellowstone, served as co-first authors, with co-author Jerod Merkle, associate professor and Knobloch Professor in Migration Ecology and Conservation at the University of Wyoming. While momentum is building to restore bison ...

Mars’s interior more like Rocky Road than Millionaire’s Shortbread, scientists find New research published in the journal Science reveals the Red Planet’s mantle preserves a record of its violent beginnings. The inside of Mars isn’t smooth and uniform like familiar textbook illustrations. Instead, new research reveals it’s chunky - more like a Rocky Road brownie than a neat slice of Millionaire’s Shortbread. We often picture rocky planets like Earth and Mars as having smooth, layered interiors - with crust, mantle, and core stacked like the biscuit base, caramel middle, and chocolate topping of a millionaire’s shortbread. But the ...

For decades, the Tijuana River has carried millions of gallons of untreated sewage and industrial waste across the U.S.-Mexico border. The river passes through San Diego’s South Bay region before emptying into the ocean, recently leading to more than 1,300 consecutive days of beach closures and water quality concerns. Residents of South Bay communities have long voiced concerns about the foul smells emanating from the river, reporting health issues including eye, nose and throat irritation, respiratory issues, fatigue ...

In a first-of-its-kind experiment, engineers at the University of Pennsylvania brought quantum networking out of the lab and onto commercial fiber-optic cables using the same Internet Protocol (IP) that powers today’s web. Reported in Science, the work shows that fragile quantum signals can run on the same infrastructure that carries everyday online traffic. The team tested their approach on Verizon’s campus fiber-optic network. The Penn team’s tiny “Q-chip” coordinates quantum and classical data ...

New research finds the human brain has a built-in pain map that activates in different areas when relieving face, arm or leg pain. But placebo pain relief only works where the brain expects it. Further research may help to unlock safer, targeted pain treatments.   Researchers from the University of Sydney have used placebo pain relief to uncover a map-like system in the brainstem that controls pain differently depending on where it’s felt in the body. The findings may pave the way for safer, more targeted treatments for chronic pain that don’t rely on opioids.    Like a highway, the brainstem connects the brain to the spinal cord and manages all signals ...

MIT researchers have developed a technique that enables real-time, 3D monitoring of corrosion, cracking, and other material failure processes inside a nuclear reactor environment.  This could allow engineers and scientists to design safer nuclear reactors that also deliver higher performance for applications like electricity generation and naval vessel propulsion.  During their experiments, the researchers utilized extremely powerful X-rays to mimic the behavior of neutrons interacting with a material inside a nuclear reactor.  They found that adding a buffer layer of silicon dioxide between the material and ...

BATON ROUGE, La – Metabolic health before and during pregnancy may have a bigger influence on risks for mother and baby than simply controlling weight gain. Data from a recent paper by Pennington Biomedical researchers indicates that pregnant women with metabolically unhealthy obesity were more likely to develop gestational diabetes than those who were metabolically healthy. The paper, “Metabolic Health and Heterogenous Outcomes of Prenatal Interventions: A Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Clinical Trial,” was published in the Journal of American ...

UC San Diego Health is the first health system in the world to perform an anterior cervical spine surgery using a fully personalized implant designed for a patient’s unique anatomy.  The first surgery, performed in July 2025, was an anterior cervical procedure, which involves making an incision in the front (anterior) of the neck, removing a damaged disc, and fusing the adjacent vertebrae together.  The procedure includes a standard artificial disc, placed in the space where a damaged disc has been removed. Traditional implants are one-size-fits-all, which ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Quantum Research Sciences (QRS), a leading Indiana-based software  company, has been awarded a U.S. Air Force contract to develop an artificial intelligence-driven platform called ACID-R, or Automated Commercial Industry Data-Repository. The platform is designed to help the Air Force efficiently identify and leverage needed technologies from the private sector. It harnesses AI without the risk of hallucination, or AI-fabricated false information, to quickly deliver details on commercial, ...

Nearly 20 years ago, a man named Timothy Ray Brown who was living with HIV and cancer, underwent two courses of stem cell transplantation to treat his acute myeloid leukemia. By using donor cells that lacked a key molecule needed for HIV to enter and infect immune cells, the procedures not only led to remission of his cancer, but also cured him of HIV. Now, a scientific team co-led by Dr. Lishomwa Ndhlovu at Weill Cornell Medicine and Dr. Jonah Sacha at Oregon Health & Science University have received an NIH MERIT Award to ...

Over the past 50 years, rates of obesity and type-2 diabetes have soared, while sperm quality has plummeted. Driving these changes could be the increasing popularity of ultra-processed foods, which have been linked to a range of poor health outcomes. However, scientists still aren’t sure whether it’s the industrial nature of the ingredients themselves, the processing of the foods, or whether it’s because they lead people to eat more than they should. An international team of scientists has now discovered that people gain more weight on an ultra-processed diet compared to a minimally processed diet, even when they eat the same number of calories. ...

Brazilian researchers have developed a ceramic clay that is lighter than that normally used in civil construction by adding algae from the Sargassum genus to the manufacturing process. These brown algae, also known as sargassum, are common in the central Atlantic Ocean. However, they have been washing up in large quantities on beaches in the Caribbean, the United States, and northern Brazil, where they have become problematic. Their accumulation on beaches can harm human health due to the gases emitted during decomposition, as well as damage tourism, fishing, ...

URBANA, Ill. — Many modern cancer treatments are highly effective at reducing or eliminating tumors, but they can also cause severe gastrointestinal symptoms that impact patients’ quality of life or lead to discontinuation of treatment. A new analysis from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers reveals the nutrition therapies that are most effective at minimizing GI distress.  “Understandably, there’s a major focus on eliminating the tumor, but alleviating symptoms that impact the continuation of treatment and helping the ...

Chicago, August 28, 2025 — Barbara Casadei, M.D., D.Phil., FRCP, FMedSci, FESC, Head of the National Heart and Lung Institute (NHLI) and British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at Imperial College London has been appointed as the next Editor in Chief of JAMA Cardiology. Dr. Casadei will assume the role of editor in chief of JAMA Cardiology in early 2026.  Dr. Casadei will succeed Robert Bonow, MD, MS, who is the founding editor in chief of JAMA Cardiology and the Max and Lilly Goldberg Distinguished Professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.   With extensive experience in cardiovascular research, Dr. Casadei leads ...