A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences confirms that fossilized remains of marine invertebrates can accurately reflect the functional diversity of past ecosystems—offering a powerful tool for understanding long-term ecological change and informing modern conservation. UNLV geoscience professor Carrie Tyler, in collaboration with Michał Kowalewski from the University of Florida, compared living marine communities with their corresponding skeletal remains and the fossil record across 51 coastal sites in ...

Simon Fraser University is breaking new ground in legal education with an exclusive international partnership that offers students a faster route to becoming a lawyer. The new SFU-Exeter Accelerated Law Program gives students the opportunity to graduate in only six years with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) from SFU and a Bachelor of Laws (LLB) from the University of Exeter, qualifying them to pursue legal careers in Canada and the UK. The University of Exeter is a member of the elite Russell Group, a collection of the UK’s most distinguished research-intensive universities. ...

There’s more than one way to build a honeybee hive, depending on the needs of the bees, according to a study published August 26th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Golnar Gharooni-Fard of the University of Colorado Boulder, USA, and colleagues. Honeybees are renowned for their ability to build intricate hives where they can store their food and raise their larvae. Hive construction is the collaborative effort of thousands of hard-working bees, which also demonstrate a knack for adjusting their honeycomb structures to account for available space and resources. In this study, Gharooni-Fard and colleagues ...

A deep sea worm that inhabits hydrothermal vents survives the high levels of toxic arsenic and sulfide in its environment by combining them in its cells to form a less hazardous mineral. Chaolun Li of the Institute of Oceanology, CAS, China, and colleagues report these findings in a new study published August 26th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. The worm, named Paralvinella hessleri, is the only animal to inhabit the hottest part of deep sea hydrothermal vents in the west Pacific, where hot, mineral-rich water spews from the seafloor. ...

A new HIV antiretroviral shows promise as a long-acting, oral prophylactic agent, according to a new study by Izzat Raheem, Tracy Diamond and colleagues from Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA, published August 26th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a key part of reducing the number of new HIV infections. The most common oral PrEP therapies, consisting of once-daily pills, are highly effective at protecting people from acquiring HIV, but they only work if taken properly. Currently, the only long-acting PrEP therapies require injection by a healthcare provider, which isn’t always feasible for people. Long-acting, oral PrEP therapies ...

Today a desert – as far as the eye can see. However, anyone looking more closely will discover hundreds of images carved into the rock. This ancient Egyptian graffiti attests to the fact that a new claim to sovereignty emerged here on the periphery over 5,000 years ago. One of these kings was known as Scorpion. He demonstrated his power with portrayals of himself as a divine ruler and with brutal depictions of violence. Together with Mohamed Abdelhay Abu Bakr, Egyptologist Prof. Dr. Ludwig Morenz from the University of Bonn has now published ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — New results from OSIRIS-REx, NASA’s first asteroid sample return mission, reveals why some gray asteroids reflect light at different wavelengths, like red or blue, more strongly. How these asteroids reflect light at red and blue wavelengths can give deeper insights into the evolution of rocky bodies in the solar system. It also enables future research. By having a better understanding and comparing what telemetry and telescope data say about an asteroid with what its actual surface particles ...

Several studies have shown that students who attend afternoon classes tend to perform better in school than those who attend morning classes. This is due to greater synchrony between class times and students’ biological clocks. However, a study of children and adolescents revealed that this does not apply to students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or symptoms of the condition. For this group, changing school shifts does not significantly improve academic performance. The study involved 2,240 Brazilian students between the ages of six and 14. It evaluated data on reading and writing performance, negative school ...

DALLAS, Aug. 26, 2025 — With chronic disease rates rising across the U.S., healthcare systems face ongoing challenges in reducing hospital stays and readmissions.[1] Nearly 1 in 4 heart failure patients is readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of discharge,[2] and fewer than 20% receive all four guideline-directed medical therapy pillars post-discharge, despite strong evidence showing these therapies improve patient outcomes.[3] At the same time, the number of people living with chronic illness is expected to double from 2020 to 2050.[4] Remote ...

Messenger RNA, or mRNA, vaccines entered the public consciousness when they were introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic, and both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna used the technology in developing their highly effective vaccines to fight the virus.  Since then, scientists have been fine-tuning this vaccine delivery system to make it more effective. A Yale research team has now developed a technology that improves both the power of mRNA vaccines and their effectiveness against a host of diseases. The new technology offers the promise of expanding the reach ...

Collaborative organizations, involving government agencies, nonprofit groups and other key stakeholders, are often created to address regional challenges such as preserving watersheds – but these organizations often fail to accomplish their stated goals. A new study suggests there is a specific administrative approach that improves the ability of these collaborative groups to deliver the services they were created to provide. “These organizations tend to do a good job of planning, but then stumble when it comes to transitioning from the planning process to actually executing the projects and processes necessary to implement the plan,” says ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Environmental scientists are increasingly using enormous artificial intelligence models to make predictions about changes in weather and climate, but a new study by MIT researchers shows that bigger models are not always better. The team demonstrates that, in certain climate scenarios, much simpler, physics-based models can generate more accurate predictions than state-of-the-art deep-learning models. Their analysis also reveals that a benchmarking technique commonly used to evaluate machine-learning techniques for climate predictions can be distorted by natural variations in the ...

LAWRENCE — Few people on Earth know as much about catfishes as University of Kansas researcher Gloria Arratia, who serves as editor and contributor to the just-published first volume of “Catfishes: A Highly Diversified Group” (CRC Press, 2025), a two-volume reference. While the first volume focuses on the fascinating anatomy of catfishes, the second will focus on their evolution and genetic relationships. Arratia’s new work, co-written by Roberto Reis of Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil, reflects the latest understanding of the family tree of Siluriformes (the scientific name for catfishes), ...

Introducing Energy & Environment Nexus (E&E Nexus) – a pioneering, open-access platform dedicated to the critical intersection of energy systems and environmental challenges. We explicitly prioritize research exploring the dynamic interplay between energy and the environment, where innovation meets impact. E&E Nexus Scope Spans Key:  ????Interdisciplinary Science of Energy & Environment ????Renewable Energy & Low-Carbon Technologies ????Energy Materials & Nanotechnology ????Solid Waste Resource Utilization ????Pollution Control & ...

One of the great challenges faced by families coping with Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia is learning how to communicate effectively with the person impacted by the disease while also upholding their personhood, or sense of personal value. A new study from UConn researcher Amanda Cooper – published in time for World Alzheimer’s Month in September and World Alzheimer’s Day on Sept. 21 - offers concrete recommendations on what to do and what not to do to support personhood for a family member living with dementia. “These ...

Paul Acosta, Assistant Research Professor, Atmospheric, Oceanic and Earth Sciences (AOES), College of Science, will receive funding for the project: “Collaborative Research: Mechanisms of moisture-driven ice growth: a warm Miocene data-model comparison.” He and his collaborators will use state-of-the-art isotope-enabled general circulation and ice sheet models to test a suite of hypothesized mechanisms for precipitation-driven Antarctic ice growth during the Middle Miocene (17-15 Ma). The proposed ...

A team from the Microbiology Department at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai has discovered three powerful monoclonal antibodies from a person who had previously been infected with mpox (formerly known as monkeypox). These antibodies, which target the viral protein A35, blocked viral spread in laboratory in vitro tests and, most importantly, protected rodents from severe disease and fully prevented death. The findings, published August 22 in Cell, also reveal that humans previously infected with mpox carry high levels of these protective antibodies in their blood, ...

Self-driving vehicles, drones, and robotic assistants are transforming industries including transportation, logistics, and health care. With new developments in hardware, AI, and machine learning, these autonomous agents can sense their surroundings with greater accuracy, understand complex environments, and engage in sophisticated reasoning.  But despite such advancements, deploying robots in dynamic, real-world settings—and getting them to do what we want—remains difficult. “The overarching problem deals with robot capabilities,” says Cristian-Ioan Vasile, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and mechanics in Lehigh University’s ...

ChatGPT and other generative AI models have achieved notable progress in natural language processing and generation, showing great potential in the medical field, such as automatically generating medical exam questions and answers, acting as personalized learning assistants, supporting course design, and aiding in medical imaging analysis. These models are also expected to be pivotal in training biosafety laboratory researchers by providing interactive learning experiences. In this study, a dataset of 62 text-based and 8 image-based biosafety questions was collected ...

A special set of neurons directs mice’s attention to or away from their peers, depending on the situation. The Kobe University discovery has implications for finding causes for neuropsychiatric conditions such as autism spectrum disorder or schizophrenia. Social interactions abound with decisions: How much time do we spend with a friend? Do we prioritize time with a friend who looks distressed? Like for all behavior, there are specialized clusters of neurons in the brain that are responsible for fine-tuning such complex behavior, and it is known that developmental defects in these areas are related ...

Summertime is beer time – even if the consumption of alcoholic beers is declining in Switzerland. And for beer lovers, there is nothing better than a head of foam topping the golden, sparkling barley juice. But with many beers, the dream is quickly shattered, and the foam collapses before you can take your first sip. There are also types of beer, however, where the head lasts a long time. ETH researchers led by Jan Vermant, Professor of Soft Materials, have now discovered just why this is the case. Their study has just been published in the journal Physics of Fluids. The ...

WASHINGTON, August 26, 2025 – Beer is one of the world’s most popular drinks, and one of the clearest signs of a good brew is a big head of foam at the top of a poured glass. Even brewers will use the quality of foam as an indicator of a beer having completed the fermentation process. However, despite its importance, what makes a large, stable foam is not entirely understood. In Physics of Fluids, from AIP Publishing, researchers from ETH Zurich and Eindhoven University of Technology investigated the stability of beer foams, examining multiple types of beer at different stages of the fermentation process. Like ...

Older adults who are overweight may face a lower risk of death in the first 30 days following major elective surgery compared with those who have a normal body mass index (BMI), new research suggests. The study, to be published August 26 in the peer-reviewed JAMA Network Open, examined outcomes in older surgical patients and found that being overweight (BMI 25–29.9) was associated with the lowest short-term mortality rates. In contrast, normal and underweight patients had significantly higher risk ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study of preadolescent children, greater lean mass and higher fitness were associated with fewer anxiety and depression symptoms, while higher visceral adipose tissue was associated with increased symptoms of both. Body fat percentage was only associated with greater anxiety. These findings highlight the roles of body composition in mental health and underscore the value of early identification of physical health markers to support children’s well-being and development. Corresponding author: To contact the corresponding author, Lauren B. Raine, M.P.H., Ph.D., email l.raine@northeastern.edu. To ...

About The Study: In this study, underrepresented in medicine (URiM) student matriculation into U.S. medical schools declined after the 2023 Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruling, with an emergent disparity in acceptance rates of URiM applicants relative to Asian and white students. The decline in URiM student matriculation was concentrated in states without a preexisting state-level affirmative action ban, suggesting that there may be an association between the SCOTUS ruling and demographic ...