DALLAS, March 27, 2025 — More than 56 million people globally live with heart failure (HF), which prevents the body from getting enough of the oxygen-rich blood it needs to work properly.[1] While there is no cure for HF, many people with this condition can live full, enjoyable lives and disease progression can be slowed with the right treatment. Research shows that outcomes for patients with HF improve when health care professionals and hospitals provide guideline-directed medical therapies. A new Heart Failure Center ...

The MIT Press is proud to release our 2025 Impact Report for Direct to Open (D2O), our sustainable framework for open access monographs that shifts publishing from a solely market-based purchase model where individuals and libraries buy single eBooks, to a collaborative, library-supported open access model.   The continued growth in the reach of open access publishing couldn’t be more timely. In 2025, access to truth and facts are under attack, and democratizing access to trustworthy, peer-reviewed information has never been more important. In the face of so many forces working against the spread of knowledge, Direct to Open continues to be a critical tool. To date, ...

Congenital hearing loss refers to impaired auditory function that occurs due to genetic causes. GJB2 is the gene responsible for approximately half of all cases of hereditary hearing loss. Connexin 26 (CX26), which is encoded by GJB2, helps in the formation of intercellular gap junctions—channels that allow for the movement of ions and chemical messenger molecules between adjacent cells, where it regulates auditory function.   GJB2 mutations often lead to fragmentation of gap junctions and gap junction plaques (GJPs) which are composed ...

Molecular biologist Yali Dou, PhD, holder of the Marion and Harry Keiper Chair in Cancer Research and professor of medicine and cancer biology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, has been elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She is one of seven USC faculty members in the 2025 cohort of new fellows. The AAAS is the world’s oldest and largest general science organization and the publisher of Science, a top peer-reviewed academic journal. Election as a fellow is a lifetime honor — one of the AAAS’s ...

University of Leeds news  Embargoed until 10:00 GMT, 27 March  Damaging cluster of UK winter storms driven by swirling polar vortex miles above Earth  Powerful winter storms which led to deaths and power outages in the UK and Ireland were made more likely by an intense swirling vortex of winds miles above the Arctic, say scientists.  A team of researchers led by the University of Leeds has pinpointed a new reason for winter storm clusters such as the trio named Dudley, Eunice and Franklin, which hit the nation within the space of a week in February 2022.  The findings which are published today in the journal ...

In the past, intact forests absorbed 7.8 billion tonnes of CO₂ annually – about a fifth of all human emissions – but their carbon storage is increasingly at risk from climate change and human activities such as deforestation. A new study from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) shows that failing to account for the potentially decreasing ability of forests to absorb CO₂ could make reaching the Paris agreement targets significantly harder, if not impossible, and much more costly. “Delaying action leads to disproportionately higher costs,” explains Michael Windisch, ...

A new medical database automatically compiles the medical records of obese patients and those suffering from obesity-related diseases in a uniquely comprehensive and reliable manner. The initiative, led by Kobe University, offers valuable insights for health promotion and drug development. “Obesity is at the root of many diseases,” says OGAWA Wataru, an endocrinologist at Kobe University. Obesity has been linked to the development of diabetes, hypertension, gout, coronary heart disease, stroke and many other diseases. Monitoring, treating and preventing obesity and the diseases it can cause is therefore not only good for ...

The parasitic vine Cuscuta campestris grows by latching onto the stems and leaves of plants and inserting organs called haustorium into the host plant tissues to draw nutrients. The haustorium is formed when ion channels in the cell membrane are stimulated during coiling and induce a reaction within the cell. Further, Cuscuta campestris has many types of ion channels, but which ones were linked to the development of haustorium were previously unknown. “For the first time, the genes involved in sensing ...

A new study led by researchers at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at Institute of Science Tokyo has uncovered a surprising role for calcium in shaping life’s earliest molecular structures. Their findings suggest that calcium ions can selectively influence how primitive polymers form, shedding light on a long-standing mystery: how life’s molecules came to prefer a single “handedness” (chirality). Like our left and right hands, many molecules exist in two mirror-image forms. Yet life on Earth has a striking preference: ...

People living with Long Covid often feel dismissed, disbelieved and unsupported by their healthcare providers, according to a new study from the University of Surrey.  The study, which was published in the Journal of Health Psychology, looked at how patients with Long Covid experience their illness. The study found that many patients feel they have to prove their illness is physical to be taken seriously and, as a result, often reject psychological support, fearing it implies their symptoms are "all in the mind".  Professor ...

Wearable mobile health technology could help people with Type 2 Diabetes (T2D) to stick to exercise regimes that help them to keep the condition under control, a new study reveals.  Researchers studied the behaviour of recently-diagnosed T2D patients in Canada and the UK as they followed a home-based physical activity programme – some of whom wore a smartwatch paired with a health app on their smartphone.  They discovered that MOTIVATE-T2D participants were more likely to start and maintain purposeful exercise at if they had the support of wearable technology- the study successfully recruited 125 participants with an 82% ...

An extinct lineage of parasitic wasps dating from the mid-Cretaceous period and preserved in amber may have used their Venus flytrap-like abdomen to capture and immobilise their prey. Research, published in BMC Biology, finds that the specimens of Sirenobethylus charybdis — named for the sea monster in Greek mythology which swallowed and disgorged water three times a day — date from almost 99 million years ago and may represent a new family of insects. The morphology of S. charybdis indicates the wasps were ...

A new species of fossil from 444 million years ago that has perfectly preserved insides has been affectionately named ‘Sue’ after its discoverer’s mum. The result of 25 years of work by a University of Leicester palaeontologist and published in the journal Palaeontology, the study details a new species of multisegmented fossil and is now officially named as Keurbos susanae. Lead author Professor Sarah Gabbott from the School of Geography, Geology and the Environment said: “‘Sue’ is an inside-out, legless, headless wonder. Remarkably her insides are a mineralised ...

New modelling analysis suggests that proposed funding cuts by major donor countries to foreign aid could undo decades of progress made to end HIV/AIDS as a public health threat and new infections and deaths could surge back to levels not seen since the early 2000s.   The study estimates there could be between 4.4 million to 10.8 million additional new HIV infections by 2030 in low-and-middle income countries (LMICs) and between 770,000 to 2.9 million HIV-related deaths in children and adults by 2030.   The greatest impact from potential funding ...

New research to be presented at this year’s European Congress on Obesity (ECO 2025, Malaga, Spain, 11-14 May) shows an association between the amount of sodium consumed in the diet and the risk of both general and abdominal obesity. The study is by Annika Santalahti, Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, Helsinki, Finland, and colleagues. General obesity is a person’s obesity status as measured by their body mass index (BMI), with WHO international guidelines stating a BMI of 30 kg/m2 or more means a person is living with obesity. Abdominal obesity is where fat accumulates around the abdomen and internal organs there, leading ...

San Diego—March 26, 2025– In a manuscript published today in the American Journal of Psychiatry titled Psychiatric Genetics in Clinical Practice: Essential Knowledge for Mental Health Professionals, authors provide  updated guidelines on what mental health professionals should know about the latest advances in genetics and how genetics can inform clinical psychiatric practice. Key findings highlight the importance of understanding the genetic architecture of psychiatric disorders, the potential applications of genetic information in risk assessment, diagnosis, treatment selection, and patient education, ...

At hypersonic speeds, complexities occur when the gases interact with the surface of the vehicle such as boundary layers and shock waves. Researchers in the Department of Aerospace Engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign were able to observe new disturbances in simulations conducted for the first time in 3D. Fully 3D simulations require a great deal of processing power, making the work expensive to compute. Two things made it possible for Deborah Levin and her Ph.D. student Irmak Taylan Karpuzcu to conduct the research: Time on Frontera, the National Science Foundation-funded leadership-class computer system at the Texas ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 2025 MINNEAPOLIS — People living in more disadvantaged neighborhoods may be more likely to develop dementia than people living in neighborhoods with fewer disadvantages, according to a study published on March 26, 2025, online in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study does not prove that neighborhood factors cause dementia; it only shows an association. Neighborhood status was determined by factors such as income, employment, education and disability. “Our findings show that the community in which you live influences your risk of developing dementia,” ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 2025 MINNEAPOLIS — People who have early signs of heart problems may also have changes in brain health that can be early signs of dementia, such as loss of brain volume, according to a meta-analysis published on March 26, 2025, online in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The meta-analysis does not prove that early heart problems cause loss of brain cells; it only shows an association. “This review shows that better ...

COVID infection has been linked to higher risk of autoimmune disorders, including rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes. But why the virus might cause the body’s immune system to go haywire remains unknown, making it difficult to develop therapies to avoid autoimmunity. One hypothesis is that viral “molecular mimics” that resemble the body’s own proteins trigger an immune response against the virus—and healthy tissues get caught in the crossfire. Now, with advanced data analysis and machine learning, scientists have identified a set of COVID-derived ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  March 26, 2025  BATON ROUGE – Scientists at Pennington Biomedical Research Center have gained greater clarity in the brain regions and neurons that control metabolism, body temperature and energy use. Featured in the February edition of the journal Metabolism, Dr. Heike Münzberg-Gruening and a team of researchers discovered which chemicals influence the signals that control how much energy the body uses. In “Leptin Receptor Neurons in the dorsomedial hypothalamus require distinct neuronal subsets for thermogenesis and weight loss,” researchers laid out the pathways, chemicals, neurons ...

In a new paper, researchers at North Carolina State University show proof of concept for a system that, in a single cycle, actively removes microplastics from water. The findings, described in the journal Advanced Functional Materials, hold the potential for advances in cleansing oceans and other bodies of water of tiny plastics that may harm human health and the environment.  “The idea behind this work is: Can we make the cleaning materials in the form of soft particles that self-disperse in water, capture microplastics as they sink, and then return to the surface with the captured microplastic contaminants?” said Orlin Velev, the S. Frank and Doris Culberson Distinguished ...

HOUSTON ― The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center today announced that Jeffrey E. Lee, M.D., an internationally regarded leader in the field of oncology, has been appointed chief medical executive (CME) effective April 1. Prior to his appointment, Lee served as CME ad interim, demonstrating strength as a leader committed to advancing the institution’s efforts in research, patient care, prevention and education. Assuming the role of CME is the culmination of Lee’s 34-year tenure at the institution, where he has made substantial contributions in the field ...

Life’s essential functions are powered by a set of compounds called metabolites, which are involved in every natural process including producing energy, regulating cell activity and keeping the body’s systems in balance. Tracking these molecules offers a window into the onset and status of many diseases, overall health, response to treatment and the intricate workings of biological systems.  However, today’s metabolite sensing methods fall short. Most rely on resource-intensive lab tests that give only brief snapshots from isolated samples. The few sensors that can track metabolites continuously are largely limited to detecting blood sugar. An interdisciplinary ...

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (March 26, 2025) — The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) announced a new grand challenge to develop groundbreaking imaging technologies to transform how scientists observe, measure and understand living cells and organisms. CZI’s two powerhouse institutes, CZ Biohub San Francisco and CZ Institute for Advanced Biological Imaging, will leverage their complementary expertise to form a new Biohub unmatched in the field of life science imaging research. They will combine their teams at a new science campus in Redwood City, Calif., adjacent to CZI ...