Researchers from the Earlham Institute, in collaboration with The Department of Biology at the University of Oxford, discovered three previously unrecognised lineages of the protist Bodo, each with its own bacterial endosymbiont (a symbiotic organism living within the body of its host). Bodo is a genus of heterotrophic (a living organism that obtains nutrition from other plants, animals, or microorganisms) protists that are common in fresh and brackish waters and soil. They are the closest known free-living relatives of Trypanosoma, a parasitic protist that causes major human diseases including Human African trypanosomiasis (sleeping sickness). Until ...

Key points Study offers insight into the experiences of foreign volunteer fighters in Ukraine for the first time. US and UK veterans who have volunteered in Ukraine report extremely intense combat exposure and limited training or preparation. Many experience significant combat trauma-related distress, alcohol misuse and untreated physical injuries, yet struggle to access appropriate healthcare in Ukraine or on returning home. Existing military and civilian support systems appear to be ill-equipped to recognise ...

New research from the University of St Andrews reports sperm whales headbutting one another. The behaviour was captured on film and described scientifically for the first time, confirming accounts by 19 th century mariners of sperm whales using their heads to deliberately push and strike objects, occasionally even sinking ships, thereby inspiring Herman Melville’s classic tale Moby Dick. Using drone technology, researchers were able to film sperm whales headbutting  each other, as well as the surrounding behavioural and social context. ...

Plants need water, light and air to thrive. But when they transport water from the soil up to their leaves, they defy gravity. Scientists describe this astonishing phenomenon as “negative water potential”, a form of negative tension that enables herbs, shrubs and trees to draw water from the soil. Nevertheless, plants do not constantly extract water from the soil. For decades, researchers have sought to understand what limits a plant’s water uptake. Now, a team of researchers led by Andrea Carminati, Professor of Soil Physics at ETH Zurich, and Tim ...

ATLANTA, March 23, 2026— Anybody who tried to use a smartphone or tablet with long nails knows that there’s a learning curve. Rather than effortlessly tapping with a fingertip, you must awkwardly lay the pads of your fingers onto the screen. Wouldn’t it be easier if you could just type with your fingernails instead? To try and make this idea a reality, a group of researchers are formulating a clear nail polish that could turn long fingernails into touchscreen-compatible styluses.  The team from Centenary ...

New research indicates that psychosocial factors—which influence how a person perceives, interprets, and reacts to their surroundings—do not affect an individual’s risk of developing cancer. The findings are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. For the study, investigators examined data from the Psychosocial Factors and Cancer (PSY-CA) consortium, an international research collaboration funded by the Dutch Cancer Society that analyzes information from prospective studies to assess whether psychosocial factors—such as perceived social support, loss of a loved one, relationship ...

ATLANTA, March 23, 2026 — Fast fashion is an inexpensive way to dress rapidly growing kids. But preliminary research has found that the fabric in some of these items contains an unwanted, toxic ingredient: lead. After testing several shirts from different retailers, undergraduate researchers found that all samples exceeded U.S. federal regulatory lead limits. They also estimate that even briefly chewing these fabrics (which young kids tend to do) could expose children to dangerous lead levels. The researchers will present their results at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS Spring ...

The first study of US and UK military veterans who volunteered to fight in Ukraine reveals extreme combat exposure including drone warfare and trench fighting, with high rates of PTSD, moral injury, and alcohol misuse. Most struggled to access mental health care in Ukraine or after returning home.

Researchers at the University of St Andrews used drones to film sperm whales headbutting one another in the Azores and Balearic Islands - the first scientific documentation of a behavior that 19th-century whalers described and that inspired Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Surprisingly, it was sub-adults, not large males, engaging in the collisions.

Researchers from ETH Zurich and the University of Tasmania have found that the limiting factor in plant water uptake is not the plant's own physiology but the physics of water movement through soil pores. The finding, published in Science, explains why breeding programs aimed at making drought-resistant crops through increased cellular solute concentrations have consistently failed.

The PSY-CA consortium analyzed data from 421,799 individuals and found that psychosocial factors like stress, bereavement, neuroticism, and social isolation are not associated with increased cancer risk. Small associations with lung cancer largely disappeared after adjusting for smoking and other behavioral risk factors.

By sequencing individual cells from a freshwater sample, scientists at the Earlham Institute and University of Oxford discovered three potentially new species of the protist Bodo, each hosting a distinct bacterial endosymbiont. The work reveals biodiversity invisible to conventional genomic methods.

New mathematical modeling and experiments from the University of Bath demonstrate that groups change their collective opinion more quickly when opponents are encouraged to adopt a neutral stance rather than being directly persuaded to switch sides. The effect was confirmed in both locust swarms and human voting games.

Across four low- and middle-income countries, 57% of seriously injured patients failed to reach care within the critical first hour. Patients transported by ambulance arrived more slowly than those using private vehicles, revealing that investing in ambulance fleets alone will not fix pre-hospital emergency care.

A new national surveillance system using clinical data from electronic health records identifies pediatric sepsis more accurately than billing codes. Applied to 3.9 million hospitalizations, it estimates over 18,000 annual cases with 10% in-hospital mortality.

A new JAMA study using clinical data from electronic health records estimates that sepsis occurs in 1.3% of US pediatric hospitalizations, with 10% mortality - translating to more than 18,000 cases and 1,800 deaths annually. The approach proved more accurate than traditional billing codes.

Interviews with clinicians reveal that decisions to offer venovenous ECMO for severe respiratory failure rely heavily on individual judgment rather than objective guidelines, raising concerns about inconsistent and potentially inequitable allocation of a scarce resource.

Researchers at Hawaii Pacific University tested asphalt pavement made with recycled fishing nets and residential plastic waste on an Oahu road for 11 months. Microplastic shedding was comparable to standard polymer-modified asphalt, and tire wear dominated the polymer signal in road dust.

The BESS trial, the largest randomized study of surfactant for bronchiolitis, found no reduction in ventilator time for 232 critically ill babies across 15 UK hospitals - closing the door on a hypothesis that had persisted for years.

In cardiac arrest survivors, neurofilament light chain levels at 48 hours correlated with long-term cognitive outcomes on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, while the standard biomarker neuron-specific enolase did not - suggesting a more reliable tool for early prognosis.

University of Phoenix researchers reviewed the scholarly literature on generative AI tools in academia, finding that ChatGPT and similar tools are reshaping doctoral research workflows while raising unresolved questions about transparency and original analysis.

A systematic review of nine randomized controlled trials finds that indocyanine green fluorescence angiography reduces anastomotic leaks by 40% in colorectal surgery. The complication, which can cause sepsis and death, affects up to one in four patients after bowel operations.

For over two centuries, textbooks have described Harold's exhausting forced march from Yorkshire to Hastings before the Norman Conquest. New research from the University of East Anglia shows this never happened. Harold kept his fleet and moved his army by sea.

Physicists have directly visualized compact molecular orbitals in the kagome metal Ni3In, confirming a theory linking flat electronic bands to quantum critical behavior. The work, published in Nature Physics, could inform the search for high-temperature superconductors.

In a trial spanning 77 hospitals and over 21,000 patients, an AI clinical decision support system that analyzes brain scans and recommends treatments reduced new vascular events by 27% at one year compared with standard care. Published in The BMJ.