When a baby smiles at you, it’s almost impossible not to smile back. This spontaneous reaction to a facial expression is part of the back-and-forth that allows us to understand each other’s emotions and mental states. Faces are so important to social communication that we’ve evolved specialized brain cells just to recognize them, as Rockefeller University’s Winrich Freiwald has discovered. It’s just one of a suite of groundbreaking findings the scientist has made in the past decade that have greatly advanced the neuroscience ...

Active galactic nuclei, energetic and luminous regions powered by an accreting supermassive black hole at the center of some galaxies, can launch a jet that drives a gas outflow, shaping star formation in their host galaxy. Justin Kader and colleagues have observed this phenomenon in the nearby active galaxy VV 340a. Kader et al. observed the jet and galaxy across infrared, optical, radio, and sub-millimeter wavelengths, using the James Webb Space Telescope, Keck-II telescope, the Jansky Very Large Array and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. The researchers combined these observations with modeling, to show that the low-power radio jet emitted ...

This news release is embargoed until 8-Jan-2026 at 12:00 PM EST Research led by Daniel Ivanov, a physics and astronomy graduate student in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences at Pitt, uncovered a contender for one of the earliest observed spiral galaxies containing a stellar bar, a sometimes-striking visual feature that can play an important role in the evolution of a galaxy. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, also has a stellar bar. This finding helps constrain the timeframe in which ...

Researchers examined the diet and plastic ingestion of green sea turtles inhabiting waters around the Ogasawara Islands, Japan, and detected plastics in 7 of the 10 individuals studied. By integrating genetic, isotopic, and plastic analyses, they estimated that the ingested plastics originated from areas beyond the turtles’ migratory range, indicating the influence of transboundary marine pollution. Plastics have been found in a wide range of marine organisms, from pelagic fishes and whales to even zooplankton. Among these organisms, sea turtles are frequently ...

About 1 in 5 patients with cancer who undergo genetic testing are incidentally found to have mutations in their blood called clonal hematopoiesis of indeterminate potential (CHIP). A study from Vanderbilt Health researchers reveals that it puts them at increased risk for heart disease following cancer treatment.   The findings, published Jan. 8 in JAMA Oncology, support the potential benefits of screening patients for CHIP before they undergo cancer treatment so they can be more closely monitored for heart complications. CHIP is a condition, not a disease, characterized by age-related variants in blood stem cells, and it is typically asymptomatic.   The researchers were able ...

Some parts of our bodies bounce back from injury in fairly short order. The outer protective layer of the eye—called the cornea—can heal from minor scratches within a single day. The brain is not one of these fast-healing tissues or organs. Adult brain cells are stable and last for a lifetime barring trauma or disease, whereas some cells lining our guts last only five days and must be continually replaced. Scientists and physicians would like to use stem cell therapy to boost the brain’s ability to regenerate damage due to concussion or stroke. So far, these treatments have been stymied by changes ...

The river Rhine is estimated to carry between 3,000 and 4,700 tonnes of macrolitter — pieces of litter larger than 25 millimetres in size — towards the North Sea every year, according to research published in Communications Sustainability. The upper estimate, extrapolated from the results of 12 months of continuous monitoring in collaboration with citizen scientists in Cologne, is more than 250 times higher than some previous estimates, and suggests that long-term physical litter collection is a crucial monitoring method for estimating ...

About The Study: This study found that maternal influenza and tetanus-diphtheria-acellular pertussis (Tdap) vaccinations were associated with reduced influenza- and pertussis-related hospitalization or emergency department visits in infants younger than 6 months. Given the low vaccination coverage, it is crucial to implement maternal vaccination campaigns to enhance infant health outcomes. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Gabriella Morabito, MSc, email gabriella.morabito@unimib.it. To ...

About The Study: In this interim reporting of respiratory syncytial virus prefusion F (RSVpreF) vaccine safety in a large cohort of pregnancies with vaccine-seeking behavior, this study found no statistically significant increases in any prespecified safety outcomes compared with unvaccinated pregnancies. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Ashley I. Michnick, PharmD, PhD, email ashley_michnick@hphci.harvard.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2025.23452) Editor’s ...

For the first time, researchers at the University of British Columbia have demonstrated how to reliably produce an important type of human immune cell—known as helper T cells—from stem cells in a controlled laboratory setting.  The findings, published today in Cell Stem Cell, overcome a major hurdle that has limited the development, affordability and large-scale manufacturing of cell therapies. The discovery could pave the way for more accessible and effective off-the-shelf treatments for a wide range of conditions like ...

The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) has awarded $7.4 million to support a University of California San Diego team developing a first-of-its-kind stem cell-based gene therapy for Friedreich’s ataxia, a rare inherited neurodegenerative disease that causes progressive loss of coordination, muscle strength, heart function and overall mobility. The new funding will help the research team complete the final steps required by federal regulators before they can apply to begin a first-in-human clinical trial. “This support is essential for scientific progress and for families living ...

Promising ovarian cancer research by Melanie Rutkowski, PhD, at the University of Virginia Comprehensive Cancer Center has won $700,000 in support from the Victoria’s Secret Global Fund for Women’s Cancers in partnership with Pelotonia and AACR, the American Association for Cancer Research. Rutkowski has been selected as a Victoria’s Secret Rising Innovator, receiving a Research Grant in partnership with Pelotonia and AACR to further her studies of the role of the microbiome – the collection of microorganisms that live within ...

New preclinical research suggests that bowel preparation procedures for colonoscopies may temporarily alter gut balance, culminating in unappreciated effects in patients with compromised gastrointestinal health. The study, published in Cell Reports Medicine, found that simulating bowel preparation in mouse models disrupted the gut environment, making the mice more susceptible to infection and inflammation. "Colonoscopies play a crucial role in the diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal pathologies, including cancer, so it’s important to emphasize that we’re not trying ...

(Toronto & Stockholm, January 7, 2026) JMIR Publications, a leading open-access digital health research publisher, and the National Library of Sweden (NLS), representing the Bibsam Consortium, are pleased to announce the extension of their Flat-Fee Unlimited Open Access Publishing Agreement through December 31, 2026. The renewal of this agreement, originally set to expire on December 31, 2025, reinforces the commitment of Swedish research funders and institutions to the principles of open science. The partnership provides authors affiliated with ...

A new study highlights a semi-transparent, color-tunable solar cell designed to work in places traditional panels can’t, like windows and flexible surfaces. Using a 3D-printed pillar structure, the researchers can fine-tune how much light passes through and what color the cell appears, without changing the solar material itself. The result is a system that balances energy output with durability, while giving designers far more control over how the technology looks and functions. [Hebrew University of Jerusalem] The research was led by Prof. Lioz Etgar and Prof. Shlomo Magdassi and from the Institute of Chemistry and the Center for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology ...

(WASHINGTON, Jan. 8, 2026) — A single dose of intravenous (IV) iron dextran is the cost-effective treatment for women with heavy menstrual bleeding and iron deficiency anemia (IDA), according to new research published in Blood Advances.   “Oral iron is usually given as first-line treatment because on the surface, it appears less expensive and more convenient,” said study author Daniel Wang, a fourth-year medical student at Yale School of Medicine currently pursuing a research year as a recipient of the American Society of Hematology Medical Student Physician-Scientist Award. “However, we found that the preferred first-line treatment for these patients ...

Fukuoka, Japan—This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Principles for Responsible Investment (PRI), launched with United Nations backing in 2006. Today, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) related non-financial information—such as greenhouse gas emissions, pollution control, and diversity metrics—is routinely analyzed alongside traditional financial data. As companies scale up their ESG commitments, core questions remain: do these efforts create extra value, and how do they ...

Collaboration focuses on City of Hope’s IL13RA2-EGFR targeting CAR T cell program addressing a type of fast-growing, aggressive brain cancer called glioblastoma multiforme.  The collaboration addresses solid tumor manufacturing bottlenecks and accelerates advancement toward clinical trials.  Los Angeles and South San Francisco, ​​Calif.​​​​ – City of Hope®, one of the largest and most advanced cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States, and ​Cellares, the first Integrated Development and Manufacturing Organization (IDMO), today announced a ...

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is the most lethal form of pancreas cancer. It’s also the most common form of the disease. Potential treatments typically target a key mutated oncogene called KRAS. In some cases, PDAC tumors with these mutations have resisted therapeutic efforts. However, combination therapies involving alternative drug targets may one day help clinicians overwhelm these defenses. In 2023, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) Professor Adrian Krainer’s lab discovered ...

They’re called ghost particles for a reason. They’re everywhere – trillions of them constantly stream through everything: our bodies, our planet, even the entire cosmos – without us noticing. These so-called neutrinos are elementary particles that are invisible, incredibly light, and interact only rarely with other matter. The weakness of their interactions makes neutrinos extremely difficult to detect. But when scientists do manage to capture them, they can offer extraordinary insights into the universe. Neutrinos ...

In recent years, two-dimensional (2D) single-crystalline metal nanosheets have emerged as a promising next-generation platform for self-powered electronics. However, their potential for triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs)—a promising energy-harvesting technology—remains largely untapped, mainly due to their low current output and limited durability. In an innovative breakthrough, a team of researchers led by Associate Professor Tae-Wook Kim from the Department of Flexible and Printable Electronics, Jeonbuk National University, Republic of Korea, has redesigned the internal structure of 2D metal nanosheets to overcome the existing ...

Cholera, a severe bacterial infection that causes diarrhea and kills if untreated, can be defeated with a diet high in protein, according to a new study from UC Riverside. Specifically, the study found that diets high in casein, the main protein in milk and cheese, as well as wheat gluten, could make a dramatic difference in the amount of cholera bacteria able to infect the gut.  “I wasn’t surprised that diet could affect the health of someone infected with the bacteria. But the magnitude of the effect surprised me,” said Ansel Hsiao, UCR associate professor of microbiology and plant pathology and senior author of the study published in Cell Host ...

Decades of advances in medical technology and public health are causing global populations to age. While achieving longer lives is certainly a net positive, this demographic shift is placing an ever-growing strain on national budgets, and many countries around the world are struggling to maintain sustainable healthcare systems. Japan, which boasts as one of the world’s longest life expectancies, faces an especially big hurdle, with healthcare expenses projected to nearly double by 2040. To meet this challenge, governments must ...

Researchers at University of California San Diego, Mass General Brigham, and their colleagues have identified specific gut bacteria and metabolic pathways that drive alcohol production in patients with auto-brewery syndrome (ABS). The rare and often misunderstood condition causes people to experience intoxication without drinking alcohol. The study was published in Nature Microbiology on January 8, 2026. ABS occurs when gut microbes break down carbohydrates and convert them to ethanol (the alcohol found ...

A new Curtin University-led study has shed new light on the widespread number of households in developing countries burning plastic as an everyday energy source, uncovering serious international health, social equality and environmental concerns.   Published in Nature Communications, the research surveyed more than 1000 respondents across 26 countries who work closely with low-income urban neighbourhoods, such as researchers, government workers and community leaders.   One in three respondents said they were aware of households burning plastic, with many personally witnessing ...