The emissions scandal in the automotive industry that came to light in 2015 has set many things in motion. Last but not least, the discussion about the need for realistic tests for vehicles in order to correctly determine their pollutant emissions instead of just testing on test rigs. Such tests and the applicable emission limits are now required by law for cars, but not for so-called category-L vehicles (mopeds, motorbikes, tricycles and quads). As part of the “LENS” project (L-vehicles Emissions and Noise mitigation Solutions) funded by the European ...

Research Highlights: More than one-third of Asian, Black and Hispanic women in the study group reported  experiencing at least one microaggression related to race and gender during or after their pregnancy. The link between racial microaggressions and postpartum blood pressure was strongest 10 or more days after delivery, when the blood pressure may be monitored less often, the researchers noted. The researchers also noted that these types of gendered racial microaggressions can raise blood pressure postpartum and suggest blood pressure monitoring and/or treatment for high blood pressure may need to ...

If you’d like to solve a math problem on a good old-fashioned chalkboard, you want the board clean and free of any previous markings so that you have space to work. Quantum computers have a similar need for a clean workspace, and a team including scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has found an innovative and effective way to create and maintain it.  The research effort, a collaboration with physicists at Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology, could address one of the main issues confronting quantum computer designers: ...

The United States generates more food waste than all but two countries. To address this, the federal government set a goal to cut food waste in half by 2030 compared to 2016 levels, to about 164 pounds per person annually. But a new study published in Nature Food and led by University of California, Davis, reveals that current state policies are falling short. Since 2016, per capita food waste has increased instead of decreasing.  “We’re just five years away from 2030 so it’s quite alarming how ...

Quantum computers require extreme cooling to perform reliable calculations. One of the challenges preventing quantum computers from entering society is the difficulty of freezing the qubits to temperatures close to absolute zero. Now, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and the University of Maryland, USA, have engineered a new type of refrigerator that can autonomously cool superconducting qubits to record low temperatures, paving the way for more reliable quantum computation. Quantum computers have the potential to revolutionise fundamental technologies in various sectors of society, with applications in medicine, energy, encryption, AI, and logistics. While the building ...

EMBARGO 9.1.2025 New discovery makes organic solar cells more efficient and stable Researchers at Åbo Akademi University in Finland have identified and eliminated a previously unknown loss mechanism in organic solar cells that makes them more efficient and gives them a longer lifetime. The results provide new insight into how efficiency and stability can be increased in the future. The work of the Organic Electronics Research Group at Åbo Akademi University was carried out in cooperation with Professor Chang-Qi Ma's group at Suzhou Institute ...

Fiber is well known to be an important part of a healthy diet, yet less than 10% of Americans eat the minimum recommended amount. A new study from Stanford Medicine might finally convince us to fill our plates with beans, nuts, cruciferous veggies, avocados and other fiber-rich foods. The research, which will be published in Nature Metabolism on Jan. 9 identified the direct epigenetic effects of two common byproducts of fiber digestion and found that some of the alterations in gene expression had anti-cancer actions. When we eat fiber, the gut microbiome produces short-chain fatty ...

ORACLE test predicts overall cancer survival independent of currently used clinical risk factors, and it has the best predictive power in stage 1 lung cancer. A high ORACLE score is associated with a higher risk of cancer spread. ORACLE could potentially be used to pick out patients who would benefit most from chemotherapy. Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, the UCL Cancer Institute and UCLH have shown that a test called ORACLE can predict lung cancer survival at the point of diagnosis better than currently used clinical risk factors. This could help doctors make more informed treatment decisions for people with stage ...

UNDER EMBARGO UNTIL 10 AM GMT / 5 AM ET THURSDAY 9 JANUARY 2025  Pioneering new mathematical model could help protect privacy and ensure safer use of AI    AI tools are increasingly being used to track and monitor us both online and in-person, yet their effectiveness comes with big risks. Computer scientists at the Oxford Internet Institute, Imperial College London, and UCLouvain have developed a new mathematical model which could help people better understand the risks posed by AI and assist regulators in protecting peoples’ privacy. The findings have been published today (9 January) in Nature Communications.  For ...

Key takeaways Hydroclimate whiplash – rapid swings between intensely wet and dangerously dry weather – has already increased globally due to climate change, with further large increases expected as warming continues, according to a team of researchers led by UCLA’s Daniel Swain. The “expanding atmospheric sponge,” or the atmosphere’s ability to evaporate, absorb and release 7% more water for every degree Celsius the planet warms, is a key driver of the whiplash. Co-management of extreme rainfall or extreme droughts, ...

Scientists have created a catalyst for hydrogen generation from ammonia that becomes more active with time, and by counting atoms revealed changes that boost the catalyst’s performance.  A research team from the University of Nottingham's School of Chemistry, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham and Cardiff University, has developed a novel material consisting of nanosized ruthenium (Ru) clusters anchored on graphitized carbon. These Ru nanoclusters react with ammonia molecules, catalysing splitting ammonia into ...

Exiting Earth’s gravity takes an enormous amount of fuel and power. Due to this, spacecraft strapped to rockets are limited in their carry capacity and every gram must be accounted for. To lighten the load, thin membranes are being researched as alternative materials, but their plastic wrap property causes wrinkling that can affect operational performance. For this reason, there is a need to develop measurement technology that can accurately detect deformations. Professor Takashi Iwasa at Osaka Metropolitan University’s Graduate School of Engineering led a team in developing a method for measuring the size of wrinkles ...

Women are less likely to receive a lung transplant and spend an average of six weeks longer on the waiting list, according to a study published today (Thursday) in ERJ Open Research [1]. However, women who receive a lung transplant are more likely than men to live for five years post-transplant. Based on their findings, the researchers encourage changes in regulation and clinical guidelines to address this inequality. Lung transplantation is the only treatment for people with end-stage respiratory failure and patients on the waiting list have a high risk ...

The average life expectancy of people diagnosed with dementia ranges from 9 years at age 60 to 4.5 years at age 85 for women and from 6.5 to just over 2 years, respectively, in men, finds a systematic review of the latest evidence in The BMJ today.  The results also suggest that one third of people with dementia are admitted to a nursing home within three years of diagnosis. Nearly 10 million people worldwide receive a diagnosis of dementia every year, but survival estimates vary widely, and few ...

UK supermarket giant Tesco is being urged to drop an “unethical” pilot of an in-store infant feeding advice service in which Danone-funded midwives are expected to wear branded uniforms and undergo training by the formula company, reveals an exclusive news report published by The BMJ today. Critics say that the initiative, running in Tesco’s flagship store and set to be rolled out shortly, is a backward step and reminiscent of the “milk nurses” scandal of the 1970s, where formula industry salespeople dressed as nurses and promoted formula milk to parents. One midwife hired by Danone quit ...

Unraveling the Events Leading to Multiple Sex Chromosomes Using an Echidna Genome Sequence A nearly gapless genome sequence of the echidna, an egg-laying mammal with multiple sex chromosomes, helps researchers to track genomic reorganization events that gave rise to a highly unusual sex determination system. The short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) is one of Australia’s most iconic animals. Belonging to a unique group of mammals called “monotremes” (with the platypus as the other prominent member). Echidnas may at first glance be mistaken for a weird-looking hedgehog, ...

A new study led by Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University and Abramson Cancer Center of University of Pennsylvania researchers demonstrates that a first-of-its-kind platform using artificial intelligence (AI) could help clinicians and patients assess whether and how much an individual patient may benefit from a particular therapy being tested in a clinical trial. This AI platform can help with making informed treatment decisions, understanding the expected benefits of novel therapies and planning ...

The melding of visual information (microscopic and X-ray images, CT and MRI scans, for example) with text (exam notes, communications between physicians of varying specialties) is a key component of cancer care. But while artificial intelligence helps doctors review images and home in on disease-associated anomalies like abnormally shaped cells, it’s been difficult to develop computerized models that can incorporate multiple types of data. Now researchers at Stanford Medicine have developed an AI model able to incorporate visual ...

​​As computer chips continue to get smaller and more complex, the ultrathin metallic wires that carry electrical signals within these chips have become a weak link. Standard metal wires get worse at conducting electricity as they get thinner, ultimately limiting the size, efficiency, and performance of nanoscale electronics. In a paper published Jan. 3 in Science, Stanford researchers show that niobium phosphide can conduct electricity better than copper in films that are only a few atoms thick. Moreover, these films can be created and deposited at sufficiently low temperatures to be compatible with modern computer ...

Chestnut Hill, Mass (01/08/2025) – Nations must start testing and regulating chemicals and chemical products as closely as the current systems that safeguard prescription drugs or risk rising rates of chronic illnesses among children, according to a New England Journal of Medicine report by a group of experts writing as the Consortium for Children’s Environmental Health. Global chemical inventories contain an estimated 350,000 products – such as manufactured chemicals, chemical ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media Contact: Levi.Gadye@ucsf.edu, (415) 502-6397 Subscribe to UCSF News The discovery of a new type of stem cell in the brain could usher in better treatments for the deadliest brain tumor. UCSF scientists have discovered a stem cell in the young brain that’s capable of forming the cells found in tumors. The breakthrough could explain how adult brain cells take advantage of developmental processes to instigate the explosive growth seen in deadly brain cancers like glioblastoma. They made the discovery while taking a broad genomic survey of human brain ...

EAST LANSING, Mich. – If you like the smell of spring roses, the sounds of summer birdsong and the colors of fall foliage, you have the stabilization of the ozone layer to thank for it. Located in the stratosphere where it shields the Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation, the ozone layer plays a key role in preserving the planet’s biodiversity. Now, we may have a better idea of why that took more than 2 billion years to happen. Michigan State University researcher Dalton Hardisty contributed to a new Yale University-led study finding that Earth’s early atmosphere hosted a battle royal between ...

Thanks to in-kind donations of tens of thousands of rare books, scientific journals, and articles, and reports over the past two years, The University of Texas at Arlington’s Amphibian and Reptile Diversity Research Center (ARDRC) has become one of the largest publicly accessible herpetology libraries in the world. “Thanks to 12 independent donors, including the Joseph Rex Dinardo Jr. Herpetology and Natural History Science Research Trust in Philadelphia, Dr. Jonathan Campbell, William Lamar, Drs. Jay and Rebecca Savage, and Louis Porras, we now have thousands ...

Affordable and stable housing is critical to improving health across a person's lifespan. People with disabilities, including autism, comprise a significant share of people in need of housing assistance. However, the intersection of housing and health among individuals with autism is largely unknown because data on public housing and public health are not connected. Researchers from Drexel University’s A.J. Drexel Autism Institute examined how many autistic people in the United States received housing ...

Researchers have amassed vast single-cell gene expression databases to understand how the smallest details impact human biology. However, current analysis methods struggle with the large volume of data and, as a result, produce biased and contradictory findings. Scientists at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital created a machine-learning algorithm capable of scaling with these single-cell data repositories to deliver more accurate results. The new method was published today in Cell Genomics.  Before single-cell analysis, bulk gene expression data ...