Ionic liquids (ILs) are a class of molten salts with a collection of exciting properties, which have been employed for wide-ranging applications across chemistry, biology, and materials science. However, their inherently high viscosity hampers the ability of molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to explore their structure-property relationships on large spatiotemporal scales. Coarse-grained (CG) models address this challenge by retaining essential structural features while eliminating some atomic details, significantly reducing ...

To the point Energetic needs and social context shape aggression in female gorillas: A 25-year observational study of female gorillas shows that individual circumstances and social context can influence an individual's decision to engage in riskier aggressive behaviours. Aggression and social hierarchy: While most aggression was directed from higher- to lower-ranking gorillas, 42 per cent of aggressive interactions were directed from lower to higher ranks – more than expected. Taking risks: Female gorillas in reproductive ...

Autophagy is essentially the 'rubbish collection' of our cells. If there are problems in this process, which is so important for our health, diseases such as Parkinson's can result. In their latest study, leading cell biologists at the Max Perutz Labs at the University of Vienna investigated mitophagy – a form of autophagy – and came to a remarkable conclusion: the researchers have described a new trigger for mitophagy. This discovery has led to a reassessment of the hierarchy of factors ...

Northwestern University and University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) scientists have developed a new process-based framework that provides a more accurate and dynamic approach to landslide prediction over large areas. While traditional landslide prediction methods often rely solely on rainfall intensity, the new approach integrates various water-related processes with a machine-learning model. By accounting for diverse and sometimes compounding factors, the framework offers a more robust understanding of what drives these destructive events. With further development, the new framework could help improve early warning systems, inform hazard ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – An estimated 12% of first graders’ most-used media at home is educational, a new study suggests. Results also showed that higher use of educational media was associated with both more time spent reading and less overall time in front of a screen – a signal that educational video, app and game use is not replacing reading. A clearer picture of first graders’ TV or tablet time and factors related to their use of educational media may reveal opportunities for fitting ...

Psychological and philosophical studies have long shown that a person's subjective moods and emotions have a significant impact on how they experience the “meaning in life.” Philosopher Matthew Ratcliffe pointed out that a person’s mood vividly operates in the background of perception and plays a major role in how they grasp the meaning of their life. In psychology as well, there have been empirical studies investigating how mood affects the perception of life’s meaning. Meanwhile, phenomenology has revealed that the lived, first-person experience of the body deeply influences the way we perceive ...

The origin of some neuropsychiatric diseases, such as autism, bipolar disorder, or depression, and certain neurodegenerative diseases, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, can be found in very early stages of brain formation in the fetus. That is, earlier than previously recognized, according to a study by the Hospital del Mar Research Institute and Yale University, published in Nature Communications. The work focused “on searching for the origin of mental illnesses in the earliest stages of fetal development, especially in the brain stem cells”, explains Dr. Gabriel Santpere, Miguel Servet researcher and coordinator of the Neurogenomics Research Group at ...

Apart from carrying the information to encode proteins in, RNA molecules can adopt intricate 2D and 3D structures. Specifically, the same RNA molecule can switch between ON and OFF structures, modulating the ability of ribosomes to bind to the RNA and translate it into proteins. A new study, led by University of Groningen molecular biologist Danny Incarnato and authored by postdoctoral researcher Dr Ivana Borovska, identifies hundreds of such regulatory RNA switches in E.coli bacteria and human cells. It was published in Nature Biotechnology on 25 July. Several years ago, Incarnato developed a method to ...

Millions suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a debilitating condition often overlooked due to the lack of diagnostic tools, may be closer to personalized care, according to new research that shows how the disease disrupts interactions between the microbiome, immune system, and metabolism. The findings—potentially relevant to long COVID due to its similarity with ME/CFS—come from data on 249 individuals analyzed using a new artificial intelligence (AI) platform that identifies disease biomarkers from stool, blood, and other routine lab tests. “Our study achieved 90% ...

A new artificial intelligence model can improve the process of drug and vaccine discovery by predicting how efficiently specific mRNA sequences will produce proteins, both generally and in various cell types. The new advance, developed through an academic-industrial partnership between The University of Texas at Austin and Sanofi, helps predict how much protein cells will produce, which can minimize the need for trial-and-error experimentation, accelerating the next generation of mRNA therapeutics. Messenger RNA (mRNA) contains instructions for which proteins to make and how to make them, enabling our bodies to grow and carry out the day-to-day ...

Despite lower speed limits in school zones, child pedestrian injuries are most common near schools. Now, a new study led by researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) and Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) has found that automated speed enforcement (ASE) cameras reduced the number of speeding vehicles by 45 per cent in urban school zones.   The study, published in Injury Prevention, evaluated the impact of mobile ASE cameras deployed across 250 school zones in the City of Toronto between July 2020 and December 2022. The results showed that in addition to a ...

Grief after the loss of a loved one is a natural response – an inevitable part of living and loving. But in a minority of the bereaved, grief is so overwhelming that it can lead to physical and mental illnes, even if they don’t necessarily qualify for a diagnosis with the mental health condition ‘prolonged grief disorder’. For example, studies have shown that people who recently lost a loved one use healthcare services more often, and have an increased mortality rate, over the short term. Now, researchers from Denmark have shown that bereaved people with persistent high levels of intense grief used more healthcare services and were ...

A new study published by researchers from the University of Oxford, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), CIFOR-ICRAF, and institutional partners reveals a disconnect between media and public perceptions on the risks of consuming wild meat in Central Africa during COVID-19 and sheds light on the complex relationship between media reporting, community beliefs, and behaviour change — offering important lessons for wildlife management and public health strategies. Key findings:  COVID-19 increased media coverage of wild meat, and the discourse focused on disease risk.  The news sometimes influenced people in Central Africa to shift ...

A research team in Korea has experimentally demonstrated, for the first time in the world, a nonlinear wave phenomenon that changes its frequency—either rising or falling—depending on which direction the waves come from. Much like Janus, the Roman god with two faces looking in opposite directions, the system exhibits different responses depending on the direction of the incoming wave. This groundbreaking work opens new horizons for technologies ranging from medical ultrasound imaging to advanced noise control.   The joint research team, led by Professor Junsuk Rho of POSTECH’s Departments of Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Electrical ...

An analysis of studies incorporating data from almost 30 million people has highlighted the role that air pollution – including that coming from car exhaust emissions – plays in increased risk of dementia. Dementias such as Alzheimer's disease are estimated to affect more than 57.4 million people worldwide, a number that is expected to almost triple to 152.8 million cases by 2050. The impacts on the individuals, families and caregivers and society at large are immense. While there are some indications that the prevalence of dementia is decreasing in Europe and North America, ...

It can take years for humans to solve complex scientific problems. With AI, it can take a fraction of the time. Dr. Shuiwang Ji, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University and a leading expert in the emerging field of AI for science and engineering — commonly referred to as AI4Science — is at the forefront of using AI to accelerate scientific problem solving.  Ji, along with other Texas A&M researchers, has recently published a paper in Foundations and Trends in Machine Learning outlining the uses and benefits of AI4Science. This collaborative paper features ...

TUCSON, Ariz. — Researchers at the University of Arizona Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health found that certain kinds of long-lasting chemicals firefighters are exposed to may affect the activity of genes linked to cancer and other diseases. The findings appear in the journal Environmental Research. The study is among the first to connect common industrial chemicals called PFAS – per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances – to changes in microRNAs, or miRNAs, which are molecules that act as guardrails to help control gene expression.  PFAS are found in a wide range ...

Researchers at USC have made a significant breakthrough in understanding how the human brain forms, stores and recalls visual memories. A new study, published in Advanced Science, harnesses human patient brain recordings and a powerful machine learning model to shed new light on the brain’s internal code that sorts memories of objects into categories — think of it like the brain’s filing cabinet of imagery. The results demonstrated that the research team could essentially read subjects’ minds, by pinpointing the category of visual image being recalled, purely from the precise timing of the subject’s neural activity. The work solves ...

Researchers in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Texas A&M University have received a two-year, $1.2 million grant from the U.S. Army Research Laboratory (ARL) to explore a new approach to cloud computing in battlefield environments. Led by Drs. I-Hong Hou, Krishna Narayanan, P.R. Kumar and Dileep Kalathil, the project aims to revolutionize a growing challenge in modern computing: how to deliver the power of artificial intelligence (AI) not just from distant cloud servers, but directly to users and devices operating in constrained, dynamic, or infrastructure-poor environments. Cloud-based AI tools like ChatGPT are common in civilian ...

A potential target for experimental drugs that block PRMT5 — a naturally occurring enzyme some tumors rely more on for survival — has been identified by researchers with the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute’s Cancer Research Center in Washington, D.C. In a study published this month in Cancer Research, Assistant Professor Kathleen Mulvaney of Virginia Tech’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute shared research that could help guide development of new therapies for some treatment-resistant lung, brain, and pancreatic cancers. “Using genetic screening, we found a ...

Ikoma, Japan—Age often brings a gradual decline in the ability to learn new things and retain memories. This phenomenon, often associated with the elderly, is linked to the brain’s deteriorating capacity to generate new neurons—a process that primarily occurs in the hippocampus —as neural stem cells (NSCs) divide and mature. Recent research suggests this decline begins much earlier in life than previously thought, potentially starting in early adulthood. While it is established that overall decline in brain function is associated with dwindling NSCs, the precise underlying molecular changes and their timelines remain unclear. ...

PHILADELPHIA (Juny 24, 2025) – A new Penn Nursing study led by Jungwon Min, PhD, MS, Research Professor and Director of the BECCA Lab, uncovers a significant association between neighborhood firearm violence exposure, involvement in fighting, and adolescents' perceived ability to obtain a firearm outside the home. The research is available in the latest issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. The study, Neighborhood Firearm Violence, Psychosocial Risks, and Youth Firearm Perception, highlights that adolescents ...

Precision cancer treatment on a larger scale is moving closer after researchers have developed an AI platform that can tailor protein components and arm the patient's immune cells to fight cancer. The new method, published in the scientific journal Science, demonstrates for the first time, that it is possible to design proteins in the computer for redirecting immune cells to target cancer cells through pMHC molecules. This dramatically shortens the process of finding effective molecules for cancer treatment from years to a few weeks. "We are essentially creating a new set of eyes for the immune system. ...

Key takeaways New research shows that metasurfaces could be used as strong linear quantum optical networks This approach could eliminate the need for waveguides and other conventional optical components Graph theory is helpful for designing the functionalities of quantum optical networks into a single metasurface In the race toward practical quantum computers and networks, photons — fundamental particles of light — hold intriguing possibilities as fast carriers of information at room temperature. Photons are typically controlled and coaxed into quantum ...

Researchers have demonstrated that microscopic drug delivery containers can be magnetically steered to their targets, advancing the development of precision medicine for treating diseases such as cancer. A multi-university team led by Jie Feng, a professor of mechanical science and engineering in The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, demonstrated that magnetic particles encapsulated in lipid vesicles can be used to steer the vesicles through fluids. This work, published in the Royal Society of ...