A team of scientists from Korea and Japan has discovered a new type of crystal that can "breathe"—releasing and absorbing oxygen repeatedly at relatively low temperatures. This unique ability could transform the way we develop clean energy technologies, including fuel cells, energy-saving windows, and smart thermal devices. The newly developed material is a special kind of metal oxide made of strontium, iron, and cobalt. What makes it extraordinary is that it can release oxygen when heated in a simple gas environment and then take it back in, all without falling apart. This process can be repeated many times, making it ideal for real-world applications. This ...

Establishing robust isolated spins on solid surfaces is crucial for fabricating quantum bits or qubits, sensors, and single-atom catalysts. An isolated spin is a single spin that is shielded from external interactions. Because isolated spins can maintain their state for long periods, they are ideal for use as qubits, the basic units of quantum computation, and for ultrafast spintronic memory.  Consequently, significant research has been dedicated to identifying materials capable of producing a stable isolated quantum spin. Candidates include single atoms of transition metals such as copper (Cu) in the Cu-phthalocyanine molecule (CuPc), molecular magnets, nitrogen-vacancy ...

Omega fatty acids could protect against Alzheimer’s disease in women, new research has found. Analysis of lipids – fat molecules that perform many essential functions in the body – in the blood found there was a noticeable loss of unsaturated fats, such as those that contain omega fatty acids, in the blood of women with Alzheimer’s disease compared to healthy women. Scientists found no significant difference in the same lipid molecule composition in men with Alzheimer’s disease compared to healthy men, ...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20, 2025 — How do you identify something no one has a test for? Designer drugs replicate the effects of known, illicit drugs but evade law enforcement. The chemical structure variations that help these compounds avoid detection also make them unpredictable in the body — a quality that poses serious health consequences. Now, a research team has used computer modeling to create a database of predicted chemical structures for improved detection of designer drugs. Jason Liang, a rising senior in the Science, Mathematics and Computer Science Magnet Program at Montgomery Blair High School, will present the team’s ...

UCSF scientists caught cancer cells in the act of breaking into fat cells and releasing their fat. The energy heist seems to be critical for the growth of deadly breast cancer.  When triple-negative breast cancer grows, the fat cells around it seem to shrink.   UCSF researchers have discovered that the cells of these tumors, which are among the deadliest types of breast cancer, build molecular tunnels, called gap junctions, into nearby fat cells. The tumor cells then send instructions that trigger the fat cells to release stores of energy that could feed the cancer.   Blocking the ...

Research Highlights: Based on the American Heart Association’s Life’s Essential 8 health metrics, cardiovascular health among older U.S. adults with certain cardiovascular diseases was suboptimal and declining. Using 2013-2018 national health survey data for 3,050 adults ages 65 and older (with and without cardiovascular disease), researchers found that cardiovascular health dropped significantly among those with high blood pressure, stroke or heart failure. The cardiovascular health gap between people with and without cardiovascular disease appears to be largely explained by differences ...

The Amazon is the world's largest rainforest. It harbors immense biodiversity and plays a crucial role in the global climate system by storing vast amounts of carbon in its vegetation (Figure 1). The Amazon is widely recognized as a major climate tipping element note 1(IPCC: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). Continued deforestation and climate change could push the system past a critical threshold, causing the Amazon to shift from rainforest rich in biodiversity to a degraded savannah-like ecosystem. ...

Researchers from University of California San Diego Sanford Stem Cell Institute have developed a novel method to stimulate and mature human brain organoids using graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon. Published in Nature Communications, the study introduces Graphene-Mediated Optical Stimulation (GraMOS), a safe, non-genetic, biocompatible, non-damaging way to influence neural activity over days to weeks. The approach accelerates brain organoid development — especially important for modeling age-related conditions like Alzheimer’s disease — and even allows them to control robotic devices in real time. “This is a game-changer for brain ...

Whether in solar cells or in the human eye: whenever certain molecules absorb light, the electrons within them shift from their ground state into a higher energy, excited state. This results in the transport of energy and charge, leading to charge separation and eventually to the generation of electricity. An international team of scientists led by Dr Antonietta De Sio and Prof. Dr. Christoph Lienau from the Ultrafast Nano-Optics research group at the University of Oldenburg, Germany, has now observed the earliest steps of this process in a complex dye molecule. As ...

Too much fat can be unhealthy: how fat cells, so-called adipocytes, develop, is crucial for the function of the fat tissue. That is why a team led by researchers from the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn investigated the influence of primary cilia dysfunction on adipocyte precursor cells in a mouse model. They found that overactivation of the Hedgehog signaling pathway causes abnormal development into connective tissue-like cells instead of white fat cells. Their findings have now been published in The EMBO Journal. White adipose tissue stores energy and regulates important metabolic processes ...

Two new studies from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have investigated how mutations that occur in muscles and blood vessels over time can affect ageing. The studies, which are published in Nature Aging, show that such mutations can reduce muscle strength and accelerate blood vessel ageing. The results can be of significance to the treatment of age-related diseases. Somatic mutations are non-hereditary genetic changes in cells and occur during a lifetime as a result of environmental factors or through random errors when a cell copies its DNA before dividing. The mutations can give rise to cancer, but otherwise their effect has been disputed. “We’ve discovered that mutations ...

The odds of high-severity wildfire were nearly one-and-a-half times higher on industrial private land than on publicly owned forests, a new study found. Forests managed by timber companies were more likely to exhibit the conditions that megafires love—dense stands of regularly spaced trees with continuous vegetation connecting the understory to the canopy. The research, led by the University of Utah, University of California, Berkeley, and the United States Forest Service, is the first to identify how extreme weather conditions and forest management practices jointly impact fire severity.Leveraging ...

The multicenter study analyzed nearly 2,000 digitized tissue slides from colon cancer patients across seven independent cohorts in Europe and the US. The samples included both whole-slide images of tissue samples and clinical, demographic, and lifestyle data. The researchers developed a novel “multi-target transformer model” to predict a wide range of genetic alterations directly from routinely stained histological colon cancer tissue sections. Previous studies were typically limited to predicting single genetic alterations and did not account for co-occurring mutations ...

Research shows that early childhood maltreatment is associated with significant delays in social and cognitive development. Unfortunately, according to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, children under age one face the highest risk of maltreatment, particularly neglect. The Child Protective Services (CPS) system is responsible for responding to maltreatment and preventing its recurrence. Most children with substantiated maltreatment reports remain with their parents, and CPS provides ...

Epidemiological studies have revealed a strong correlation between red meat consumption and the development of inflammatory bowel disease. In a new study published in Molecular Nutrition and Food Research that was conducted in mice, red meat consumption caused an imbalance of bacteria in the intestinal microbiota.  Investigators fed mice various kinds of red meat including pork, beef, and mutton for two weeks, and then they induced inflammation in the colon. Intake of these three red meat diets exacerbated colonic inflammation. ...

An analysis in Business Strategy and the Environment reveals that among U.S. firms, those with stronger LGBTQ+ inclusion have higher environmental performance scores and greater renewable energy consumption.   In the analysis of 2010–2023 data on 898 firms, this relationship was partially mediated by environmental innovation, indicating that LGBTQ+ inclusive workplace practices enhance environmental outcomes by fostering innovation.   Investigators also found that firms headquartered in states that recognized same-sex marriage prior to the Obergefell v. Hodges case (which ruled that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed ...

The European Regulation list on mandatory labelling of foods includes 14 allergenic foods. Research published in Clinical & Experimental Allergy has identified eight additional foods frequently involved in food-induced anaphylaxis.  The research was based on an analysis of food-induced anaphylaxis cases reported to the Allergy Vigilance Network from 2002–2023. Allergenic foods involved in ≥1% of cases and not included in the European Regulation list included goat’s and sheep’s milk (2.8% of cases), buckwheat (2.4%), peas and lentil (1.8%), alpha-gal (1.7%), pine nut (1.6%), kiwi (1.5%), beehive products (1.0%), and apple (1.0%).  Due ...

Most people recover from Dengue fever, which is caused by a virus transmitted from the Asian tiger mosquito, but some infected individuals experience serious bleeding, a sudden drop in blood pressure, and even death. Although Dengue fever has long been recognized as a disease of the tropics and sub-tropics, a study published in Global Change Biology reveals that it is likely to spread increasingly northward and through Western Europe as climate change expands the Asian tiger mosquito’s habitat.  The mosquito lays its eggs in water where, with sufficient temperature, larvae develop and give rise to flying bloodsucking adults. After ...

Self-harm in young people is a major public health concern, rates are rising, and the adolescent years presents a critical period of intervention. Another modern challenge facing adolescents is sleep deficiency, with global reductions in total sleep time and inconsistent sleep patterns, and as many as 70% of teenagers getting inadequate sleep.  Published today in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, researchers at The University of Warwick and University of Birmingham have investigated this relationship between multiple measures of sleep problems and self-harm, using data from over 10,000 teenagers from the Millenium Cohort.  10,000 teenagers, ...

Astronomers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, have discovered a vast and expanding bubble of gas and dust surrounding a red supergiant star – the largest structure of its kind ever seen in the Milky Way. The bubble, which contains as much mass as the Sun, was blown out in a mysterious stellar eruption around 4000 years ago. Why the star survived such a powerful event is a puzzle, the scientists say. The new results are published in the scientific journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, and the team was led by Mark Siebert, Chalmers, Sweden. Using the ALMA radio telescope ...

The British evolutionary biologist JBS Haldane is said to have quipped that any divine being evidently had ‘an ordinate fondness for beetles’. This bon mot conveyed an important truth: the ‘tree of life’ – the family tree of all species, living or extinct – is very uneven. In places, it resembles a dense thicket of short twigs; elsewhere it has only sparse but long branches. A few groups tend to predominate: as Haldane pointed out, more than 40% of extant insects are beetles, while 60% of birds ...

Europe is experiencing longer and more intense transmission seasons for mosquito-borne diseases, including WNV infection and chikungunya virus disease. This shift is driven by climatic and environmental factors such as rising temperatures, longer summer seasons, milder winters and changes in rainfall patterns — conditions that combine to create a favourable environment for mosquitoes to thrive and transmit viruses. Pamela Rendi-Wagner, ECDC Director, said: 'Europe is entering a new phase — where longer, more widespread and more ...

A new study led by William & Mary’s Batten School & VIMS shows that tidal marshes, including both natural wetlands and man-made living shorelines, generate approximately $90 million annually in economic value for communities across Virginia’s Middle Peninsula. Published in the journal Nature-Based Solutions and funded by a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Chesapeake Bay Fisheries Research Program (NA21NMF4570524-T1–01), the study combined ecological data, spatial modeling, economic valuation and stakeholder ...

Mass General Brigham researchers identified seven molecules in the blood linked to excessive daytime sleepiness, including factors related to diet and hormones. Approximately one in three Americans reports experiencing overwhelming drowsiness during the day—a condition known as excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS). EDS is linked to an increased risk of serious conditions such as cardiovascular disease, obesity, and diabetes. A new study led by investigators from Mass General Brigham and Beth ...

Researchers have shown that there is strong evidence that e-cigarette use may act as a gateway to cigarette smoking and other health issues in young people. A review of reviews has revealed that there is a consistent link between e-cigarette use and later cigarette smoking, as well as potential links between vaping and a range of health issues, including asthma, mental health concerns, and drug use. Researchers, from the University of York and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), argue that more research is needed to determine whether there is a direct cause and effect, but the consistency of the findings between the studies conducted ...