Ikoma, Japan—Ever wondered how the different cells in our body communicate with each other to fulfill their different roles—be it cells repairing a tissue injury or immune cells moving towards an invading pathogen (microorganisms that causes disease) to engulf it? To move forward or migrate, cells must exert forces or interact with their surrounding environment. Interestingly, however, a fault in these interactions can also be the reason for spread of deadly cancer cells, such as in glioblastoma or brain ...

The Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering has named the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory as the recipient of the 2025 SAMPE Organizational Excellence Award. The national award is presented annually in recognition of extraordinary contributions within the advanced materials and processes community across industrial, academic and governmental sectors. “ORNL is leading the way in carbon fiber and composites research, and we’re helping move these materials from the lab into real-world use. ...

OKLAHOMA CITY – Researchers from the University of Oklahoma Health Campus have published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine describing a novel care coordination and communication program and its potential for helping Indigenous people access the lifesaving cancer care that they need. American Indian and Alaska Native residents in Oklahoma face significant cancer disparities. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Oklahoma State Department of Health, ...

Over the last 20 years, substance use-related deaths have more than doubled for women of reproductive age. Overdose deaths are now a leading cause of maternal mortality in the U.S., and in some states, the leading cause. Still, substantial gaps remain in understanding how different treatment approaches influence the short- and long-term health of mothers and infants, as well as their broader economic impacts over time.   New research published this month in the journal JAMA Pediatrics found that while established medications for opioid use disorder in mothers — buprenorphine and methadone — ...

Scientists from the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR) at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine found that, in the largest such study to date, frequent cannabis users did not display impairments in driving performance after at least 48 hours of abstinence. The new findings have implications for public health as well as the enforcement of laws related to cannabis and driving. Approximately three-quarters of Americans live in a state where cannabis is legally available, and about 15% of Americans ...

Turbulence is everywhere, yet much about the nature of turbulence remains unknown.  During the last decade, physicists have discovered how fluids in a pipe or similar geometry transition from a smooth, laminar state to a turbulent state as their speed increases.  Surprisingly, in the newly emerging consensus, the process could be understood using statistical mechanics, not fluid mechanics, and was mathematically equivalent to the way in which water percolates down through a coffee filter.  In a new twist, UC San Diego researchers Guru K. Jayasingh and Nigel Goldenfeld ...

While the early Mars climate remains an open question, a new study suggests its atmosphere may have been hospitable to life due to volcanic activity which emitted sulfur gases that contributed to a greenhouse warming effect. This finding comes from a study published in Science Advances, led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. Using data from the composition of Martian meteorites, the researchers ran more than 40 computer simulations with varied temperatures, concentrations, and chemistry to estimate how much carbon, nitrogen, and sulfide gases may have been emitted on early Mars. Instead of the high concentrations ...

Global regulators, industry leaders, scientists, and patient advocates set near-term commitments on early interception, trial modernization, and patient-first evidence. WASHINGTON, Sept. 11, 2025 —Critical Path Institute® (C-Path) today announced the outcomes of its Global Impact Conference (CGIC), held September 9–11 in Washington, D.C. Over three days of working sessions, regulators, industry leaders, researchers, clinicians, and patient advocates outlined priority actions and next steps to further strengthen collaborations that accelerate drug development across rare diseases, neurology, type-1 diabetes, and pediatrics — with the voices ...

When someone mentions the word “toxicity” in relation to cancer treatment, they’re usually referring to the negative physical side effects and complications that can result from therapies like radiation and chemotherapy. But researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine are raising awareness of another kind of toxicity patients face: financial toxicity, which refers to the stress, expense and instability caused by direct and indirect costs associated with healthcare. In a recent study, the UChicago researchers ...

The percentage of women who went without a Pap smear for cervical cancer screening increased following the COVID-19 pandemic, from 19% in 2019 to 26% in 2022, shows survey of almost 2000 US women--and this increase was even more marked in African American women.   In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS Global Public Health: https://plos.io/3VsRL1P Article Title: HPV knowledge and non-adherence to cervical cancer screening before and following ...

The accuracy of machine learning algorithms for predicting suicidal behavior is too low to be useful for screening or for prioritizing high-risk individuals for interventions, according to a new study published September 11th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine by Matthew Spittal of the University of Melbourne, Australia, and colleagues. Numerous risk assessment scales have been developed over the past 50 years to identify patients at high risk of suicide or self-harm. In general, these scales have had poor predictive accuracy, but the availability of modern machine ...

From pollinating flowers to enabling decomposition and supporting nutrient cycles, insects’ abundance and biodiversity are critical for maintaining healthy ecosystems. However, recent studies showing population declines have raised alarm about how insects are coping with the modern world. Understanding whether recent observations are part of longer timescale trends can help inform global conservation efforts, and identify the reasons behind the so-called “Insect Apocalypse”.  Published in Science, researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology ...

A new study of ants in Fiji – involving genomic sequencing of over 4,000 ant specimens from museum collections – shows that most native species have been in decline since humans first arrived in the archipelago 3,000 years ago. Meanwhile, recently introduced ant species have expanded. The findings underscore how human activity has and continues to reshape fragile island ecosystems. Insects, which make up much of Earth’s biodiversity, provide crucial ecosystem services, including pollination, soil ...

According to a new study, most climate models exploring wildfires’ impacts on air quality overlook the effect of heat from a fire in one location on altering weather patterns – and in turn air quality – in locations farther afield. The authors of this study report that wildfires in the western United States are worsening air quality in the West but, paradoxically, may be improving it in the East. Over recent decades, wildfires in the western United States have become more frequent and intense, releasing vast amounts of smoke, which can greatly degrade air quality both locally and in regions far downwind. Often assumed to worsen when wildfire smoke drifts eastward from the ...

In a Policy Forum, Natalie Ram and colleagues discuss the concerning gaps in robust regulatory protection on direct-to-consumer genetic data and biospecimens. After declaring bankruptcy in March 2025, the direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing company, 23andMe, sold the genetic data of over 15 million people worldwide to a nonprofit founded by 23andMe’s own CEO. Although the nature of the sale meant the data remained under familiar leadership, it was controversial and highlighted critical gaps in legal ...

New Haven, Conn. — The movement of protons through electrically charged water is one of the most fundamental processes in chemistry. It is evident in everything from eyesight to energy storage to rocket fuel — and scientists have known about it for more than 200 years. But no one has ever seen it happen. Or precisely measured it on a microscopic scale. Now, the Mark Johnson lab at Yale has — for the first time — set benchmarks for how long it takes protons to move through six charged water molecules. The discovery, made possible with a ...

We take our understanding of where we are for granted, until we lose it. When we get lost in nature or a new city, our eyes and brains kick into gear, seeking familiar objects that tell us where we are. How our brains distinguish objects from background when finding direction, however, was largely a mystery. A new study provides valuable insight into this process, with possible implications for disorientation-causing conditions such as Alzheimer’s. The scientists, based at The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital) of McGill University and the University Medical Center Göttingen, ran an experiment with mice using ultrasound imaging to measure and record brain ...

Genoa (Italy), 11 September 2025 - Researchers from the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Genoa (Italy) and Brown University in Providence (USA) have discovered that people sense the hand of a humanoid robot as part of their body schema, particularly when it comes to carrying out a task together, like slicing a bar of soap. The study has been published in the journal iScience and can pave the way for a better design of robots that have to function in close contact with humans, such as those used in rehabilitation. The project, led by Alessandra Sciutti, IIT Principal ...

Images A new nanostructure acts like a wire and switch that can, for the first time, control and direct the flow of quantum quasiparticles called excitons at room temperature.    The transistor-like switch developed by University of Michigan engineers could speed up information transfer or even enable circuits that run on excitons instead of electricity—paving the way for a new class of devices.   Because they have no electrical charge, excitons have the potential to move quantum information without the losses that come with moving electrically charged particles like electrons. ...

In 1959, Lucy Shapiro, a freshman honors student at Brooklyn College majoring in arts and literature, had signed up for a course in inorganic chemistry on a lark. It didn’t interest her, and she stopped attending. But at the end of the term, having failed to officially drop the class, she was notified she had to take the final exam. “It was a multiple-choice test, so I just circled all the B's,” recalled Shapiro, PhD, professor emerita of developmental biology and director of Stanford Medicine’s Beckman Center recalled. She received a D. Three years later, the budding artist met physical ...

INDIANAPOLIS – Understanding the strategies and unmet needs of caregivers managing medications for people with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias may improve the lives of both caregivers and patients. A recent study, whose authors include Regenstrief Institute Research Scientists Noll Campbell, PharmD, M.S., and  Malaz Boustani, M.D., MPH, describes the strategies and unmet needs of caregivers managing medications for people with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementias. By employing a user-centered design (UCD) approach and using virtual contextual inquiry, the researchers identified three distinct caregiver personas: “Checklist Cheryl,” ...

Soil microbial communities play a vital role in plant health, influencing root development, disease resistance, nutrient and soil water uptake and more. In a pioneering study, the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture (UTIA) is partnering with universities across the country to investigate how these microbial communities impact cotton development and overall yield across diverse climates, agricultural practices and environmental stressors. In addition to extreme conditions such as drought and flooding, cotton crops are often affected by plant diseases like cotton leaf crumple ...

Net farm income in the United States is projected to reach $177 billion in 2025, a sharp increase from $128 billion in 2024. This is according to the latest update of the annual U.S. farm income and consumer food price report by the Food and Agricultural Policy Research Institute (FAPRI) at the University of Missouri’s College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources. Record cattle prices and large one-time government payments have boosted 2025 income, but declines in crop prices and projected reductions in future government support ...

Sept. 11, 2025  MSU has a satellite uplink/LTN TV studio and Comrex line for radio interviews upon request.  Contact: Emilie Lorditch: 810-844-1460, lorditch@msu.edu; Bethany Mauger: 765-571-0623, maugerbe@msu.edu   What 3I/ATLAS tells us about other solar systems  The fleeting interstellar visitor offers MSU astrophysicists clues about comets beyond our solar system   Why this matters:  MSU uncovered images of 3I/ATLAS from two months before it was detected as ...

Patients with eosinophilic esophagitis (EoE) often describe the condition as painful, disruptive and frightening. The rare chronic disease causes inflammation of the esophagus, leading to abdominal pain, difficulty swallowing, vomiting and, in some cases, food getting stuck in the throat. Now, a University of Cincinnati College of Medicine researcher has received new funding to expand her investigations into the underlying causes of EoE and potential new treatments. Simin Zhang, MD, an allergist and research assistant professor in the Division of ...