The University of Miami business technology faculty has earned the nation’s top research productivity ranking in information systems, one of the most relevant academic disciplines in today’s AI era. The Business Technology Department ranked No. 1 in the nation for research, a prestigious recognition that places the University of Miami at the very top of the information systems discipline for the first time. This ranking, released by the Association of Information Systems Research Rankings Service, is based on a numerical ...

CU Boulder researchers have built high performing optical microresonators opening the door for new sensor technologies. At its simplest form, a microresonator is a tiny device that can trap light and build up its intensity. Once the intensity is high enough, researchers can perform unique light operations.  “Our work is about using less optical power with these resonators for future uses,” said Bright Lu, a fourth-year doctoral student in electrical and computer engineering and a lead author on the study. “One day these microresonators can be adapted for a wide range of sensors from navigation to identifying chemicals.” For this endeavor, ...

When lawmakers name bills after victims of tragedy – such as Megan’s Law or the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 – public support surges, but this emotional boost may come at the expense of sound policymaking, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. The study, published in the journal Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, examined whether eponymous bills –  those named for victims – receive more public backing than identical bills without a name or story. Across three ...

In everyday life, we can easily tell whether objects are packed tightly (high density) or spread out sparsely (low density) just by looking at them. But when dealing with time-series event data, scattering along a timeline, it is not as straightforward to objectively identify when the density is high or low. In this situation, a statistical method called kernel density estimation is useful. By assigning a probability to each data point and overlaying these distributions, the method provides a smooth estimate of how event density changes over time. It is particularly effective ...

PULLMAN, Wash. – When the federal government brings its toughest environmental enforcement actions against polluters, they tend to be in communities of greater wealth, not the most polluted places. That’s the takeaway from a new paper co-authored by a Washington State University researcher that examined criminal prosecutions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from 2011 to 2020 in every U.S. county. The findings were published in the journal Nature Sustainability. “You might reasonably expect the government to use its most consequential enforcement mechanism ...

A technology has been developed that uses robots rather than humans to evaluate the performance of newly developed catalysts. By operating 45 times faster than manual work while also improving precision, it is expected to significantly shorten catalyst development timelines. A research team led by Dr. Ji Chan Park of the Clean Fuel Research Laboratory at the Korea Institute of Energy Research (KIER; President Yi, Chang-Keun) has developed a system that fully automates complex and repetitive catalyst performance evaluation experiments. To develop new catalysts, large-scale ...

The Consortium for Enhancing Resilience and Catastrophe Modeling (CERCat)—a landmark partnership between Lehigh University and Rice University—convened at Rice University between Feb. 5-6, 2026, for its semi-annual meeting.  Established in April 2025, CERCat is a dynamic research hub uniting academia and industry to advance the science of catastrophic risk modeling and resilience assessment. By bridging the gap between academic innovation and the practical needs of the private and public sectors, CERCat ensures the next generation ...

Engineers at the University of Pennsylvania and Rice University have refined a technology for editing individual genetic “base pairs” to a new level of precision, opening the door to safer, more reliable therapies for a wide range of genetic diseases, and to potential treatments for some cystic fibrosis patients that may yield better outcomes than existing therapies. Unlike infectious diseases, many of which respond to the same treatments — like antibiotics that neutralize multiple types of bacteria — ...

Taking a dog for a walk, cuddling a cat, watching fish glide through a tank, or just having a pet around may help many middle-aged and older adults with their health or well-being, a new poll finds. But the costs of caring for those pets strains the budgets of 31% of pet owners age 50 and older, the poll shows. And 33% of people over 50 who don’t have pets say such costs are a main reason why. The findings, from the University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging, give an updated look at an issue that the poll last explored seven years ago in people ages 50 to 80. The percentage of adults in that age range who have ...

Cryptococcus neoformans is one of four fungi classified as ‘critical priority’ on the WHO's Fungal Pathogens Priority List, which was published in October 2022 following decades of research and calls for fungal pathogens to be classified alongside their bacterial and viral counterparts.   The fungus infects people through inhalation of spores or yeast cells in the environment, first colonising the lungs and can then spread to the brain. In 2020, an estimated 112,000 deaths were associated globally to fungal meningitis caused by C. neoformans. Increasing evidence shows that co-infection ...

As members of the public increasingly turn to AI with health concerns, University of Birmingham researchers are leading a global programme to build the first definitive guide for safely navigating health information on AI powered chatbots.   The initiative is announced today in a correspondence published in Nature Health. The project team is now inviting the public to help shape the development of The Health Chatbot Users’ Guide, a resource designed to offer a pragmatic and neutral approach that focuses on harm reduction and maximising benefits to users.   With the advent of AI Large ...

Research Highlights: Although women typically have less artery-clogging plaque than men, a study of more than 4,200 adults found that it did not shield women from cardiovascular events. The risk of heart attack and chest pain in women appeared to manifest with a lower amount of plaque and increased more rapidly, particularly after menopause, than they do for men. Embargoed until 4 a.m. CT/5 a.m. ET Monday, Feb. 23, 2026 DALLAS, Feb. 23, 2026 — Less artery-clogging plaque in women’s arteries did not appear to protect them from heart disease compared to men, according to a study ...

Embargoed for release: Monday, Feb. 23, 2026, 5:00 AM ET Key points: U.S. counties located closer to operational nuclear power plants (NPPs) have higher rates of cancer mortality than those located farther away, even after accounting for socioeconomic, environmental, and health care factors. The study is the first of the 21st century to analyze proximity to NPPs and cancer mortality across all NPPs and every U.S. county. The researchers emphasized that the findings are not enough to establish causality but highlight the need for further research into the potential health impacts of NPPs, especially amid interest in expanding nuclear energy to help solve climate change. Boston, ...

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common cause of death globally. In CAD, plaques composed of cholesterol, fats, calcium and other compounds accumulate and create obstructions in the coronary vessels that supply blood to the heart. It is well-known that plaque differs between women and men, with women typically having a smaller total volume of plaque, but it is unknown how this difference impacts risk of major adverse cardiovascular events (MACE). Investigators from Mass General Brigham analyzed data from nearly 4,300 stable outpatients with chest pain and no known prior CAD and found that, although women had smaller plaque ...

The vast swamps and peatlands of the tropics play an important role in the global carbon cycle and consequently in the global climate. The Amazon basin, the Congo basin, and the tropical wetlands of Southeast Asia accumulate carbon in the form of dead, undecomposed plant material, storing around 100 gigatonnes of carbon in the process.   One of the largest and most important of these tropical carbon stores is situated in the Congo Basin in the heart of Africa, home to the mighty Congo River and its numerous tributaries. Although the swamps and peatlands of the Congo Basin cover only ...

Issued: UNDER STRICT EMBARGO UNTIL MONDAY 23 FEBRUARY 10AM (UK TIME) Breadcrumbs lead to fossil free production of everyday goods The humble breadcrumb could hold the key to cutting out fossil fuels from one of the chemical industry’s most widely used reactions, according to a new study. Scientists have found a one-pot microbial formula that uses waste bread to replace fossil fuel-derived hydrogen in hydrogenation – a chemical reaction used extensively to manufacture foods, pharmaceuticals, ...

How much will heat, flooding, drought and storms increase as a result of human-induced climate change? In a groundbreaking study, climate researcher Gottfried Kirchengast and his team at the University of Graz have developed a new method for computing the hazards from extreme events: it can compute all relevant hazard metrics for events such as heat waves, floods and droughts in any region worldwide with unprecedented information content. Using it for Europe, the researchers found that anthropogenic climate change has caused a tenfold increase in extreme heat in recent decades. The study, published in the journal Weather and Climate Extremes, also provides a basis for better quantifying ...

In a study of adults with cancer, those who developed a mental health condition within the first year after their cancer diagnosis had a higher likelihood of dying over the next few years. The findings are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. In the analysis of data on all patients at University of California–affiliated hospitals, researchers identified all adult patients who were diagnosed with cancer in 2013–2023 but had no documented mental health disorder before their diagnosis. Among 371,189 patients, 39,687 (10.6%) developed ...

[Vienna, 23 February, 2026] — Applications are now open for the 2026 EANM Young Scientist Network Award. This new research award, supported by Advanced Accelerator Applications (a Novartis company), aims to accelerate innovative research in alpha radioligand therapy (α-RLT) in prostate cancer. Winners will be recognised across three award categories: Platinum (40,000 euros), Gold (20,000 euros), and Silver (10,000 euros) awards.  “Alpha radioligand ...

Around 250 million years ago, what is today scorching desert in remote northwestern Australia was the shore of a shallow bay bordering a vast prehistoric ocean. Fossils recovered from this region over 60 years ago, and almost forgotten in museum collections, have now shed new light on the earliest global radiations of land-living animals adapting to life in the sea. The cataclysmic end-Permian mass extinction and extreme global warming prompted the emergence of modern marine ecosystems at the beginning of the Age of Dinosaurs (or Mesozoic era), some 252 ...

Biodiversity is changing across the planet, yet governments still lack the robust, consistent data needed to track these changes and guide effective conservation. Now, a new study led by the University of Amsterdam (UvA), the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), proposes a comprehensive roadmap to build a modern, integrated Biodiversity Observation Network (BON) for Europe – one that could become a global model for biodiversity monitoring in the ...

February 16, 2026—Antimicrobial resistance poses a growing global health crisis, with few new antibiotics in development. Researchers at Sultan Qaboos University have identified three novel antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) from dromedary camels that effectively target multidrug-resistant bacteria, offering potential alternatives to conventional drugs. Published in Frontiers in Immunology (Volume 17, 21 January 2026), the study combined bioinformatics predictions with experimental validation, including colony-forming assays, membrane permeability tests, and electron microscopy ...

BETHESDA, MD – When you scratch an itch, something tells your brain when to stop. That moment of relief, when scratching feels “enough,” is not accidental. Scientists have now identified a key molecular and neural mechanism behind this built-in braking system, shedding new light on how the body regulates itch and why this control fails in chronic conditions. The research will be presented at the 70th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in San Francisco from February 21–25, 2026. In a new study from the laboratory of Roberta Gualdani, professor at the University of ...

BETHESDA, MD – Proteins long known to be essential for hearing have been hiding a talent: they also act as gatekeepers that shuffle fatty molecules across cell membranes. When this newly discovered function goes haywire—due to genetic mutations, noise-induced damage, or certain medications—it may be what kills the delicate sensory cells in our ears, causing permanent hearing loss. The research will be presented at the 70th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in San Francisco from February 21–25, 2026. Deep inside our ears, specialized ...

BETHESDA, MD – Scientists have uncovered an elegant biophysical trick that tuberculosis-causing bacteria use to survive inside human cells, a discovery that could lead to new strategies for fighting one of the world's deadliest infectious diseases. Tuberculosis kills more than a million people each year and remains a major public health crisis, particularly in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The disease is caused by mycobacteria, which have evolved sophisticated ways to hijack human immune cells ...