Embargoed copy of the research paper available on request Scientists have developed a new material that converts motion into electricity (piezoelectricity) with greater efficiency and without using toxic lead - paving the way for a new generation of devices that we use in everyday life. Publishing their discovery in Journal of the American Chemical Society today (26 Nov) researchers from the University of Birmingham, University of Oxford, and University of Bristol describe a material that is both durable and sensitive to movement - opening possibilities for a wide range of innovative devices such as sensors, wearable electronics, and self-powered devices.​ Based on bismuth iodide, an inorganic ...

A team of astronomers from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) has released new data from an extensive galaxy evolution survey that found a galaxy’s ‘neighbourhood’ plays a major role in how it changes over time. The Deep Extragalactic Visible Legacy Survey, or DEVILS for short, has released its initial data and a series of recent publications explaining how a galaxy’s location in the Universe can significantly influence its evolution. The survey combines data ...

In the early 1930s, Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky observed galaxies in space moving faster than their mass should allow, prompting him to infer the presence of some invisible scaffolding — dark matter — holding the galaxies together. Nearly 100 years later, NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope may have provided direct evidence of dark matter, allowing the invisible matter to be “seen” for the very first time. Dark matter has remained largely a mystery since it was proposed so many years ago. Up to this point, scientists have only been able to indirectly observe ...

Key Findings of the Report:  Global Imbalance: Across all three conventions (UNFCCC, UNCCD, CBD), men hold 496 (60%) focal point roles compared to 334 (40%) held by women.  Convention Disparities: The UNCCD has the lowest female representation (35%), while the UNFCCC and CBD stand at 41% and 45%, respectively.  Regional Gaps: Africa faces the steepest challenge, with women representing only 25% of focal points, whereas Eastern Europe leads with 67% female representation.  Exclusive Representation: 51 countries are represented entirely by ...

Six faculty members from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville — five from the Tickle College of Engineering and one from the College of Arts and Sciences — have been named to Clarivate’s Highly Cited Researchers list for 2025, an honor bestowed on only one in 1,000 of the world’s scientists and social scientists. The designation recognizes researchers whose publications are among the top 1% by citations in their respective fields over the past decade. “Being ...

Researchers at the University of Arizona uncovered a previously unknown population of circulating immune cells that play a critical role in fibrosis, the buildup of scar tissue that can lead to organ failure and disfigurement. The findings, published in Nature Biomedical Engineering, add to the understanding of the healing process and could lead to new strategies for preventing or treating fibrosis. Fibrosis contributes to nearly half of all deaths in developed countries, including conditions such as pulmonary fibrosis, renal fibrosis, organ ...

BOZEMAN – In new research published this week, work by a Montana State University scientist aims to explore the gradations in elevation-dependent changes in climate, including in mountainous ecosystems like those in Montana and the Rockies. John Knowles, an assistant professor in MSU’s Department of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences in the College of Agriculture, is one of nearly two dozen authors from around the world on the new paper, titled “Elevation-dependent climate change in mountain environments.” The work was published Nov. 25 in ...

The University of Tennessee has been awarded a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to prepare Tennessee’s high school students and teachers for careers in the rapidly growing semiconductor industry—one of the most critical sectors of the U.S. economy. The three-year project, Explorations: Tennessee Experiential Learning for Teachers and Students to Empower Pathways into Microelectronics, is funded through NSF’s Experiential Learning for Emerging and Novel Technologies (ExLENT) program. Led by the College of Emerging and Collaborative Studies (CECS) and in close partnership with Tickle College of Engineering’s (TCE) Min ...

As cities continue to expand and face rising environmental pressure, scientists are seeking innovative solutions that can help urban areas become cleaner, greener, and more resilient. A new perspective paper highlights biochar, a carbon rich material made from organic waste, as a transformative tool that could significantly improve the environmental future of cities around the world. The study, published in Biochar X, synthesizes global research and case studies to show how biochar contributes to cleaner air, healthier soils, improved water quality, and reduced greenhouse gas emissions. The authors examined applications across major cities such as ...

SAN ANTONIO, Nov. 25, 2025 – From metabolic villain to hero? The hormone glucagon that raises blood sugar is now getting a second look to see how it actually contributes to insulin secretion, glucose regulation and energy balance in people with obesity. A clinical research team at UT Health San Antonio, the academic health center of The  University of Texas at San Antonio, has been awarded a five-year, nearly $4 million grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of ...

In a re-evaluation of Hockett’s foundational features that have long dominated linguistic theory—concepts like ‘arbitrariness’, ‘duality of patterning’, and ‘displacement’—an international team of linguists and cognitive scientists shows that modern science demands a radical shift in how we understand language and how it evolved. The conclusion? Language is not a spoken code. It’s a dynamic, multimodal, socially embedded system that evolves through interaction, culture, ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Over the last few years, systems and applications that help visually impaired people navigate their environment have undergone rapid development, but still have room to grow, according to a team of researchers at Penn State. The team recently combined recommendations from the visually impaired community and artificial intelligence (AI) to develop a new tool that offers support specifically tailored to the needs of people who are visually impaired.  The tool, known as NaviSense, is a smartphone application that ...

Whether great minds think alike is up for debate, but the collaborating minds of two people working on a shared task process information alike, according to a study published November 25th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Denise Moerel and colleagues from Western Sydney University in Australia. Humans rely on collaboration for everything from raising food to raising children. But to cooperate successfully, people need to make sure that they are seeing the same things and working within the same rules. We must agree that the red fruits are the ones that are ripe and that we will leave green fruits alone. Behavioral collaboration requires that people think ...

Scanning for serious structural issues in fetuses during the first trimester can result in earlier detection of these issues, reports a new study led by Aris Papageorghiou at the University of Oxford, United Kingdom, published November 25th in the open-access journal PLOS Medicine. In England, pregnant people typically undergo a basic ultrasound at 12 weeks to assess the gestational age. Whereas an ultrasound at around 20 weeks – during the second trimester – is used to detect serious problems called congenital anomalies, which occur in about ...

Newcastle University has won the UK’s highest national honour for universities in recognition of work transforming the understanding, diagnosis and care of people with Dementia with Lewy bodies. The prestigious Queen Elizabeth Prizes for Higher and Further Education are awarded by the monarch every two years in recognition of world-class excellence and achievement at academic institutions. Newcastle University has been recognised with a Queen Elizabeth Prize for Education in this round and the last one in 2023, for excellence in water research. Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) Dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB) is the ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — At a time when millions of Americans have turkey on their minds, a team of researchers led by an animal scientist at Penn State has successfully tested a new way for poultry producers to keep their turkeys in sight.  Crucial for productivity and animal welfare, monitoring behavior and health of poultry animals on large, commercial farms is a costly, time-consuming and labor-intensive task. To help producers keep track of how the birds are behaving, the researchers tested a new method using a small drone equipped ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State’s LionGlass project has reached a major milestone in its partnership with Italian glassmaker Bormioli Luigi, marking one year of collaboration and the signing of a second-year agreement to continue commercialization efforts in the cosmetics packaging industry. The partnership, which began in 2024, aims to scale up LionGlass — a new family of glass developed at Penn State — as a sustainable alternative to traditional soda lime glass. LionGlass ...

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The dream of an artificial intelligence (AI)-integrated society could turn into a nightmare if safety is not prioritized by developers, according to Rui Zhang, assistant professor of computer science and engineering in the Penn State School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.  Zhang is the principal investigator on a project awarded $166,078 from Open Philanthropy to better mitigate sandbagging — attempting to look less capable or powerful — in AI models. While these systems go ...

Machine learning models called convolutional neural networks (CNNs) power technologies like image recognition and language translation. A quantum counterpart—known as a quantum convolutional neural network (QCNN)—could process information more efficiently by using quantum states instead of classical bits. Photons are fast, stable, and easy to manipulate on chips, making photonic systems a promising platform for QCNNs. However, photonic circuits typically behave linearly, limiting the flexible operations that neural networks need. In a study published ...

Researchers find that cancer cells mimic myeloid cells to hide from the immune system and promote disease hyper progression after immunotherapy Inhibiting the myeloid mimicry pathway along with immunotherapy improves antitumor outcomes in preclinical models Researchers at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have found that renal medullary carcinoma (RMC) cells use an adaptive mechanism called “myeloid mimicry” to hide from the immune system and promote disease hyper progression after ...

Individuals with coronary artery disease (CAD) — a constricting or blocking of blood vessels feeding the heart — face increased risks of strokes, cognitive impairment and dementia. However, the link between CAD and cognitive function is not fully understood. A new study led by Concordia researchers looks at how the disease affects the brain’s white matter, the network of nerve fibers that connects different regions of the brains and is critical to transmitting information efficiently. The study, published in the journal Journal ...

HER2-positive metastatic biliary tract cancer (BTC) is a rare and aggressive cancer with limited treatment options Final results from the HERIZON-BTC-01 clinical trial, the largest study of a HER2-targeted drug in BTC, show zanidatamab has clinically meaningful responses The targeted therapy demonstrated durable responses, longer survival and tumor shrinkage in some BTC patients Zanidatamab was granted accelerated FDA approval for treating HER2-positive BTC in Nov. 2024, based on these trial results Zanidatamab, a bispecific HER2-targeted antibody, delivered clinically meaningful and durable responses for patients with HER2-positive ...

For decades, scientists have known that what harms the body often harms the brain. Conditions such as obesity, high blood pressure and insulin resistance strain the body’s vascular and metabolic systems. Over time, that stress can speed up cognitive decline and increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease. Now, researchers at Arizona State University and their collaborators report that these effects may begin far earlier than expected. In young adults with obesity, the team identified biological markers of inflammation, liver stress ...

Background and objectives Mechanical valve replacement is a primary treatment for rheumatic heart disease, yet prosthesis-related adverse outcomes remain underreported in India. This study aimed to examine the in-hospital mortality rate among patients who underwent prosthetic heart valve replacement surgeries in the past five years. Methods A retrospective analysis of 221 rheumatic heart disease patients (2019–2023) who underwent aortic valve replacement (AVR), mitral valve replacement (MVR), or double valve replacement (DVR) was conducted. Comorbidities (hypertension, type-2 diabetes mellitus) and valve origin (Indian ...

“I just can’t make it tonight. You have fun without me.” Across much of the animal kingdom, when infection strikes, social contact shuts down. A new study details how the immune and central nervous systems implement this sickness behavior. It makes perfect sense that when we’re battling an infection, we lose our desire to be around others. That protects them from getting sick and lets us get much needed rest. What hasn’t been as clear is how this behavior change happens. In the research published Nov. 25 in Cell, scientists at The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory of MIT and collaborators used multiple methods to demonstrate ...