From depressed polar bears to charismatic pandas, conservationists have used anthropomorphism, or the practice of attributing human qualities to non-human subjects, to garner public support for conservation efforts. In a new study publishing June 18 in the Cell Press journal iScience, scientists tease apart some of the social factors that influence whether people view animals similarly to humans. The researchers found that factors such as social integration, urban living, formal education, and religion can affect an individual’s tendency to assign human characteristics to animals. This in turn may affect their willingness to engage with conservation ...

In brief: New research offers the most comprehensive look yet at how global crop yields are likely to change as the planet warms. After adjusting for how real farmers adapt, researchers estimate global yields of calories from staple crops in a high-emissions future will be 24% lower in 2100 than they would be without climate change.  U.S. agriculture and other breadbaskets are among the hardest-hit in the study’s projections, while regions in Canada, China, and Russia may benefit. The global food system faces growing risks from climate change, even as farmers ...

Inspired by naturally occurring air bubbles in glaciers, researchers have developed a method to encode messages in ice. Publishing June 18 in the Cell Press journal Cell Reports Physical Science, the paper explains how the team encoded frozen messages in binary and Morse code by manipulating the size and distribution of bubbles in ice. The method could be used to store short messages in very cold regions such as Antarctica and the Arctic, where conventional information storage is difficult or prohibitively expensive.   “In naturally cold regions, the use of trapped air bubbles as a means of message delivery and storage uses less energy than ...

Today, all non-Africans are known to have descended from a small group of people that ventured into Eurasia after around 50 thousand years ago. However, fossil evidence shows that there were numerous failed dispersals before this time that left no detectable traces in living people. In a paper published in Nature this week, new evidence for the first time explains why those earlier migrations didn’t succeed. A consortium of scientists led by Prof. Eleanor Scerri of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Germany, and Prof. Andrea Manica of the University of Cambridge has found that before expanding into Eurasia 50 ...

About The Study: This study identified distinct trajectories of addictive use of social media, mobile phones, and video games from childhood to early adolescence and found links to suicidal behaviors, suicidal ideation, and worse mental health outcomes. High or increasing addictive use trajectories were common. Addictive screen use trajectories warrant further study regarding potential use for clinical evaluation of risk and for the design and testing of interventions to improve youth mental health. Corresponding ...

In brief: Taking better photos with less light: that is the promise of a new perovskite image sensor developed by researchers at ETH Zurich and Empa. The new sensor is more light-sensitive, reproduces colours more accurately and offers significantly higher resolution than conventional silicon sensors. In addition to digital cameras, the perovskite sensor is particularly well suited for medical analysis or for automated monitoring of the environment and agriculture. Image sensors are built into every smartphone and every ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study of 23,000 adolescents, members of racial and ethnic minority groups were significantly less likely to access mental health visits or receive psychotropic medications or services in outpatient, telemental health, or school settings compared with white adolescents. These findings highlight the need to improve mental health access for adolescent members of racial and ethnic minority groups. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding ...

About The Study: Results of this cohort study reveal that compared with cardiovascular risk scoring, coronary computed tomography (CT) angiography was associated with modest improvements in healthier lifestyle behaviors, acceptance of recommended preventive therapy, and risk factor modification. Whether this strategy reduces coronary events remains to be established. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Michael McDermott, MBChB, email michael.mcdermott@ed.ac.uk. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamacardio.2025.1763) Editor’s ...

About The Study: The results of this study demonstrate that surgical patients are at significant risk of experiencing food insecurity. Interventions, including food insecurity screening, may improve food access and health outcomes in this cohort.  Corresponding Authors: To contact the corresponding authors, email Annabelle Jones, MD, MPH, (ajones50@bwh.harvard.edu) and Kavitha Ranganathan, MD, (kranganathan@bwh.harvard.edu). To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamasurg.2025.1809) Editor’s ...

“What Denisovans looked like, despite their genetic contributions to present-day East Asians and Oceanians?” This is one of the most important questions that has arisen since the discovery of the Denisovans 15 years ago. Now, recent research by a team led by FU Qiaomiei from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and JI Qiang of Hebei GEO University has helped answer this question by confirming that a nearly complete hominin skull discovered near Harbin belongs to the Denisovan lineage. It dates back to at least 146,000 years ...

New research found that youth who become increasingly addicted to social media, mobile phones or video games are at greater risk of suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts and emotional or behavioral issues. The study, published June 18 in JAMA, was led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, Columbia University and University of California, Berkeley. Unlike previous studies that focused on total screen time at one point in a child’s life, this study looked at how young people’s patterns of compulsive or “addictive” use changed over time. These patterns included ...

In a world-first discovery, researchers have shown that Australia’s iconic Bogong moth uses constellations of stars and the Milky Way to navigate hundreds of kilometres across the country during its annual migration – making it the first known invertebrate to rely on a stellar compass for long-distance travel. The landmark study, published today (Thursday 19 June) in Nature, reveals how this unassuming nocturnal moth combines celestial navigation with Earth’s magnetic field to pinpoint a specific ...

The National Urea Cycle Disorders Foundation (NUCDF), the leading patient advocacy group for people affected by urea cycle disorders (UCDs), today announced the launch of a two-year national project to establish the multistakeholder NUCDF Partner Network and develop a roadmap for future research in these rare disorders. The project is funded through the Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award Program, an initiative of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Urea cycle disorders (UCDs) are eight related genetic disorders of protein metabolism that can lead to high ammonia resulting in coma, brain damage, ...

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — June 18, 2025 — More patients are surviving and recovering from the most common and severe form of brain stroke thanks to data-driven treatment methods based on the amassing of more than 1 million variables in an HonorHealth Research Institute program known as HALO, which stands for HonorHealth Acute neuroLogical Outcome. Ischemic stroke, as opposed to bleeding caused by blunt force trauma, occurs when a blood vessel supplying oxygen to the brain is obstructed because of a blood clot — typically formed in the heart or an artery in the neck. Such blockages, responsible for 87% of all strokes, often result in permanent disability ...

The highly integrated vector magnetometer developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF is based on nitrogen vacancies (NV) in diamond and provides access to the smallest magnetic fields with a previously unattainable degree of flexibility and precision. The miniaturized measuring system offers completely new possibilities in applications that require precise measurement with minimal interference, such as in biochemical measurements of nerve pathways or in microelectronics. “What makes the diamond-based NV vector magnetometer so special is its native and intuitive functionality, which enables it to precisely measure the vector components ...

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the most common primary liver cancer and a leading cause of cancer-related deaths worldwide. While environmental and genetic factors contribute to HCC, increasing evidence points to epigenetic dysregulation as a central driver in hepatocarcinogenesis. This review article published in eGastroenterology systematically explores the epigenetic mechanisms implicated in HCC pathogenesis, providing a comprehensive view of how these alterations contribute to tumor initiation, progression, and resistance to therapy. DNA ...

NEW YORK, NY— June 18, 2025 —The American Thoracic Society Research Program has announced that four researchers have been awarded early-career grants to support research advancing pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine. The grants, which are generously sponsored by Johnson & Johnson, total $400,000.   These awards support early-career investigators conducting research aimed at understanding the pathways and pathophysiology of pulmonary vascular disease. The following researchers ...

Researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine have received a $1 million grant from the Florida Medical Malpractice Joint Underwriting Association to launch a new initiative: the Geriatric Emergency Department Pharmacologic Harm Prevention Project (GREAT PHARM). This program seeks to reduce falls and other adverse drug events (ADEs) among older adults by using pharmacogenomic-guided prescribing, a personalized approach that tailors medications to an individual’s genetic profile. As America’s population ...

Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), encompassing ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD), is a chronic inflammatory condition of the gastrointestinal tract with a rising global burden. Traditional diagnostic methods like endoscopy are invasive and costly, underscoring the need for non-invasive biomarkers. Recent research highlights the gut microbiome's pivotal role in IBD pathogenesis, alongside metabolomic and immunological dysregulation. This review synthesizes current knowledge on these biomarkers, proposing an integrative model ...

Astronomers have created a galactic masterpiece: an ultra-detailed image that reveals previously unseen features in the Sculptor Galaxy. Using the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), they observed this nearby galaxy in thousands of colours simultaneously. By capturing vast amounts of data at every single location, they created a galaxy-wide snapshot of the lives of stars within Sculptor. "Galaxies are incredibly complex systems that we are still struggling to understand," says ESO researcher Enrico Congiu, who led a new Astronomy & Astrophysics study on Sculptor. Reaching ...

Most treatments for Parkinson’s disease (PD) only slow disease progression. Early intervention for the neurological disease that worsens over time is therefore critical to optimize care, but that requires early diagnosis. Current tests, like clinical rating scales and neural imaging, can be subjective and costly. Now, researchers in ACS’ Analytical Chemistry report the initial development of a system that inexpensively screens for PD from the odors in a person’s ear wax. Previous research has ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The personal credit scores of top-level corporate executives can help explain their decision making in the corporate environment, at least when it involves evaluating risk, a new study suggests.   Researchers at The Ohio State University conducted an experiment with a national sample of high-level executives and found that those with subprime credit scores tended to be “yes persons” – even when it was counterproductive.   In contrast, executives with prime ...

Humans have tens of thousands of genes, many of which produce proteins essential to basic bodily functions. The KCNT1 gene, for example, codes for a protein that maintains normal electrical activity in the brain and helps neurons communicate. But genes don’t always function perfectly. For many people, a mutation of the KCNT1 gene causes no symptoms. For others, it can lead to dysfunction of neuronal activity causing learning disabilities, difficulty communicating, and a lifetime of treatment-resistant seizures. Epileptic disorders caused by mutations in KCNT1 affect ...

LA JOLLA (June 18, 2025)—Salk Assistant Professor Deepshika Ramanan has been named a Rita Allen Foundation Scholar, a distinction given to early-career leaders in the biomedical sciences whose research holds exceptional promise for revealing new pathways to advance human health. "Shika’s exceptional talent, determination, collaborative spirit, and mentorship skills make her a very deserving recipient of this award,” says Salk President Gerald Joyce. “Her bold approach to important but underappreciated topics in immunology is likely ...

In a unique collaboration between the University of Groningen and the Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, researchers studied population trends across 3,058 populations of various species throughout the entire Wadden Sea. Twenty-four per cent of the populations showed a significant decline in size, and this trend is occurring simultaneously across various groups. Only fourteen per cent of the populations showed an increase in size. These findings were published in the journal Global Change Biology on June ...