Recent advances in robotic ultrasound systems have shown promise for improving diagnostic imaging consistency. However, maintaining stable contact force across dynamic physiological changes (e.g., breathing, tremors) without continuous sensor recalibration remains a critical hurdle. "By integrating a hybrid active-passive force control mechanism, our method decouples force regulation from real-time feedback dependencies while ensuring adaptability across patients," stated corresponding author Qingsong Xu, a professor at the University of Macau. The tripartite system combines (a) a passive constant-force mechanism (positive/negative stiffness ...

Drinking a smoothie is a popular way to consume fruits and vegetables, many of which are rich in micronutrients called polyphenols. If this beverage is purchased at a store, it’s likely been pasteurized with heat or pressure to prevent harmful bacteria growth and extend shelf-life. Now, a preliminary study in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry reports that processing smoothies with high heat could also make polyphenols easier for the gut microbiome to absorb. Fruits and vegetables are key to a healthful human diet, ...

Breathalyzers are a frequently used tool to measure the amount of ethanol in someone’s breath, which relates to their blood alcohol content. However, alcoholic beverages contaminated by methanol (sometimes called wood alcohol) are hard to identify and toxic if ingested. Researchers reporting in ACS Sensors have developed a prototype sensor that quickly and easily detects small amounts of methanol in breath — a step toward developing a “methanol breathalyzer” to efficiently diagnose poisonings. Methanol and ethanol, despite being structurally similar, have vastly different effects on the body when ingested. Ethanol gives ...

To treat bacterial infections, medical professionals prescribe antibiotics. But not all active medicine gets used up by the body. Some of it ends up in wastewater, where antimicrobial-resistant bacteria can develop. Now, to make a more efficient antibiotic treatment, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science modified penicillin, so that it’s activated only by green light. In early tests, the approach precisely controlled bacterial growth and improved survival outcomes for infected insects. “Controlling drug activity with light will allow precise and safe treatment of localized infections,” says Wiktor Szymanski, a corresponding author of the study. “Moreover, ...

The ghostly woman’s voice pipes through the speakers, covered in radio static but her message intact from beyond — “The birch canoe slid on the smooth planks.” A secret message from the other side? A spectral insight? No, something much spookier: Voice recordings captured, secretly, from the radio frequencies emitted by ubiquitous, cheap microphones in laptops and smart speakers. These unintentional signals pass, ghost-like, through walls, only to be captured by simple radio components and translated back to static-filled — but easily intelligible ...

The molecules that form the foundation of life on Earth are as diverse as they are complex. Among these, carbohydrates play a vital role as energy sources and in structural functions, such as forming cell walls. One class of carbohydrates, β-1,2-glucans, consists of glucose chains and is found in bacteria. These molecules are involved in various important biological processes, such as bacterial infection and environmental adaptation. Despite their biological significance, β-1,2-glucans are rare, compared to cellulose and laminarin, and structurally complex, making them particularly difficult to ...

Exercise has been recognized as an extremely effective tool to improve human health— it can have a preventative and even therapeutic effect on non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. By promoting physical activity not only among athletes, but also among the general population, several non-communicable diseases can be prevented, eventually reducing the financial burden upon the healthcare system. However, the exact changes that occur at a molecular level due to different types of exercise have not been explored thoroughly. One reason ...

No more hunger after cooking? A newly identified network of nerve cells is responsible, a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research has discovered in mice. They discovered a direct connection from the nose to a group of nerve cells in the brain that are activated by the smell of food and, when activated, trigger a feeling of fullness. This was not the case in obese mice. This discovery suggests that treating obesity might require different advice about smelling food before a meal based on a person's weight.  The researchers used brain scans to investigate which regions of the mice's brains respond to ...

Today, 2.2 billion people in the world lack access to safe drinking water. In the United States, more than 46 million people experience water insecurity, living with either no running water or water that is unsafe to drink. The increasing need for drinking water is stretching traditional resources such as rivers, lakes, and reservoirs.  To improve access to safe and affordable drinking water, MIT engineers are tapping into an unconventional source: the air. The Earth’s atmosphere contains millions of billions of gallons of water in the form of vapor. If this vapor can be efficiently captured and condensed, it could supply clean drinking water in ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- The human brain is very good at solving complicated problems. One reason for that is that humans can break problems apart into manageable subtasks that are easy to solve one at a time. This allows us to complete a daily task like going out for coffee by breaking it into steps: getting out of our office building, navigating to the coffee shop, and once there, obtaining the coffee. This strategy helps us to handle obstacles easily. For example, if the elevator is broken, we can revise how we get ...

The forerunners of dinosaurs and crocodiles in the Triassic period were able to migrate across areas of the ancient world deemed completely inhospitable to life, new research suggests.   In a paper published in Nature Ecology and Evolution today (11th June), researchers from the University of Birmingham and University of Bristol have used a new method of geographical analysis to infer how these ancestral reptiles, known as archosauromorphs, dispersed following one of the most impactful climate events the Earth has ever seen, the end-Permian mass extinction.   The first archosauromorphs, some resembling modern reptiles and many ...

Imagine you’re walking to work when the unspeakable occurs: Your favorite coffee shop — where you stop every day — is closed. You groggily navigate to a newly opened coffee shop a couple blocks away, which, you’re pleased to discover, actually makes quite a good morning brew. Soon, you find yourself looking forward to stopping at the new location instead of the old one. That switch probably alters more than just your morning routine. Each time you visit that new coffee shop, the ...

A team of Korean scientists has developed an innovative green technology that transforms plastic waste into clean hydrogen fuel using only sunlight and water. Researchers at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) Center for Nanoparticle Research, led by Professor KIM Dae-Hyeong and Professor HYEON Taeghwan of Seoul National University, announced the successful development of a photocatalytic system that produces hydrogen from PET bottles. The key innovation lies in wrapping the photocatalyst in a hydrogel polymer, which helps it float on water and stay active even under harsh environmental ...

Brain cell discovery may explain excessive hunger Researchers identify “meal memory” neurons in laboratory rats that could explain why forgetting lunch leads to overeating. Scientists have discovered a specific group of brain cells that create memories of meals, encoding not just what food was eaten but when it was eaten. The findings, published today in Nature Communications, could explain why people with memory problems often overeat and why forgetting about a recent meal can trigger excessive hunger and lead to disordered eating. During eating, neurons in the ventral hippocampus region of the brain become active and form what the team of researchers call ...

A new study from Karolinska Institutet involving over a million women links difficult childhood experiences to the risk of being diagnosed with endometriosis later in life. The study shows a link between childhood exposure to violence and a twofold increase in the risk of developing this gynaecological disease. Endometriosis is a condition in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the uterus. These cells attach to the abdominal lining, uterus, ovaries or other organs and form endometriosis lesions. The lesions react to ...

About The Study: Augmenting enteral protein during critical illness did not improve number of days free of the index hospital and alive at day 90.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Adam M. Deane, PhD, email Adam.deane@mh.org.au. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2025.9110) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding ...

CLEVELAND—Pancreatic cancer has a five-year survival rate of just 13%, making it the deadliest cancer, according to the American Cancer Society. It typically causes no symptoms until it has already metastasized. Surgery, radiation and chemotherapy can extend survival, but rarely provide a cure. Now, researchers at Case Western Reserve University and Cleveland Clinic are developing vaccines targeting pancreatic cancer that could eliminate the disease, leaving a patient cancer-free. So far, the vaccines have achieved dramatic results ...

For the first time, scientists have used Earth-based telescopes to look back over 13 billion years to see how the first stars in the universe affect light emitted from the Big Bang.  Using telescopes high in the Andes mountains of northern Chile, astrophysicists have measured this polarized microwave light to create a clearer picture of one of the least understood epochs in the history of the universe, the Cosmic Dawn. “People thought this couldn’t be done from the ground. Astronomy is a technology-limited field, ...

The number of armed conflicts in the world reached a historic high in 2024. This is shown by new data from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP) at Uppsala University. Despite a marginal decrease in total fatalities, targeted violence against civilians increased significantly. UCDP recorded 61 active conflicts involving at least one state in 2024, up from 59 the previous year and the highest number since statistics began in 1946. Eleven of these reached the level of war, defined as a conflict causing at least 1,000 battle-related deaths in a year. This is the highest number since 2016. Despite ...

Precision gene editing is crucial for treating genetic diseases, as it enables targeted correction of specific mutations. A Korean research team has become the first in the world to significantly enhance the low efficiency of a key genome editing mechanism—known as homologous recombination (HR)—by inducing autophagy, a natual process whthin cells. Dr. Hye Jin Nam’s team at the Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT), in collaboration with Professors Dong Hyun Jo and Sangsu Bae at ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (June 11, 2025)—Nomograms have a strong reputation as reliable predictive models that simplify statistical prediction models and guide personalized treatment to formulate preventive measures for various diseases. Through a new study, a nomogram was developed and validated to predict the risk of patients with epithelial ovarian cancer developing deep vein thrombosis. Results of the study are published online today in Menopause, the journal of The Menopause Society. Although ovarian cancer is not one of the more common types of cancer (especially compared with breast or lung cancer), it is serious. It is the fifth-leading ...

Cells taken from the lungs of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have a larger accumulation of soot-like carbon deposits compared to cells taken from people who smoke but do not have COPD, according to a study published today (Wednesday) in ERJ Open Research [1]. Carbon can enter the lungs via cigarette smoke, diesel exhaust and polluted air.   The cells, called alveolar macrophages, normally protect the body by engulfing any particles or bacteria that reach the lungs. But, in their new study, researchers found that when these cells are exposed to carbon they grow larger and encourage inflammation.   The research was led by Dr James Baker and Dr Simon Lea ...

When it comes to advanced cancer or Alzheimer’s disease, over half of doctors would consider assisted dying for themselves, but preferences seem to vary according to their jurisdiction’s legislation on euthanasia, reveal the results of an international survey, published online in the Journal of Medical Ethics. And most say they would prefer symptom relief rather than life sustaining treatment for their own end of life care, indicate the responses.  Previously published research suggests that doctors’ views on their own end of life care inform their clinical practice, and that their perceptions of their patients’ treatment wishes ...

There’s an urgent need to quantify the role of fungal toxins (aflatoxins), found on agricultural crops, such as maize and peanuts (groundnuts), in the escalating rates of liver cancer in Ghana, as well as elsewhere in Africa and Asia, concludes a commentary published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health. Maize and peanuts are dietary staples in many Asian and African countries. And with one of the highest rates of liver cancer in Africa, at 16/100,000 of the population. Ghana represents a critical case study in furthering international ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- For many patients with schizophrenia, other psychiatric illnesses, or diseases such as hypertension and asthma, it can be difficult to take their medicine every day. To help overcome that challenge, MIT researchers have developed a pill that can be taken just once a week and gradually releases medication from within the stomach. In a phase 3 clinical trial conducted by MIT spinout Lyndra Therapeutics, the researchers used the once-a-week pill to deliver a widely used medication for managing the symptoms of schizophrenia. They found that this treatment regimen maintained consistent levels of the drug in patients’ ...