Ants have evolved an acute sense of smell, which requires each sensory neuron to choose one scent receptor out of hundreds. In a new study published in Nature, researchers at New York University have discovered what ants use to solve this biological puzzle: a self-regulating system in which choosing one gene physically silences all its neighbors. A high-stakes sense of smell Ants communicate via pheromones to hunt, detect outsiders, and determine their role within a colony. Without precise control of olfactory receptors, ant society would unravel. When ants cannot smell, “they stop performing their duties, which leads to anarchy,” explained ...

SAN FRANCISCO—October 22, 2025—Nearly half of all babies born with Down syndrome face congenital heart defects, often involving serious malformations that require surgery in the first months of life. For decades, scientists have known that having an extra copy of chromosome 21—the genetic cause of Down syndrome—was responsible, but they couldn’t pin down which of its hundreds of genes were key for causing the heart problems. Now, scientists at Gladstone Institutes have an answer. In a study published in Nature, the researchers leveraged stem cell science and ...

The University of California San Diego School of Medicine’s Centers for Integrative Health has received a five-year, $6.2 million grant from the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish the REACH Center for Translational Science on Whole Person Health. The three principal investigators are Cassandra Vieten, Ph.D.,  clinical professor in the Department of Family Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine, Gene “Rusty” Kallenberg, ...

PORTOLA VALLEY, Calif., October 22, 2025 - Bay Area Lyme Foundation, a leading sponsor of Lyme disease research in the US, today announced its call for applicants from academia and the private sector for the 2026 Emerging Leader Awards (ELA). These annual awards recognize innovative researchers advancing novel approaches in tick-borne disease diagnostics and treatments, while embodying the future of research leadership in this critical field.    In 2026, Bay Area Lyme Foundation will award two $150,000 ELA grants:  Lyme ...

In International Journal of Extreme Manufacturing, researchers have developed a dual post-processing method to make 3D-printed metals much stronger and tougher, addressing one of the field's most persistent challenges. By combining deep cryogenic treatment and laser shock peening, researchers find a new way to transform the microscopic structure of 3D-printed metals, relieving internal stresses and enhancing their mechanical resilience. Their method offers a practical route to producing stronger and more damage-tolerant components for industrial-grade metal additive manufacturing in aerospace, automotive, energy, and defense sectors. The Hidden Problem in Metal ...

(Toronto, October 22, 2025) JMIR Publications invites submissions to a new theme issue titled “Navigating AI-Enabled Uncertainty – Strategic Implications for Digital Health Management” in its open access journal Journal of Medical Internet Research. The premier, peer-reviewed journal is indexed in in all major literature indices including National Library of Medicine(NLM)/MEDLINE, PubMed, PMC, Scopus, DOAJ, Clarivate (which includes Web of Science (WoS)/ESCI/SCIE), and others. Health care administrators are increasingly facing ambiguous decisions as artificial intelligence (AI) permeates reimbursement, documentation, workforce planning, and vendor ecosystems. ...

WASHINGTON (Oct. 22, 2025) — Light-to-moderate alcohol consumption is associated with increases in blood pressure (BP) and stopping drinking – even drinking less – may lead to clinically meaningful BP reductions, according to a study published today in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology. Findings show that slight changes in alcohol consumption can affect BP and can be a strategy for BP management and improvement. Alcohol consumption is a well-established contributor to elevated BP, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). The 2025 ACC/AHA High Blood Pressure ...

Tsukuba, Japan—Hinoki cypress is a commercially vital species used as a high-quality building material, second only to sugi cedar in planted forest area and timber production in Japan. Natural hinoki cypress forests extend from Fukushima Prefecture in the north to Yakushima Island in the south. Taiwanese hinoki cypress is a variety and close relative of the Japanese hinoki, and its large-diameter timber was historically imported from Taiwan to Japan for constructing shrines and temples. By conducting a comprehensive population genetic analysis, this study aimed to elucidate genetic diversity, regional genetic structure, and evolutionary history across ...

SAN DIEGO, CALIF. — GemPharmatech, a global leader in preclinical research solutions and genetically-engineered mouse models, today announced a collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) to accelerate the discovery of new therapeutic antibodies. Through the non-exclusive agreement, researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering will have access to GemPharmatech’s extensive preclinical service capabilities and resources, utilizing the NeoMab® platform — a next-generation ...

NEW YORK, NY – Oct. 22, 2025 – The emotional strain on parents and other caregivers faced with deciding whether a tracheotomy is the best treatment for their child is hard to measure. The latest clinical practice guideline from the American Thoracic Society aims to give clinicians and parents/caregivers a way forward so they can navigate difficult decisions to ensure better outcomes for young patients. The guideline was published early online today, Wednesday, Oct. 22, in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. A tracheostomy is a tube that is surgically placed through an ...

In 1867, Lord Kelvin imagined atoms as knots in the aether. The idea was soon disproven. Atoms turned out to be something else entirely. But his discarded vision may yet hold the key to why the universe exists. Now, for the first time, Japanese physicists have shown that knots can arise in a realistic particle physics framework, one that also tackles deep puzzles such as neutrino masses, dark matter, and the strong CP problem. Their findings, in Physical Review Letters, suggest these “cosmic knots” could have formed and briefly dominated in the turbulent newborn ...

A paradox of neuroscience is that while brains evolve within specific sensory and physical environments, neural circuits are usually studied in isolation under controlled laboratory conditions. But we can’t fully understand how environmental factors shape brain function without considering the body in which that brain evolved. The BioRobotics Lab in EPFL’s School of Engineering specializes in developing bioinspired robots to tease apart the brain-body interactions involved in sensorimotor coordination. Now, they have published a study in Science Robotics that provides detailed insight into embodiment, or how the body ...

In postwar America, as suburbs spread and federal social welfare programs expanded, one underexamined building type quietly became a fixture of the American health care landscape: the nursing home. In a new article published in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, historian Willa Granger, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the School of Architecture within Florida Atlantic University’s Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, examines how a little-known company from midcentury Illinois helped lay ...

A study published in the journal CABI One Health has revealed major inequalities in One Health research. The new study, which sheds light on global trends in One Health research over the past decade, has found that the volume of research labelled ‘One Health’ has increased exponentially since 2018, and Europe, Asia and Africa have experienced the most marked growth in originating research. However, there are significant disparities in research decision-making between researchers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and those in high-income countries ...

Unless you’ve owned reptiles, you might not know that many of them “pee” crystals. Researchers publishing in the Journal of the American Chemical Society investigated the solid urine of more than 20 reptile species and found spheres of uric acid in all of them. This work reveals how reptiles uniquely package up and eliminate crystalline waste, which could inform future treatments for human conditions that also involve uric acid crystals: kidney stones and gout. Most living things have some sort of excretory system — after all, what goes in must come out. In ...

Congenital heart block, sometimes referred to as cardiac neonatal lupus, is a rare but potentially life-threatening condition that affects babies born to mothers with specific autoantibodies — called anti-SSA/Ro antibodies — which can attack the fetal heart via its electrical conduction system, leading to a slower heart rate. Most surviving infants with congenital heart block eventually require a pacemaker for life. In a study of one pregnant mother with systemic lupus erythematosus and high levels of anti-SSA/Ro antibodies, NYU Langone Health researchers found a drug that ...

HOBOKEN, NJ—Eleven researchers have earned one of the most competitive early-career honors in interdisciplinary science: the 2025 Advanced Science Young Innovator Award. Wiley, a global leader in authoritative content and research intelligence and publisher of Advanced Science, announced the award recipients today. Selected from a highly competitive pool of 472 applicants across 40 countries, this year's winners represent the highest caliber of emerging scientists translating discoveries into real-world impact. Now in its second year, ...

An effective strategy to address increasing greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change is the capture and reuse of carbon dioxide (CO2). The reaction of CO2 and hydrogen (H2) can produce industrially useful chemicals, such as methanol and carbon monoxide, and synthetic fuels. However, in traditional reactors these chemical processes are limited by thermodynamic constraints and slow reaction rates, resulting in a low CO2 conversion. This is because these reactors reach equilibrium before all the reactants are converted into desired ...

People living, working and visiting London have seen substantial reductions in air pollution following the introduction of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone (ULEZ) introduced in 2019, according to a new research paper.   In a study published in npj Clean Air today (Weds 22 October), researchers from the University of Birmingham have created a sophisticated model for assessing the direct impact of ULEZ on air pollution in the Greater London area.   The team found that there were significant reductions in nitrogen-based pollutants NO2 and NOx following the introduction of ULEZ in 2019 that extended beyond the geographical boundaries of the zone, including areas that were covered ...

The cloudy, sediment-laden meltwater from glaciers is a key source of nutrients for ocean life, but a new study suggests that as climate change causes many glaciers to shrink and retreat their meltwater may become less nutritious.  Led by scientists at UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, the study finds that meltwater from a rapidly retreating Alaskan glacier contained significantly lower concentrations of the types of iron and manganese that can be readily taken up by marine organisms compared to a nearby ...

New York, NY [October 22, 2025]— Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and their collaborators have developed a new technology to track beneficial bacteria after fecal microbiota transplants (FMT). The approach provides a detailed view of how donor microbes take hold and persist in the patients’ gut—not only which bacteria successfully colonized but how they change over time. These insights may guide the design of safer and more effective microbiome-based therapies. The study was published in the October 22 online issue of Nature Microbiology [DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-025-02164-8]. FMT—the ...

A novel imaging technique used for the first time on a ground-based telescope has helped a UCLA-led team of astronomers to achieve the sharpest-ever measurement of a star’s surrounding disk, revealing previously unseen structure. The breakthrough opens a new way for astronomers to study fine details of a wide variety of astronomical objects and opens the door to new discoveries about the universe.   The ability to view fine details of astronomical objects depends on the size of the telescope. As a telescope’s ...

The opening of Arizona State University’s new medical school took a giant leap forward today with two important pieces of news that will accelerate activity as the school begins to prepare for its first class in August 2026. ASU leaders announced that the school, the flagship of the university’s ASU Health system, received preliminary accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), enabling the school to begin recruiting its first class of students. In addition, the university received a nine-figure gift, the second largest in university history, to establish and ...

A study published in the British Journal of Health Psychology reveals the negative behavioral and psychological consequences of commercial fitness apps reported by users on social media. These impacts may undermine the potential of apps to promote health and wellbeing. When investigators used artificial intelligence (AI) using a method called Machine-Assisted Topic Analysis (MATA), which combines AI-powered topic modelling with human qualitative analysis, to help them analyze 58,881 X posts referring ...

Lab-based studies have provided lots of information on the biology of aging, but it’s unclear how lab discoveries apply to aging in the real world. Research in Aging Cell provides insights into aging based on studies in dogs. The Dog Aging Project (DAP) is designed to identify patterns of aging and how these are shaped by the diversity of genetic and environmental variation among companion dogs. By analyzing metabolites from blood samples of dogs in the DAP, investigators identified effects of age on more than one-third of measured metabolites. They also discovered that post-translationally ...