A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) reveals that the largest diphtheria epidemic in Western Europe for 70 years, which broke out in 2022 among migrants and in 2023 spread to other vulnerable populations in several European countries, is the result of contaminations occurring during migratory travel or in destination European countries, and not in the countries of origin. However, the geographical area and conditions of these initial contaminations are still unknown. A genetic link has also been established between the strain that circulated during the 2022 epidemic and an epidemic that occurred in Germany in 2025, suggesting ...

EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 4, 2025 MINNEAPOLIS — While many people with neuromuscular diseases currently face a future without a cure, a new study finds that a personalized exercise and coaching program could improve their fitness and overall health. The study is published on June 4, 2025, online in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. The study looked at people with a variety of neuromuscular diseases that cause muscle weakness and loss, including ...

An international research collaboration featuring scientists from the FAMU-FSU College of Engineering and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory discovered a fundamental universal principle that governs how microscopic whirlpools interact, collide and transform within quantum fluids, which also has implications for understanding fluids that behave according to classical physics. The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed new insights into vortex dynamics ...

An AI program trained to study the handwriting styles of centuries-old manuscripts from the Middle East suggests that many of the Dead Sea Scrolls might be older than previously thought, according to a study published June 4, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Mladen Popović from the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, and colleagues. This method could give researchers a new way to place undated manuscripts into the timeline of ancient history. While some ancient manuscripts have dates written on them, giving archaeologists a precise understanding of when they ...

Between 12 and 20% of women with a history of pregnancy or testing for pregnancy visited crisis pregnancy centers across four U.S. states, according to a new study by Maria Gallo and colleagues from The Ohio State University, U.S., published June 4, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One. Crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) typically provide pregnancy and parenting resources and associate with organizations which promote missions focused on preventing abortion, opposing contraception, and advocating for abstinence outside of marriage. They are typically not medically licensed clinics, though they can be perceived as medical facilities or abortion clinics, and often provide ...

Six decades of data on North Atlantic phytoplankton reveal that their biomass has decreased up to 2% annually across most of the Atlantic Ocean, with potentially widespread implications for the wider food web under climate change Article URL: https://plos.io/4kq8QEt Article title: Large, regionally variable shifts in diatom and dinoflagellate biomass in the North Atlantic over six decades Author countries: Canada Funding: This work was supported by grants from the Simons Foundation (549935 to AJI, 549937 and 986772 to ZVF), the Ocean Frontier Institute (NWABCP to AJI and ZVF), and Discovery grant awards from the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada ...

GPT-generated educational materials for urological cancer patients, translated by AI into five languages, are rated by doctors as easier to read than human-authored versions while being just as clear, accurate and complete Article URL: https://plos.io/45jsop6 Article title: GPT-4 generates accurate and readable patient education materials aligned with current oncological guidelines: A randomized assessment Author countries: U.S., Germany, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Russia, Switzerland Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Ethical considerations for closing projects "well" in the context of withdrawal of USAID are explored by researchers and members of an affected Philippines disaster-preparedness project. #### Article URL: https://plos.io/45tYSNr Article Title: Thinking through abrupt closure in humanitarian assistance: Key ethical considerations in seemingly impossible conditions Author Countries: Canada, Philippines, United States Funding: This work was supported by the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada (4330-220-00743 to LE; 4330-220-00743 to IMB; ...

Embargoed: Not for Release Until 2:00 pm U.S. Eastern Time Wednesday, 04 June 2025. Even in the chaotic swarms where they reproduce, male mosquitoes possess a remarkable ability to pick up on the faint sound of a potential mate. A new study from Nagoya University in Japan suggests that males do this by being tuned into a broader range of sounds than females. The findings of this study offer fresh insight into the complex mating behavior of mosquitoes and why catching them in traps in the wild remains such a challenge. Sound-based traps that mimic the wingbeat of female mosquitoes have long been used in population ...

Since their discovery, the historically and biblically hugely important Dead Sea Scrolls have transformed our understanding of Jewish and Christian origins. However, while the general date of the scrolls is from the third century BCE until the second century CE, individual manuscripts thus far could not be securely dated. Now, by combining radiocarbon dating, palaeography, and artificial intelligence, an international team of researchers led by the University of Groningen has developed a date-prediction model, called Enoch, that provides much more accurate date estimates for individual manuscripts on empirical grounds. Using this ...

New research from scientists at Trinity College Dublin strongly implies that heatwaves have a major influence on the spread of many diseases – and that many existing predictive models have overlooked this complexity. Specifically, the scientists have discovered that differences in heatwaves – such as how much hotter they are than normal temperatures, and how long they last – can increase disease burden by up to 13 times in a commonly used experimental animal model. Their discovery and its implications come at an important time, with global climate change and related extreme weather events continuing to impact many in various ways (temperatures approached ...

Astronomers from the University of Hawaiʻi’s Institute for Astronomy (IfA) have discovered the most energetic cosmic explosions yet discovered, naming the new class of events “extreme nuclear transients” (ENTs). These extraordinary phenomena occur when massive stars—at least three times heavier than our Sun—are torn apart after wandering too close to a supermassive black hole. Their disruption releases vast amounts of energy visible across enormous distances. The team's findings were recently detailed in the journal Science Advances. "We’ve observed stars getting ripped ...

Boise State University researchers have developed a new technique and platform to communicate with cells and help drive them towards cartilage formation. Their work leverages a 3-dimensional biocompatible form of carbon known as graphene foam and is featured on a cover for the American Chemical Society’s Applied Materials and Interfaces - - an interdisciplinary journal for chemists, engineers, physicists and biologists to report on how newly discovered materials and interfacial processes can be leveraged for a wide ...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Researchers from the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) were part of a global effort to track newly discovered unusual bursts of radio emission from an object within the Milky Way galaxy. Information from telescopes in Australia, India, South Africa, and the United States were all used to help identify the object. In a paper published to the journal Nature on May 28, the international team announced the discovery of the new object, known as ASKAP J1832-091. This new object emits pulses of radio waves and X-rays lasting two minutes and recurring every 44 minutes. Called ...

CHICAGO (June 4, 2025) — A new study published in The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, a journal from The Society of Thoracic Surgeons, finds that Medicare patients with atrial fibrillation (AF) who undergo surgical ablation during isolated coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) live longer than those who do not, offering compelling support for clinical guidelines that recommend this procedure but are too often not followed in practice. Researchers examined Medicare claims data from more than 87,000 patients with preexisting AF who underwent CABG ...

If data used to train artificial intelligence models for medical applications, such as hospitals across the Greater Toronto Area, differs from the real-world data, it could lead to patient harm. A new study out today from York University found proactive, continual and transfer learning strategies for AI models to be key in mitigating data shifts and subsequent harms. To determine the effect of data shifts, the team built and evaluated an early warning system to predict the risk of in-hospital patient mortality and enhance the ...

On May 26, the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS)  welcomed a European delegation from the Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI), marking a significant milestone in strengthening scientific ties between Canada and Europe in the field of high-intensity laser science. The visit was part of a cross-Canada tour organized in partnership with the Hungarian and Czech  Embassies, host countries of the ELI facilities.  At the heart of this meeting was a shared commitment to advancing ultrafast laser science and training the next generation of highly skilled researchers. INRS, internationally recognized for its work ...

A team of chemists at the University of Cambridge has developed a powerful new method for adding single carbon atoms to molecules more easily, offering a simple one-step approach that could accelerate drug discovery and the design of complex chemical products. The research, recently published in the journal Nature under the title One-carbon homologation of alkenes, unveils a breakthrough method for extending molecular chains—one carbon atom at a time. This technique targets alkenes, a common class of molecules characterised by a double bond between two carbon atoms. Alkenes are found in a wide range of everyday ...

Researchers at Colorado State University have developed a tool that can be used to switch a plant’s key genetic traits on or off at will. The breakthrough was recently published in ACS Synthetic Biology and represents the first time that a synthetic genetic “toggle switch” has been used in a full-grown plant.  Synthetic biologists design and build new segments of DNA that can then be inserted into living organisms to work like circuits in electronics or a computer. Just as a switch is used to turn a lightbulb on or off in an electric circuit, the team’s “toggle” turns genes on and ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. -- One of Earth's most common nanomaterials is facilitating breakthroughs in tackling climate change: clay. In a new study, researchers at Purdue University, in collaboration with experts from Sandia National Laboratories, have potentially uncovered a game-changing method for using clay to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) directly from the air to help mitigate climate change. Their work, which earned them a 2024 R&D 100 Award and has a patent application in progress, was recently published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C. Cliff Johnston, professor of agronomy ...

When treating an ischemic stroke – where a clot is blocking the flow of oxygen to the brain – every minute counts. The more quickly doctors can remove the clot and restore blood flow, the more brain cells will survive, and the more likely patients are to have a good outcome. But current technologies only successfully remove clots on the first try about 50% of the time, and in about 15% of cases, they fail completely. Researchers at Stanford Engineering have developed a new technique called the milli-spinner thrombectomy that could significantly improve success rates in treating strokes, as well as heart attacks, pulmonary embolisms, and other clot-related diseases. In a paper published June ...

Key Takeaways  Different materials, different outcomes: Time-to-recurrence was longest for long-acting resorbable meshes (166.4 months), followed by synthetic meshes (132.1 months), and shortest for biologic meshes (80 months).  Cost considerations: While long-acting resorbable mesh is projected to perform the best, its cost is approximately 2x that of synthetic mesh.  No national guideline: More guidance is needed for best practices in mesh choice and follow-up schedule.  CHICAGO — Repair of ...

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia and affects more than a tenth of Americans aged 65 and older. The disease has proven difficult to develop new treatments for, and available treatment options are limited. With cases in the U.S. projected to more than double by 2050, more therapies are needed to improve patients’ quality of life and reduce the burden on the health care system and family caregivers.   Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys and elsewhere have recently reported real-world links in medical records associating common HIV drugs with a reduced incidence of Alzheimer’s disease. The ...

June 4, 2025 — The most popular TikTok videos related to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) have millions of views – but very low scores for quality of medical information, reports a study in the May/June issue of Gastroenterology Nursing, Official Journal of the Society of Gastroenterology Nurses and Associates. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer. "Social media platforms such as TikTok have the potential to reach a wide audience of people living with IBD, particularly young adults," comments lead author Samantha Winders, ...

Hydrogen has the potential to be a climate-friendly fuel since it doesn’t release carbon dioxide when used as an energy source. Currently, however, most methods for producing hydrogen involve fossil fuels, making hydrogen less of a “green” fuel over its entire life cycle.  A new process developed by MIT engineers could significantly shrink the carbon footprint associated with making hydrogen.  Last year, the team reported that they could produce hydrogen gas by combining seawater, recycled soda cans, and caffeine. The question then was whether the benchtop process could be applied at an industrial scale, and at ...