(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — Listen to the first notes of an old, beloved song. Can you name that tune? If you can, congratulations — it’s a triumph of your associative memory, in which one piece of information (the first few notes) triggers the memory of the entire pattern (the song), without you actually having to hear the rest of the song again. We use this handy neural mechanism to learn, remember, solve problems and generally navigate our reality. “It’s a network effect,” said UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineering professor Francesco Bullo, explaining that associative ...

How should personal data be protected? What are the best uses of it? In our networked world, questions about data privacy are ubiquitous and matter for companies, policymakers, and the public.  A new study by MIT researchers adds depth to the subject by suggesting that people’s views about privacy are not firmly fixed and can shift significantly, based on different circumstances and different uses of data. “There is no absolute value in privacy,” says Fabio Duarte, principal research scientist in MIT’s Senseable City Lab and co-author of a new paper outlining the results. “Depending on the application, people might ...

MINNEAPOLIS — To help neurologists, clinicians and families understand the current evidence for a new gene therapy for Duchenne muscular dystrophy called delandistrogene moxeparvovec, the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) has issued an Evidence in Focus article, published May 14, 2025, online in Neurology®. AAN Evidence in Focus articles highlight the strength of the current evidence for new therapies for neurological conditions. Their purpose is not to provide recommendations for practice, but rather to provide an overview of the available data and a framework to support care. This article reviews ...

MINNEAPOLIS — A transient ischemic attack, also known as a mini-stroke, is typically defined as a temporary blockage of blood flow to the brain that causes symptoms that go away within a day, but a new study finds that people who have this type of stroke may also have prolonged fatigue lasting up to one year. The study is published on May 14, 2025, online in Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN). The study does not prove that mini-strokes cause lasting fatigue; it only shows an association. “People ...

As the U.S. continues to face complex public health challenges, a new paper published by a researcher at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health calls for a redefinition of the public health workforce—one that goes beyond traditional boundaries and acknowledges the growing number of professionals outside government agencies who contribute to public health. Published in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH), the paper argues that while government remains the backbone of public health service delivery, it is no longer sufficient to define the workforce ...

Under embargo until 2pm EST on May 14, 2025 in Science Advances ITHACA, N.Y. – Using advanced technology that analyzes tiny gas bubbles trapped in crystal, a team of scientists led by Cornell University has precisely mapped how magma storage evolves as Hawaiian volcanoes age. Geologists have long proposed that, as the Hawaiian Islands slowly drift northwest with the Pacific Plate, they move away from a deep, heat-rich plume rising from near Earth’s core. Young volcanoes like Kilauea – positioned directly above the hotspot on Hawaii’s main island – receive a steady flow of magma. Far less is known about older ...

Gelada monkeys understand complex "conversations" involving distress calls and prosocial comforting responses, exhibiting surprise when such vocal exchanges are manipulated to violate their expectations Article URL: https://plos.io/3Gvw78V Article title: Wild gelada monkeys detect emotional and prosocial cues in vocal exchanges during aggression Author countries: Italy, Ethiopia, France Funding: The research has been funded by the Leakey Foundation (Science for reconciliation: What an Ethiopian monkey tells about peace-making, grant n° S202310431) and by the following zoos and foundations (funders of BRIDGES project, UNIPI, AOO "BIO" - ...

New poison dart frog discovered in the Amazon's Juruá River basin is blue with copper-colored legs, and represents one of just two novel Ranitomeya species in a decade Article URL: https://plos.io/44cYeU2 Article title: A remarkable new blue Ranitomeya species (Anura: Dendrobatidae) with copper metallic legs from open forests of Juruá River Basin, Amazonia Author countries: Brazil, Czech Republic Funding: This study was funded by the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Amazonas (FAPEAM Grant process n° ...

Democratic countries tend to be rated “greener”, or more environmentally friendly, compared to other countries—but this may be because they more often outsource the environmental impacts of their consumption to other nations, according to a study published May 14, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS Climate by Thomas Bernauer and Ella Henninger from ETH Zurich, Switzerland and Tobias Böhmelt from the University of Essex. Prior studies suggest that democracies have a better environmental protection record compared to more authoritarian nations. Here, the authors investigated the link between democracy and environmental ...

A new study suggests that populations of artificial intelligence (AI) agents, similar to ChatGPT, can spontaneously develop shared social conventions through interaction alone.  The research from City St George’s, University of London and the IT University of Copenhagen suggests that when these large language model (LLM) artificial intelligence (AI) agents communicate in groups, they do not just follow scripts or repeat patterns, but self-organise, reaching consensus on linguistic norms much like human communities. The study has been published today in the journal, Science Advances. LLMs are powerful deep learning algorithms that can understand ...

To the point Different hand use: Two ancient human relatives, Australopithecus sediba and Homo naledi, had different finger bone morphologies that indicate they used different types of hand grips, both when using tools and when climbing Internal structure of the finger bones: A. sediba had a mix of ape-like and human-like features, while H. naledi had a unique pattern of bone thickness, suggesting different loading patterns and possible grip types. Human Evolution: Ancient human relatives adapted to their environments in diverse ways, balancing tool use, ...

Scientists inspired by the octopus’s nervous system have developed a robot that can decide how to move or grip objects by sensing its environment. The team from the University of Bristol’s Faculty of Science and Engineering designed a simple yet smart robot which uses fluid flows of air or water to coordinate suction and movement as octopuses do with hundreds of suckers and multiple arms. The study, published today in the journal Science Robotics, shows how a soft robot can use suction flow not just to stick to things, but also to sense ...

When we think of earthquakes, we imagine sudden, violent shaking. But deep beneath the Earth’s surface, some faults move in near silence. These slow, shuffling slips and their accompanying hum—called tremors—don’t shake buildings or make headlines. But scientists believe they can serve as useful analogs of how major earthquakes begin and behave. A new study by geophysicists at UC Santa Cruz explains how some of these tremor events can yield insights into how stress builds up on the dangerous faults above where major earthquakes ...

  KEY TAKEAWAYS Three decades ago, researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital pioneered MRI-guided focused ultrasound (MRgFUS) thalamotomy, a technique that offers lifechanging results for patients. In a new study, researchers looked at results from more than 350 patients treated with MRgFUS for essential tremor to assess clinical improvements and side effects. Their research creates a model of an optimal location for ablation, which will help make the procedure safer and more effective for patients at Mass General Brigham and around the world. For millions of people around the world with essential tremor, everyday activities ...

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans of the heart could help to detect a life-threatening heart disease and enable clinicians to better predict which patients are most at risk, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London) researchers. Lamin heart disease is a genetic condition that affects the heart’s ability to pump blood and can cause life-threatening abnormal heart rhythms. It is caused by a mutation in the LMNA gene, which is responsible for producing proteins used in heart cells. It often affects people in their 30s and 40s. Lamin disease is rare but also often undiagnosed. About one in 5,000 people in the general population carry a potentially ...

Vast, quasi-circular features on Venus’ surface may reveal that the planet has ongoing tectonics, according to new research based on data gathered more than 30 years ago by NASA’s Magellan mission. On Earth, the planet’s surface is continually renewed by the constant shifting and recycling of massive sections of crust, called tectonic plates, that float atop a viscous interior. Venus doesn’t have tectonic plates, but its surface is still being deformed by molten material from below. Seeking to better understand the underlying processes driving these deformations, the researchers studied a type of feature called a corona. ...

Injecting medicine into the amniotic fluid staves off progression of spinal muscular atrophy in utero.  Evidence is mounting that clinicians can treat serious genetic disorders prenatally by injecting medicine into the amniotic fluid, thus preventing damage that begins in utero.   A UC San Francisco-led study found that delivering medicine for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) via the amniotic fluid was safe, and it helped prevent damage to nerve cells in the spinal cord, a part of the central nervous system that is responsible for movement. One experiment was done in mice with SMA — a neurodegenerative disease that causes muscular weakness, atrophy, ...

A multidisciplinary team of researchers from the USC School of Advanced Computing and the Keck School of Medicine, working alongside experts from the Microsoft AI for Good Lab, Amref Health Africa, and Kenya’s Ministry of Health, has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that can predict acute child malnutrition in Kenya up to six months in advance. The tool offers governments and humanitarian organizations critical lead time to deliver life-saving food, health care, and supplies to at-risk areas.The machine learning model outperforms traditional approaches by integrating clinical data from more than 17,000 Kenyan health facilities with satellite data on crop ...

From tiny pellets to creepy wave-battered baby dolls, the Texas coast is a notable hot spot for plastic debris. But when researchers from The University of Texas at Austin went searching for microplastics in sediments pulled from the bottom of Matagorda Bay and its surrounding inlets, they didn’t find much. Most of their samples contained only tens to hundreds of microplastic particles for each kilogram of sediment. This is hundreds to thousands of times less than other bayside environments around the world. Their findings, which were published in Environmental Science & Technology, suggest that rather than settling at the bottom ...

A large-scale cohort study led by researchers from Tianjin University, Shenyang Medical College, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong has uncovered strong evidence that loneliness may independently increase the risk of hearing loss. The findings were published in Health Data Science on May 2, 2025. Hearing loss is one of the most prevalent global health conditions, affecting more than 1.5 billion people. While physiological and behavioral risk factors are well-documented, the role of psychosocial factors such as loneliness has been underexplored. This study sought to determine ...

May 2025 — La Jolla, CA / Singapore — A new study published in Aging Cell demonstrates that artificial intelligence can be used not just to accelerate drug discovery, but to fundamentally transform how it’s done—by targeting the full complexity of biological aging. In a collaboration between Scripps Research and Gero, a biotechnology company focused on aging, scientists developed a machine learning model trained to identify compounds that act across multiple biological pathways—a process known as polypharmacology. Instead of seeking a single “magic ...

Clinicians from the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and four other institutions have demonstrated that doctors can gain a wealth of knowledge about a patient’s cancer by using multiple laboratory techniques to study tumor tissue taken from needle biopsies of glioblastoma, a highly aggressive form of brain cancer. The work, funded by Break Through Cancer and published in the April 28 issue of Nature Communications, has implications for additional cancer types. Physicians currently limit collection of small ...

< Overview > Researchers at Toyohashi University of Technology in Japan, in collaboration with the Institute of Translational Medicine and Biomedical Engineering (IMTIB) in Argentina and the Indian Institute of Technology Madras, have advanced the "PDMS SlipChip," a versatile microfluidic device. By using a low-viscosity silicone oil and fine-tuning the fabrication process, they've made the SlipChip more reliable for cell-based experiments and simpler for creating concentration gradients. This breakthrough tackles previous issues like channel clogging and potential ...

A study by Dartmouth researchers proposes a new theory about the origin of dark matter, the mysterious and invisible substance thought to give the universe its shape and structure. The researchers report in Physical Review Letters that dark matter could have formed in the early life of the universe from the collision of high-energy massless particles that lost their zip and took on an incredible amount of mass immediately after pairing up, according to their mathematical models. While hypothetical, dark matter is believed to exist based on observed gravitational effects that cannot be explained by visible matter. Scientists ...

"I'm stunned." says Per Ahlberg of Uppsala University, who coordinated the study; "A single track-bearing slab, which one person can lift, calls into question everything we thought we knew about when modern tetrapods evolved." The story of the origin of tetrapods began with fishes leaving the water, and ended with the descendants of these first colonists on land diversifying into the ancestors of the modern amphibians and amniotes (the group that includes reptiles, birds and mammals). ...