NEW YORK, NY (May 22, 2025)--When Columbia neurologist and scientist Neil Shneider speaks to his ALS patients who volunteer for experimental therapies, he’s unwaveringly honest. “Patients always ask me, “What can I hope to get out of this?” Shneider says. “And I always say, in most clinical trials, our hope is that we can slow the disease or maybe even halt progression.”  So it was a big surprise when some of the patients treated with an experimental drug—a therapy that emerged from Shneider’s research efforts—showed improvements. “When testing new drugs for ALS, we do not expect to ...

As we get older, our bodies stop performing as they once did. We aren’t as strong as we once were, we don’t see as well as we used to and we start becoming less mobile. These changes inevitably lead to almost a third of people over the age 65 falling each year, resulting in injuries and occasionally death. In the United States alone, it costs the healthcare system billions of dollars annually. However, while aging is a certainty, falling may be preventable. ‘One big challenge is that small balance impairments can go unnoticed until someone actually falls. So, we wanted to ask: Can we detect these impairments before someone gets hurt?’ explains Jiaen ...

Images   A newly discovered silicone variant is a semiconductor, University of Michigan researchers have discovered—upending assumptions that the material class is exclusively insulating.  "The material opens up the opportunity for new types of flat panel displays, flexible photovoltaics, wearable sensors or even clothing that can display different patterns or images," said Richard Laine, U-M professor of materials science and engineering and macromolecular science and engineering and corresponding author ...

Tropical cyclones, including storms below hurricane and typhoon strength, were associated with a sharp rise in infant mortality in low- and middle-income countries during the first two decades of this century, according to new research published in Science Advances. The findings point to a critical need for stronger disaster response and child health protections in vulnerable regions, especially as climate change increases the frequency and severity of these storms. Infants in these regions exposed to tropical cyclones before they were born ...

Roughly 10 percent of the U.S. population is afflicted with major depressive disorder at any given time, and up to 20 percent will exhibit MDD symptoms over their lifetimes. Yet despite its prevalence, methods to treat MDD often fall short for a not-insignificant portion of the population. Antidepressants—the standard of treatment—don’t work for 30 percent with MDD. When infused at a low dose ketamine shows remarkable efficacy as a rapidly acting antidepressant, with effects observed within hours even in patients who have been resistant to other ...

University of Illinois Physics Professor Paul Kwiat and members of his research group have developed a revolutionary new tool for precision measurement at the nanometer scale in scenarios where background noise and optical loss from the sample are present. This new optical interferometry technology leverages the quantum properties of light—specifically, extreme color entanglement—to enable faster and more precise measurements than widely used classical and quantum techniques can achieve. Colin ...

TAMPA, Fla. – Moffitt Cancer Center will play a key role at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, which will take place May 30 to June 3 in Chicago. Physician-scientists and researchers from Moffitt are contributing to more than 30 oral, rapid-oral and poster presentations, offering new data and perspectives that could help shape the future of cancer care. This year’s ASCO theme, “Driving Knowledge to Action. Building a Better Future,” reflects a shared commitment to turning scientific discoveries ...

Wildfire risks will continue to evolve as both society and forests change across the southeastern United States, according to a new report. The report is one part of the Southern Forest Outlook, a project undertaken by the USDA Forest Service in partnership with the Southern Group of State Foresters to help forest managers and the public understand changing forest conditions in the South over the coming decades. USDA Forest Service researcher Lars Pomara and his team first modeled and mapped current wildfire risks across the South, including risks to people from direct fire exposure ...

CORNELL UNIVERSITY MEDIA RELATIONS OFFICE FOR RELEASE: May 21, 2025   Kaitlyn Serrao 607-882-1140 kms465@cornell.edu   On-site health clinics boost attendance in rural classrooms ITHACA, N.Y. - Students miss less class time in rural upstate New York schools that host comprehensive health clinics, according to Cornell University research that is the first to confirm such benefits in rural areas. The work is also informing a legislative proposal to expand access to these clinics.   Analyzing more than 66,000 students in a four-county region over four years, the researchers found that children ...

(New York, May 22, 2025) – Four Weill Cornell Medicine investigators received the Ritu Banga Healthcare Disparities Research Awards, recognizing innovative research that will help close care gaps in clinical settings. Endowed through a generous $5 million gift from Board of Fellows member Ritu Banga and her husband, Ajay Banga, each $50,000 award supports projects aimed at improving health outcomes for populations that have historically faced systemic barriers to care. “It is an honor to help bring to life the Banga’s vision of a health care system where everyone can experience high-quality care,” ...

Key Takeaways Vision scientists from the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have developed new tools—four novel promoters—to address the challenge of treating advanced stages of inherited retinal diseases that cause vision loss. These promoters drive strong and specific gene expression in rod and cone photoreceptors even in mid-to-late stages of disease, outperforming most currently used promoters in retinal gene therapy. These novel promoters are ideally sized for effective adeno-associated virus (AAV)-mediated delivery.   Inherited retinal degenerations (IRDs) are a group of genetic disorders that lead ...

As the national debate intensifies around immigration, a new study from the University of California School of Global Policy and Strategy is challenging conventional wisdom about “brain drain”—the idea that when skilled workers emigrate from developing countries, their home economies suffer. Published in Science, the paper reveals high-skilled emigration from developing countries may actually boost economic development, human capital and innovation in migrants’ countries of origin.  With the U.S. undergoing sweeping immigration ...

LOS ANGELES — Researchers from City of Hope®, one of the largest and most advanced cancer research and treatment organizations in the United States with its National Medical Center named Top 5 “Best Hospital” in the nation for cancer care by U.S. News & World Report, will present novel cancer treatment approaches and combinations, leading-edge targeted therapies, and supportive care interventions that could reduce cancer risk and improve survival at the 2025 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting taking place May 30 ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Separating crude oil into products such as gasoline, diesel, and heating oil is an energy-intensive process that accounts for about 6 percent of the world’s CO2 emissions. Most of that energy goes into the heat needed to separate the components by their boiling point. In an advance that could dramatically reduce the amount of energy needed for crude oil fractionation, MIT engineers have developed a membrane that filters the components of crude oil by their molecular size. “This is a whole new way of envisioning a separation process. Instead of boiling mixtures to purify them, why not separate ...

Groundbreaking Discovery What if the human body contained a natural bioreactor capable of regenerating vital organs? A collaborative team from ​Wenzhou Medical University, Nanjing University, and University of Macau has redefined the spleen’s potential, transforming it into a ​self-sustaining hub for organ regeneration, as published in Science Translational Medicine (May 21). This breakthrough could revolutionize treatments for type 1 diabetes and beyond. Redesigning the Spleen: From Filter to "Living Bioreactor" Confronting ...

A leading cardiovascular disease researcher from Simon Fraser University is ringing the alarm on universal recommendations intended to improve heart health around the globe. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide, with 80 per cent of deaths occurring in low- and middle-income countries. However, international heart-health guidelines are primarily based on research from high-income countries and often overlook upstream causes of CVD, says Scott Lear, a health sciences professor at SFU and the Pfizer/Heart & Stroke Foundation Chair in Cardiovascular Prevention Research. “The world extends beyond high-income countries when we think ...

A new study from UBC Okanagan says students appear to be using generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) responsibly, and as a way to speed up tasks, not just boost their grades. Dr. Meaghan MacNutt, who teaches professional ethics in the UBCO School of Health and Exercise Sciences (HES), recently published a study in Advances in Physiology Education. Published this month, the paper—titled Reflective writing assignments in the era of GenAI: student behaviour and attitudes suggest utility, not futility—contradicts ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Scientists aiming to advance cancer diagnostics have developed a machine learning tool that is able to identify metabolism-related molecular profile differences between patients with colorectal cancer and healthy people. The analysis of biological samples from more than 1,000 people also revealed metabolic shifts associated with changing disease severity and with genetic mutations known to increase the risk for colorectal cancer. Though there is more analysis to come, the resulting “biomarker discovery pipeline” shows promise as a noninvasive method of diagnosing colorectal cancer and monitoring disease progression, said Jiangjiang Zhu, ...

As the ocean warms across its temperate regions, kelp forests are collapsing and turf algae species are taking over. This shift from dense canopies of tall kelp to low-lying mats of turf algae is driving biodiversity loss and altering the flow of energy and nutrients through reef ecosystems. It’s also fundamentally altering the chemical ecology of coastal ecosystems. New research in Science, led by researchers at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, has shown for the first time how turf algae release ...

The ability to engineer shapeshifting proteins opens new avenues for medicine, agriculture, and beyond.    Proteins catalyze life by changing shape when they interact with other molecules. The result is a muscle twitching, the perception of light, or a bit of energy extracted from food.   But this crucial ability has eluded the growing field of AI-augmented protein engineering.   Now, researchers at UCSF have shown it is possible to make new proteins that move and change shape like those in nature. This ability will help scientists engineer proteins in ...

Ancient sloths ranged in size from tiny climbers to ground-dwelling giants. Now, researchers report this body size diversity was largely shaped by sloths’ habitats, and that these animals’ precipitous decline was likely a result of increasing human pressures, which also triggered the extinction of the large-bodied ground-dwelling animals. Today’s small arboreal sloths are the last remnants of a once-diverse group, surviving likely because they inhabited secluded forest canopies and avoided direct human pressures, say the authors. While only two small, tree-dwelling genera survive today – confined largely to the tropical rainforests of South ...

As kelp forests decline in the warming coastal waters of the Gulf of Maine, turf algae – dense mats of red algae replacing kelp in many regions – may chemically interfere with kelp recovery, a new study reports. This complicates efforts to restore these crucial marine ecosystems. Kelp forests are ecologically and economically vital marine ecosystems that support diverse life forms and functions. However, despite their widely recognized importance, kelp forests worldwide are threatened with collapse due to climate change and/or overfishing. In many regions where kelp forests have disappeared, they have ...

Astronomers have identified a rare type of binary star system containing a rapidly spinning millisecond pulsar and a helium star companion, formed via common envelope evolution. Although such systems are rare, the authors of this new study predict that others do exist; they estimate there are 16 to 84 undiscovered examples in the Milky Way. Millisecond pulsars – rapidly spinning neutron stars that emit radio waves – achieve their extraordinary rotation rates by siphoning matter from a close stellar companion. The formation of these exotic binary systems is not fully understood, because it can involve a variety of complex processes. ...

Most relapsing fever bacteria that infect humans are spread by ticks, but Borrelia recurrentis is unique in being transmitted between humans via body lice. Now, new genomic evidence from ancient British remains suggests that B. recurrentis diverged from its tick-borne relatives and began adapting to transmission by lice between 6000 and 4000 years ago – coinciding with the widespread use of wool textiles by humans. The findings underscore how ancient DNA can illuminate the origins and evolution of infectious diseases and how pathogens like B. recurrentis have been shaped by human social transformations. Several pathogenic bacterial species that ...

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute and UCL have analysed ancient DNA from Borrelia recurrentis, a type of bacteria that causes relapsing fever, pinpointing when it evolved to spread through lice rather than ticks, and how it gained and lost genes in the process. This transition may have coincided with changes in human lifestyles, like living closer together and the beginning of the wool trade. Borrelia recurrentis bacteria cause relapsing fever, an illness with many recurring episodes of fever, which is typically found ...