Scientists and engineers are developing high-performance materials from eco-friendly sources like plant waste. A key component, lignocellulose – found in wood and many plants – can be easily collected and chemically modified to improve its properties. By using these kinds of chemical changes, researchers are creating advanced materials and new ways to design and build sustainably. With about 181.5 billion tons of wood produced globally each year, it’s one of the largest renewable material sources. Researchers from the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Florida Atlantic University, and collaborators ...

Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. proudly announces the recipients of the RFS Awards in Science 2024, recognizing outstanding peer-reviewed research by women and underrepresented minorities in STEM. To view the full list of winners, click here. The RFS Awards in Science 2024 honor the best papers written in 2024 by a woman or underrepresented minority in science across Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.’s portfolio of peer-reviewed journals. The awards highlight the critical contributions of these researchers and reinforce the company’s commitment to amplifying diverse voices in scientific discovery. Each ...

Cancer is one of the leading causes of mortality worldwide, with significant impacts in Nigeria, where the incidence and mortality rates continue to rise. The prevalence of cancers such as breast, cervical, prostate, and liver cancer is high in the region. Although conventional cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiotherapy have advanced, there remains an urgent need for safer and more effective alternatives. Indigenous food plants in Nigeria have shown promise due to their rich bioactive compounds, which ...

Researchers at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine have found that individuals with colon cancer and a documented history of high cannabis use were more than 20 times more likely to die within five years of diagnosis compared to those without such a history. “This study adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that heavy cannabis use may have underrecognized impacts on the immune system, mental health and treatment behaviors — all of which could influence cancer outcomes,” said lead author Raphael Cuomo, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Anesthesiology at UC San Diego School of Medicine. The research team drew ...

KIRTLAND, OHIO — A new study from Holden Forests & Gardens and a team at USDA Agricultural Research Service confirms that beech leaf disease—a fast-spreading disease already devastating American beech across eastern North America—also affects European beech (Fagus sylvatica). The research raises concerns that the disease could spread globally, threatening the health of forests across Europe. European beech is a cornerstone of native forests in Europe as well as a common ornamental species planted across North America. To date, beech leaf disease has not been reported in Europe.  Published in the journal Plant Pathology, the ...

Carnegie Mellon University and Seoul National University (SNU) have announced a new collaboration to advance human-centered artificial intelligence research that prioritizes human well-being, accessibility and social responsibility. The SNU-CMU Human-Centered AI Research Center (HCAI) aims to pioneer innovative AI solutions by combining interdisciplinary expertise in human-centered design. “We’re excited to officially launch this partnership with our colleagues at Seoul National University,” said Laura Dabbish, professor in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University’s School of Computer Science. ...

PULLMAN, Wash. — A squishy, layered material that dramatically transforms under pressure could someday help computers store more data with less energy. That’s according to a new study by researchers at Washington State University and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte that shows a hybrid zinc telluride-based material can undergo surprising structural changes when squeezed together like a molecular sandwich. Those changes could make it a strong candidate for phase change memory, ...

Combinatorial optimization problems (COPs) arise in various fields such as shift scheduling, traffic routing, and drug development. However, they are challenging to solve using traditional computers in a practical timeframe. Alternatively, annealing processors (APs), which are specialized hardware for solving COPs, have gained significant attention. They are based on the Ising model, in which COP variables are presented as magnetic spins and constraints as interactions between spins. Solutions are obtained by finding the spin state that minimizes the energy of the system. There are two types of Ising models, the sparsely-coupled model and the fully-coupled model. Sparsely-coupled ...

A new study, seen in Nature Genetics and led by researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST; Saudi Arabia) and Wageningen University & Research (the Netherlands), provides new insights on rice evolution, showing how the DNA of this valuable crop has changed across species. The findings are expected to not only help with improving rice yields but also with the introduction of rice into regions where rice production is currently untenable.   Rice is one of the first domesticated crops (approximately 10,000 years ago). The artificial selection farmers ...

An international team of scientists led by a Rutgers University-New Brunswick astrophysicist has discovered a potentially star-forming cloud that is one of the largest single structures in the sky and among the closest to the sun and Earth ever to be detected.   The vast ball of hydrogen, long invisible to scientists, was revealed by looking for its main constituent – molecular hydrogen. The finding marks the first time a molecular cloud has been detected with light emitted in the far-ultraviolet realm of the electromagnetic spectrum and opens the way to further explorations using the approach. The scientists have named the molecular hydrogen cloud “Eos,” ...

New research involving Rutgers professors has revealed that expected, extreme changes in India’s summer monsoon could drastically hamper the Bay of Bengal’s ability to support a crucial element of the region’s food supply: marine life. The study, published in Nature Geoscience, was conducted by scientists from Rutgers University, the University of Arizona and collaborators from India, China and Europe. To reach their conclusions, the scientists examined how the monsoon, which brings heavy rains to the Indian subcontinent, has influenced the Bay of ...

The arrival of new plant pests and diseases is likely to severely damage UK trees and woodlands in the coming decades, new research shows. The ash dieback epidemic prompted the government to assess all pests and diseases that could potentially enter the UK and affect our trees and agricultural crops. In the new study, University of Exeter scientists assessed the 636 tree pests and diseases to work out the invasion probability and likely effects on tree growth. Based on recent rates of pest and disease arrival, they estimate that – by 2050 – more than half of tree growth could be lost (compared to growth if no new pests and diseases arrived from now onwards). Tackling ...

Memory formation, storage, and retrieval are fundamental processes that define who we are and how we interact with the world. At the cellular level, these processes rely on specialized neurons called engram cells—neuronal populations that physically encode our experiences and allow us to recall them later. Over the past few decades, scientists have made significant progress in identifying these neuronal ensembles and understanding some aspects of memory allocation. Although sleep is widely known to be essential for memory processing and consolidation, many of its underlying mechanisms and functions are unclear. Traditional views have largely focused on sleep as a backward-looking ...

“Get off my lawn!” Funny as a meme but maybe scary in real life, this short sentence is synonymous with an elderly man shouting at kids whose bikes have gotten too close to a well-manicured front yard. But it could just as well represent a female bird, aggressively chasing whatever intruder gets too close to her nest. Not any female bird, though. An international team of researchers led by Sara Lipshutz, assistant professor of Biology at Duke University, found that female birds who can only nest in cavities are far more aggressive than those who don’t have this restriction on their nesting real estate. Called ...

Can nature restoration and economic productivity go hand in hand? A new study finds that the EU’s ambitious Nature Restoration Regulation (NRR) is essential to achieving biodiversity conservation and climate mitigation targets and that it could be implemented without compromising the supply of agricultural and forest products. Ensuring that biodiversity conservation actions are integrated with land management strategies is key for long-term sustainability. Doing so can ensure that ecosystems continue to provide essential services such as pollination, water purification, and carbon storage, all of which support agriculture and forestry production. If biodiversity ...

One longstanding problem has sidelined life-saving drugs, stalled next-generation batteries, and kept archaeologists from identifying the origins of ancient artifacts.  For more than 100 years, scientists have used a method called crystallography to determine the atomic structure of materials. The method works by shining an X-ray beam through a material sample and observing the pattern it produces. From this pattern – called a diffraction pattern – it is theoretically possible to calculate the exact arrangement of atoms in the sample. The challenge, however, is that this technique only works well when researchers ...

Marking European Immunization Week (EIW) 2025, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) highlights the risks of suboptimal vaccination coverage in Europe and publishes a set of operational tools that public health authorities can use to improve vaccination acceptance and uptake. The tenfold surge of reported measles cases in the European Union and European Economic Area (EU/EEA) and the detection of vaccine-derived poliovirus in four EU/EEA countries in 2024 are two clear signals of the need to achieve and maintain high immunisation coverage to protect European populations. Vaccines ...

A recent randomized controlled trial reveals the potential of a program designed to connect patients who have breast cancer to needed exercise and rehabilitation services starting at diagnosis and throughout care. Participants provided positive feedback about the program, supporting efforts to integrate exercise and rehabilitation services as part of routine cancer care. The trial’s findings are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. Exercise services for ...

For almost 60 years, measuring cholesterol levels in the blood has been the best way to identify individuals at high risk of cardiovascular disease. In a new study, led by Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and Harvard University in the USA, researchers have shown comprehensively that a combination of two lipoprotein markers, measured in a simple blood test, can give more accurate information about individual risk of heart disease than the current blood cholesterol test, potentially saving lives. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death globally. Most cases could be prevented by addressing ...

Ann Arbor, April 28, 2025 - A study analyzing data from nationally representative dietary surveys and mortality data from eight countries (Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, United Kingdom, and United States) shows that premature deaths attributable to consumption of ultraprocessed foods (UPFs) increase significantly according to their share in individuals’ total energy intake. The new study, appearing in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, published by Elsevier, reinforces the call for global action to reduce UPF consumption, supported by regulatory and fiscal policies that foster healthier environments. UPFs are ready-to-eat-or-heat ...

Dr. Ho Sang Jung and his research team from the Advanced Bio and Healthcare Materials Research Division at the Korea Institute of Materials Science (KIMS), in collaboration with Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, have developed a technology that enables the diagnosis of osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis within 10 minutes using synovial fluid. This marks the first such achievement in Korea. According to some studies, over 50% of the population aged 65 and older experience symptoms of osteoarthritis, while rheumatoid arthritis is known to be a serious chronic disease that affects ...

An infectious diseases detection platform developed by University of Pittsburgh scientists working with UPMC infection preventionists proved over a two-year trial that it stops outbreaks, saves lives and cuts costs. The results are published today in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, making the case for adoption in hospitals nationwide and the development of a national early outbreak detection database. “We saved lives while saving money. This isn’t theoretical – this happened in a real hospital with real patients,” said lead author Alexander Sundermann, Dr.P.H., assistant professor of infectious diseases ...

ABSTRACT CT018 FINDINGS Researchers from the UCLA Health Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center have demonstrated that a novel topical BRAF inhibitor gel called LUT014 significantly reduces the severity of an acne-like rash, a common and painful side effect experienced by patients undergoing anti-EGFR therapies for colorectal cancer. The findings of the clinical trial confirm the treatment’s safety and effectiveness. “The findings offer the first real solution in two decades for managing this ...

About The Study: In this cohort study of pregnant individuals with opioid use disorder, buprenorphine treatment was associated with improved outcomes for the mother and infant, underscoring the need to improve access to treatment nationwide. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Stephen W. Patrick, MD, MPH, MS, email stephen.patrick@emory.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2025.1814) Editor’s ...

27 April 2025, Boston—A study on donor lungs preserved outside the body before transplantation demonstrated that the hypothermic oxygenated machine perfusion (HOPE) technique is a safe and effective lung preservation method, even with total out-of-body times approaching 20 hours.   Jitte Jennekens, MSc, organ perfusionist/transplant coordinator at the UMC Utrecht in the Netherlands, presented the study results at today’s Annual Meeting and Scientific Sessions of the International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) in Boston.   “This technique is being used to preserve donor livers and ...