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Space 2025-05-06

Total and minimum energy efficiency tradeoff in robust multigroup multicast satellite communications

Satellite communication is an indispensable part of sixth generation of mobile communication systems (6G) given its global coverage and long-distance propagation. Energy consumption and channel acquisition are two critical issues in satellite communication systems. On the one hand, with the rapidly increasing energy wastage in wireless systems, green communication technology has attracted extensive attentions and energy efficiency (EE) becomes the key performance indicator in the transmission scheme design of satellite communications. On the other hand, channel state information (CSI) is well required in designing the beamforming, but it is infeasible for gateway ...
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Social Science 2025-05-06

Parent coaching sparks major communication growth in infants with social and communication delays

BALTIMORE, May 6, 2025— A newly published trial from Kennedy Krieger Institute reveals a promising path forward for infants showing early signs of social communication delays. The study found that targeted coaching for caregivers of infants as young as 8 months significantly enhances babies’ communication and cognitive development. Caregivers in the trial received 16 in-home sessions with a trained developmental psychologist. Strategies included narrating an infant’s actions, such as saying “you rolled the ball,” and choosing toys that support language, attention, and engagement. This is one of the ...
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Social Science 2025-05-06

Duke University Press to publish open access monographs through MIT Press’s Direct to Open (D2O)

The partnership between Duke University Press and the MIT Press will begin in 2026, greatly expanding the reach of quality open access scholarship through Direct to Open The MIT Press is proud to announce that beginning in 2026, Duke University Press will join our Direct to Open (D2O) program. This collaboration marks the first such partnership with another university press for the D2O program, and reaffirms our shared commitment to open access publishing that is ethical, equitable, and sustainable. Launched in 2021, D2O is the MIT Press’s ...
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Social Science 2025-05-06

Review: Social drinking also a well-worn path to alcohol use disorder

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — When picturing a “typical” alcoholic, people tend to imagine a person drinking at home alone. But that focus overlooks the social origins of many serious alcohol problems, say the authors of a new review paper in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science. “Evidence for the centrality of social motives in problem drinking surround us,” write the authors, Catharine Fairbairn, a professor of psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Dahyeon Kang, of the University of Washington. “While solitary drinking might serve as a useful early indicator of alcohol use disorder risk … ...
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Technology 2025-05-06

BMW Group and ESMT Berlin enter fourth year of Change Maker Fellowship to shape leadership for a digital future

Now in its fourth year, the successful partnership between BMW Group and ESMT Berlin continues to evolve. The BMW Group Change Maker Fellowships, launched in 2022, are being extended in 2025 to include ESMT’s full-time MBA and MSc programs alongside the global online MBA and will focus on shaping leadership for a digital future. For the upcoming academic year, eight fellowships will be offered:  two fellowships for the full-time MBA program (January 2026 intake)  two ...
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Science 2025-05-06

Mobile, low-cost arsenic detection tool for safe water

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Jodhpur have developed a new low-cost mobile tool to detect arsenic contamination in water sources, addressing a critical threat to human health and the environment.   Published in IOP Publishing’s academic journal Nanotechnology the new tool offers a low-cost, onsite solution for monitoring water quality, especially useful in low-income regions where access to safe drinking water is a major challenge. The sensor is the first to provide on-site, accurate and repeatable results without the need for complex lab equipment ...
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Medicine 2025-05-06

Research advances on ‘displacing’ antibiotic resistance gene from bacteria

Birmingham scientists have identified essential genetic code for a method called plasmid curing, which aims to ‘displace’ antibiotic resistance genes from bacteria.   Plasmids, which are small, circular strands of DNA, play a crucial role in allowing bacteria to share beneficial genes rapidly in a changing environment, most concerningly when they carry genes conferring resistance to antibiotics. Professor Chris Thomas from Birmingham’s School of Biosciences has investigated plasmid curing ...
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Environment 2025-05-06

Hebrew University’s Dr. Chaim Garfinkel named 2025 Blavatnik Awards Laureate for Pioneering Climate Research

Jerusalem, Israel – The Hebrew University of Jerusalem is proud to announce that Dr. Chaim Garfinkel, Professor in the Institute of Earth Sciences, has been named a 2025 Laureate of the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in Israel, one of the country’s most prestigious honors for early-career researchers. Dr. Garfinkel is the recipient in the Physical Sciences & Engineering category for his pioneering work in climate modeling and atmospheric dynamics and will receive US$100,000 in unrestricted funds for his research, which focuses on advancing the global scientific community’s understanding of how large-scale atmospheric phenomena influence climate variability ...
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Medicine 2025-05-06

Beyond psychedelics: New journal broadens the scope of consciousness research

NEW YORK, USA, 6 May 2025 -- In a thought-provoking Genomic Press editorial, the Psychedelics journal has formally expanded its scope beyond classical psychedelic compounds to embrace the broader landscape of consciousness-altering substances. The publication, which previously focused primarily on serotonergic compounds, now explicitly includes all psychoactive drugs in its research purview. A Quiet Correction, Not a Rebranding The editorial, authored by Editor-in-Chief Dr. Julio Licinio, reflects on the inherent limitations of categorizing mind-altering ...
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Medicine 2025-05-06

Pioneering scientist reveals breakthrough link between psychedelics and immune system in treating fear

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA, 6 May 2025 -- In a compelling Genomic Press interview published today, rising scientific star Dr. Michael Wheeler unveils revolutionary findings about how psychedelics reshape communication between the brain and immune system, potentially transforming treatments for psychiatric disorders and inflammatory diseases alike. Bridging the Mind-Body Divide As an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School and investigator at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Dr. Wheeler stands at the frontier of neuroimmunology, a field ...
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Space 2025-05-06

Black holes: Beyond the singularity

“Hic sunt leones,” remarks Stefano Liberati, one of the authors of the paper and director of IFPU. The phrase refers to the hypothetical singularity predicted at the center of standard black holes — those described by solutions to Einstein’s field equations. To understand what this means, a brief historical recap is helpful. In 1915, Einstein published his seminal work on general relativity. Just a year later, German physicist Karl Schwarzschild found an exact solution to those equations, which implied the existence of extreme objects now known as black holes. These are objects with mass so concentrated that nothing — not even light — ...
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Science 2025-05-06

The West’s spring runoff is older than you think

Growing communities and extensive agriculture throughout the Western United States rely on meltwater that spills out of snow-capped mountains every spring. The models for predicting the amount of this streamflow available each year have long assumed that a small fraction of snowmelt each year enters shallow soil, with the remainder rapidly exiting in rivers and creeks. New research from University of Utah hydrologists, however, suggests that streamflow generation is much more complicated. Most spring runoff heading to reservoirs is actually several years old, indicating ...
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Environment 2025-05-06

Halo patterns around coral reefs may signal resilience

In coral reefs throughout the world, visually striking bands of bare sand surrounding reefs are often visible in satellite imagery but their cause remains a mystery. One theory is fear. Parrotfish and other herbivores will leave a reef's shelter to eat algae or the surrounding seagrass, but their fear of being gobbled up by predators may keep them from roving too far or eating too much, creating, what's known as "grazing halos"–bands encircling reefs where vegetation once existed.  Prior studies have proposed that ...
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Science 2025-05-06

Evidence review raises concern about cannabis use in pregnancy

An updated systematic review finds that consuming cannabis while pregnant appears to increase the odds of preterm birth, low birth weight and infant death. The study by researchers at Oregon Health & Science University published today in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. The lead author is a physician-scientist who provides prenatal care for high-risk pregnancies at OHSU. “Patients are coming to me in their prenatal visits saying, ‘I quit smoking and drinking, but is it safe to still use cannabis?’” said lead author Jamie Lo, M.D., ...
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Technology 2025-05-06

A new method for characterizing quantum gate errors

Researchers have developed a new protocol for benchmarking quantum gates, a critical step toward realizing the full potential of quantum computing and potentially accelerating progress toward fault-tolerant quantum computers. The new protocol, called deterministic benchmarking (DB), provides a more detailed and efficient method for identifying specific types of quantum noise and errors compared to widely used existing techniques. “Quantum computing is ultimately limited by how accurately we can implement gates — the basic operations of a quantum processor,” said Daniel Lidar, co-corresponding author of the study and ...
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Medicine 2025-05-06

Shingles vaccine lowers the risk of heart disease for up to eight years

People who are given a vaccine for shingles have a 23% lower risk of cardiovascular events, including stroke, heart failure, and coronary heart disease, according to a study of more than a million people published in the European Heart Journal [1] today (Tuesday).   The protective effect of the vaccine lasts for up to eight years and is particularly pronounced for men, people under the age of 60 and those with unhealthy lifestyles, such as smoking, drinking alcohol and being inactive.   The study was led by Professor Dong Keon Yon from the Kyung Hee University College of Medicine, Seoul, South Korea. He said: “Shingles ...
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Science 2025-05-05

Children as young as five can navigate a 'tiny town'

Many behavioral studies suggest that using landmarks to navigate through large-scale spaces — known as map-based navigation — is not established until around age 12. A neuroscience study at Emory University counters that assumption. Through experiments combining brain scans and a virtual environment the researchers dubbed Tiny Town, they showed that five-year-olds have the brain system that supports map-based navigation. The journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences published ...
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Medicine 2025-05-05

New study highlights mental health challenges among Ecuadorian healthcare providers during COVID-19

A recent study conducted by researchers from Universidad San Francisco de Quito and Johns Hopkins University has revealed critical insights into the mental health of healthcare providers in Ecuador during the COVID-19 pandemic. Published in journal Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness, this research examines the balance between compassion satisfaction, burnout, and secondary traumatic stress among healthcare professionals working in public institutions across Ecuador, a low-and middle-income country.  The study surveyed 2,873 healthcare providers from 111 public institutions across 23 provinces in Ecuador ...
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Energy 2025-05-05

US Naval Research Laboratory’s NIKE laser-target facility helps to advance Department of Defense nuclear mission

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has announced a new strategic direction for its NIKE laser-target facility to align its world-class capabilities with the Department of Defense’s (DoD) nuclear strategic priorities. The new strategic direction marks a shift from the facility’s historical focus on Department of Energy (DoE) missions, specifically those related to the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The initiative emphasizes NRL’s commitment to advancing national security through cutting-edge science and technology. Originally constructed in 1995 with support from the NNSA, the NIKE (pronounced nai-kee) laser was designed ...
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Medicine 2025-05-05

Study: PTSD patients show long-term benefits with vagus nerve stimulation

In a first-of-its-kind clinical study, scientists at The University of Texas at Dallas and Baylor University Medical Center showed that patients with treatment-resistant PTSD were symptom-free up to six months after completing traditional therapy paired with vagus nerve stimulation (VNS). The results of the nine-patient Phase 1 trial, conducted by scientists from UT Dallas’ Texas Biomedical Device Center (TxBDC) in collaboration with researchers from the Baylor Scott & White Research Institute (BSWRI), were published online March 15 in Brain Stimulation. Dr. Michael Kilgard, the Margaret Fonde Jonsson Professor of neuroscience in the School of Behavioral ...
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Medicine 2025-05-05

New health assessment tool gauges body’s biological age

A novel health-assessment tool uses eight metrics derived from a person’s physical exam and routine lab tests to characterize biological age. It may be able to predict a person’s risk of disability and death better than current health predictors. University of Washington School of Medicine researchers describe their method in a May 5 Nature Communication paper. The method, called the Health Octo Tool, might make it possible to identify new factors that affect aging, and to design interventions that prolong life, said the report’s first author, Dr. Shabnam ...
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Medicine 2025-05-05

Pharmacies excluded from preferred networks face much higher risk of closure

Key takeaways: Retail pharmacies excluded from Part D networks were as much as 4.5 times more likely to close in the past decade Growing use of preferred networks disadvantages independent pharmacies, as well as those in low-income or minority neighborhoods Use of preferred pharmacy networks has soared amid mergers of major PBMs and retail pharmacy chains PBM ownership of pharmacies has recently drawn scrutiny from federal and state officials Retail pharmacies excluded from Medicare Part D networks maintained by drug benefits middlemen were much more ...
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Technology 2025-05-05

A fully automated tool for species tree inference

A team of engineers at the University of California San Diego is making it easier for researchers from a broad range of backgrounds to understand how different species are evolutionarily related, and support the transformative biological and medical applications that rely on these species trees. The researchers developed a scalable, automated and user-friendly tool called ROADIES that allows scientists to infer species trees directly from raw genome data, with less reliance on the domain expertise and computational resources currently required. Species trees are critical ...
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Technology 2025-05-05

Text-to-video AI blossoms with new metamorphic video capabilities

While text-to-video artificial intelligence models like OpenAI’s Sora are rapidly metamorphosing in front of our eyes, they have struggled to produce metamorphic videos. Simulating a tree sprouting or a flower blooming is harder for AI systems than generating other types of videos because it requires the knowledge of the physical world and can vary widely. But now, these models have taken an evolutionary step. Computer scientists at the University of Rochester, Peking University, University of California, Santa Cruz, and National University of Singapore ...
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Medicine 2025-05-05

Using age, sex, and race-specific standards could reclassify many thyroid disease diagnoses

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 5 May 2025    Follow @Annalsofim on X, Facebook, Instagram, threads, and Linkedin         Below please find summaries of new articles that will be published in the next issue of Annals of Internal Medicine. The summaries are not intended to substitute for the full articles as a source of information. This information is under strict embargo and by taking it into possession, media representatives are committing to the terms of the embargo not only on their own behalf, but also on ...
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