Prenatal magnesium sulfate and steroids can reduce the risks of cerebral palsy and respiratory complications in preterm infants. A review in the International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics found that despite being recommended internationally for pregnant women at risk of preterm delivery, these medications are used variably between and within countries. When they analyzed 2012–2024 information on 45,619 babies born at 24–32 weeks' gestation at 1,111 hospitals in an international network, along with information from the UK National Neonatal Research Database and a literature ...

DURHAM, N.C. – As people age, it becomes harder to know who is on track for healthy years ahead and who may be at higher risk for serious decline. A new study suggests that part of the answer may already be circulating in the bloodstream. Research led by Duke Health, in collaboration with the University of Minnesota, has found that small RNA molecules known as piRNAs can accurately predict whether older adults are likely to survive at least two more years. The findings, published February 25 in Aging Cell, suggest that a simple blood test could ...

A new global analysis of two antenatal treatments that reduce the risk of cerebral palsy and respiratory complications in premature babies reveals significant international variation in implementation. The University of Bristol-led study, published in the International Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology today [25 February], examined neonatal data from over 300,000 premature births across ten countries. When a baby is born before 30 weeks of gestation, they have a higher risk of death or serious health challenges, including stroke, respiratory problems, and disabilities like cerebral palsy. Magnesium sulphate is a cost-effective treatment that, when given ...

Research from the University of Warwick has revealed that butterfly caterpillars use sophisticated rhythmic signals to communicate with ants, helping them gain protection, food, and access to ant nests.  Some butterfly species rely on ants for survival during their early life stages as caterpillars. The ants treat the baby caterpillars like colony members, carrying them into nests, protecting them from predators, and even feeding them. In exchange, caterpillars provide sugary secretions to ants or behave in ways that mimic ant behaviour to integrate with the colony.  While ...

A major new study, led by Queen Mary University of London and funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) has been published in The Lancet Public Health. It found that out of the five million surgical procedures performed each year by the NHS, around 300,000 are carried out on individuals considered high-risk, and within 90 days of surgery, these high-risk patients account for:   four out of five deaths   over half of all hospital bed days   nearly one-third of emergency readmissions  While surgery is safer than ...

Bottlenose dolphins usually live in small to medium-sized groups in coastal and open-sea waters, but every once in a while, a dolphin might leave its pod behind, flock to coastal areas and approach human settlements. While this is a relatively rare occurrence, cases of dolphins entering coastal or urban areas are well-documented. When a bottlenose dolphin nicknamed Mimmo was first spotted in the lagoon of Venice last summer, local researchers jumped into action. The team has now published a Frontiers in Ethology article in which they describe their monitoring activities and the dolphin’s movements over several months, while also assessing management scenarios. “We ...

Even a mild case of COVID-19 or the flu can impact the body long after the fever and cough fade, according to new Tulane University research that may help explain why some people struggle to feel fully recovered weeks or months later. Tulane researchers found that while both viruses can leave lasting lung damage, only SARS-CoV-2 infection caused persistent brain inflammation and small blood vessel injury, even after the virus was no longer detectable. The findings, published in Frontiers in Immunology, help explain why long COVID often includes neurological symptoms such as brain fog, fatigue and mood changes, while influenza is more ...

As the electric vehicle era enters full scale, demand is increasing for batteries that can travel farther and last longer. Lithium-metal batteries have been attracting attention as a next-generation technology capable of surpassing the capacity limits of existing lithium-ion batteries. However, during the charging process, needle-shaped crystals called “dendrites” grow, shortening battery life and increasing the risk of fire, which has been identified as the biggest obstacle to commercialization. A Korean research team has developed a key technology that can solve this challenge. KAIST announced on the 24th that the research team led by Prof. Nam-Soon Choi from the ...

Contamination of ground, surface and drinking water by perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) affects millions of people worldwide. A promising new method developed by Flinders University scientists paves the way to help remove the most difficult-to-capture variants of these persistent pollutants from water. The research team, led by Flinders ARC Research Fellow Dr Witold Bloch, has discovered adsorbents that effectively capture PFAS, including short-chain forms that are especially difficult to remove using existing technologies. The study, published in the top-tier journal Angewandte Chemie ...

Background The emergence of the first biopolymers and their building blocks on the early Earth is considered a key moment in the origin of life (OoL), but how life began on the prebiotic Earth from a pile of prehistoric inert chemicals (gases) is still confusing, and the search for its truth is often even more so because the full scenarios are difficult to recreate. Over the past century, a variety of plausible OoL hypotheses have been proposed, mostly centered on (terrestrial or interstellar) chemical origin/evolution theories, but there are still a lot of controversy and incompleteness about these hypotheses because each of them builds upon one-sided empirical data ...

Researchers have developed a new biochar material derived from marine microalgae that can detect hydrogen peroxide rapidly, sensitively, and without the need for enzymes. The discovery could support applications ranging from medical diagnostics to environmental monitoring and food safety. Hydrogen peroxide plays a dual role in modern society. It is widely used in healthcare, biotechnology, and industry, yet excessive levels can signal oxidative stress in biological systems or contamination in food and water. Detecting hydrogen ...

A new review of emerging research suggests that biochar, a carbon-rich material produced from biomass, could play an important role in making 3D printing more sustainable while improving material performance. The study brings together recent advances in biochar–polymer composites and outlines the scientific and engineering challenges that must be solved before the technology can be widely adopted. Biochar is produced when plant material or organic waste is heated in low-oxygen conditions, creating a porous and ...

Excess phosphorus in lakes and reservoirs fuels harmful algal blooms, threatens drinking water safety, and damages aquatic ecosystems worldwide. Now, researchers have developed a new machine learning–guided strategy to design advanced biochar materials that remove phosphorus efficiently while dramatically lowering treatment costs. The study provides a practical pathway for restoring eutrophic waters at large scale. Phosphorus concentrations above very small thresholds can trigger ecosystem disruption and toxic algal blooms, making removal ...

Aleksey Maro knows far more than he cares to know about the urination habits of chimpanzees. But if you want to measure the alcohol intake of chimps in a Ugandan rain forest, where a breathalyzer is impractical, collecting urine for analysis is your only choice. Last year, Maro and adviser Robert Dudley, UC Berkeley professor of integrative biology, documented that the fruits chimps eat in the wild contain enough alcohol from fermentation to provide around 14 grams per day — the equivalent of two standard drinks. But the proof is in the urine. To perfect his urine sampling techniques, Maro, a UC Berkeley graduate student, worked alongside Sharifah ...

SAN ANTONIO, Feb. 24, 2026 – Positioning The University of Texas at San Antonio as a national anchor for aging and longevity science, its Sam and Ann Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies will receive up to $38 million in federal funding for the first nationwide clinical study in healthy longevity. The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H), an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announced the contract to the Barshop Institute at UT Health San Antonio, the academic health center of UT San Antonio, cementing its standing as the nation’s leading authority in longevity science. The first-of-its-kind study will evaluate ...

A reserach team led by Professor Huang Zhang at Harbin University of Science and Technology recently made significant progress in the research of zinc-iodine aqueous batteries. They proposed an electrolyte additive strategy based on tetramethylammonium iodide (TMAI), which, through the synergistic effect of anions (I-) and cations (TMA+), simultaneously solved three core challenges in zinc-iodine batteries: sluggish iodine reaction kinetics, polyiodide shuttle effect, and zinc dendrite growth. This research not only achieved ...

An international team of archaeologists and scientists has reconstructed the diets of prehistoric communities from north-central Poland, shedding new light on how people adapted to changing environments and shifting social landscapes over three millennia between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age. The researchers analysed human remains from 60 individuals, dated between around 4100 and 1230 BC. This long timespan encompassed key periods of Central European prehistory, including the arrival of groups with steppe ancestry from the East and the first widespread use of millet in the region. Archaeological traces of these societies are often scarce: their lightly built ...

Pre-pregnancy parental overweight and obesity is linked to the next generation’s heightened risk of developing fatty liver disease, a potential precursor to cirrhosis and liver failure, suggests research published online in the journal Gut.   If both parents are overweight or obese before they conceive, that child’s subsequent odds of developing MASLD by the age of 24 are more than 3 times higher, most of which is influenced by cumulative excess weight (BMI) during childhood, the findings indicate.   Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, recently renamed metabolic dysfunction associated steatotic liver disease, or MASLD ...

Untreated obstructive sleep apnoea may be costing the UK and US economies billions of pounds/dollars in lost productivity every year, with a considerable proportion of working age adults experiencing symptoms indicative of the breathing disorder, suggests an analysis published online in the journal Thorax.   Around 1 in 5 adults in both countries may have obstructive sleep apnoea, the analysis suggests. And the time has now come to trial workplace screening in those most at risk of harm from the daytime sleepiness associated ...

Researchers at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids), working with international collaborators and youth and family caregivers, have developed a child- and youth-centred global standard for reporting paediatric randomized controlled trials (RCTs) protocols and final reports. Co-published today in The BMJ, JAMA Pediatrics and The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health, the SPIRIT-Children and Adolescents (SPIRIT-C) 2026 and CONSORT-Children and Adolescents (CONSORT-C) 2026 guidelines introduce new recommendations to improve ...

A new study published in the journal Addiction shows that cannabis use among Swedish adolescents appears to follow the same population-level pattern previously observed for alcohol. The findings suggest that changes in average cannabis use among young people are reflected across the entire group—from those who use infrequently to those who use frequently. The study is based on extensive data from the Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs’ (CAN) national school surveys and includes more than 250,000 students aged 15-18 years (in grade ...

A key goal in ageing research is not just to extend life, but to ensure more people live longer and healthier lives with less variation in age-at-death; a concept known as “squaring the survival curve.” Using a recent meta-analysis, Dr Tahlia Fulton and Associate Professor Alistair Senior from the University of Sydney School of Life and Environmental Sciences re-examined how dietary restriction and two related drugs, rapamycin and metformin, affect variation in age-at-death in vertebrates. While two of the treatments increased average lifespan, all three increased variance. This means current lifespan-extending interventions do not "square ...

Since their so-called “Golden Age” in the 1940s, comics have often been treated as a universal visual language: stories told in panels and speech bubbles that function much the same wherever they appear. Now, a new volume of comics studies is challenging that assumption. Comics and the Global South brings together work from Latin America, Africa, Asia and beyond to argue that comics from these regions need to be read on their own cultural terms. Doing so, the book suggests, will unsettle long-held ...

By Leah Shaffer Natural muscle fibers are made up of spring-like proteins that can contract and stretch without losing their original form, dissipate mechanical energy as heat and maintain incredible tensile strength for all sorts of physical functions. Engineers at Washington University in St. Louis have replicated these proteins using synthetic biology approaches to create a new category of biomaterials for use in medicine, textiles and agriculture. “Many muscle proteins share similar immunoglobulin-like structures while bearing diverse amino acid sequences. These natural materials provide great ...

Wildfires have increased in frequency and severity over the past few decades. More fires are burning at the wildland-urban interface (WUI), where homes and other buildings meet the natural landscape — but our understanding of emissions from structure fires is still growing. New research led by the University of Colorado Boulder's Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) shows that common synthetic materials used in homes, like plastics and insulation, can release harmful compounds into the air when they burn.  But synthetic materials make up only a small fraction of a home. Timber and wood ...