EMBARGOED UNTIL 15.00 US ET (20.00 BST) ON MONDAY 14 APRIL 2025 The study lead by Professor Dan Lawrence, of Durham University in the UK, found that across ten millennia, more unequal distributions of wealth correlated with longer-term human settlement.  However, the team are keen to stress that one factor is not causally dependent on the other, giving hope that humankind’s survival is not linked to ever increasing inequality. The research is part of a Special Feature of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), entitled Global Dynamics of Wealth Inequality. Sustainability is defined by the ...

University of California, Davis researchers have developed a new, neuroplasticity-promoting drug closely related to LSD that harnesses the psychedelic’s therapeutic power with reduced hallucinogenic potential. The research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, highlights the new drug’s potential as a treatment option for conditions like schizophrenia, where psychedelics are not prescribed for safety reasons. The compound also may be useful for treating other neuropsychiatric ...

Are there areas of the brain, which regulate prosocial, altruistic behaviour? Together with colleagues from the universities in Lausanne, Utrecht and Cape Town, researchers from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) have studied a very special group of patients and established that the “basolateral amygdala” (part of the limbic system) plays an important role in this. In the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), they describe that this region calibrates social behaviour. Prosocial ...

PULLMAN, Wash. — Wealth inequality began shaping human societies more than 10,000 years ago, long before the rise of ancient empires or the invention of writing. That’s according to a new study led by Washington State University archaeologist Tim Kohler that challenges traditional views that disparities in wealth emerged suddenly with large civilizations like Egypt or Mesopotamia. The research is part of a special issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, co-edited by Kohler and Amy Bogaard, an archaeologist at Oxford University in England. Drawing on data from over 47,000 residential ...

If the archaeological record has been correctly interpreted, stone alignments in Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge are remnants of shelters built 1.7 million years ago by Homo habilis, an extinct species representing one of the earliest branches of humanity’s family tree. Archaeological evidence that is unambiguously housing dates to more than 20,000 years ago—a time when large swaths of North America, Europe and Asia were covered in ice and humans had only recently begun living in settlements. Between that time and the dawn of industrialization, the archaeological record is rich not only with evidence of settled life represented by housing, but also with evidence ...

It is one of the most significant trends in materials science: materials that consist of only a single layer of atoms, so-called “2D materials”, often show completely different properties than thicker layers consisting of the same atoms. This field of research began with the Nobel Prize-winning material graphene. Now, research is being conducted into the material class of MXenes (pronounced Maxenes), which consist mainly of titanium and carbon, by TU Wien (Vienna) together with the companies CEST and AC2T. These MXenes have properties that ...

Philadelphia, April 14, 2025 – Researchers have demonstrated the potential of the innovative optical genome mapping (OGM) technique for the diagnosis, prognosis, and therapeutic management of multiple myeloma. This new study in The Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, published by Elsevier, details how this novel method can establish the cytogenomic profile of the tumor on a scale suitable for routine practice in cytogenetics laboratories. Multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer that forms in plasma cells (a type of white blood cells), is the second ...

Major reallocation of healthcare services during the COVID-19 pandemic meant that elective surgery in children with congenital heart disease (CHD) was significantly reduced, so that those needing urgent, lifesaving and emergency surgery could be treated. However, this prioritisation of the most severely ill children did not increase overall post-operative complications rates or death, a study led by the University of Bristol has shown.  The research, published in Open Heart, suggests that prioritising surgery for younger and more critically ill children may be appropriate when there is a sudden disruption of usual care.  The ...

When you’re on a sandy beach or the banks of a river, transformed by rolling waves or slightly still waters, it’s likely you’re not thinking about what happens just beneath the surface, where dirt and pollution are swirling and traveling through to new destinations.   But Hanadi Rifai does. The Moores Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and director of the Hurricane Resilience Research Institute, has spent two decades examining Galveston Bay – its tides, currents ...

A recent comprehensive assessment on the poisoning of raptors across Europe does not yield good news. This is according to the new paper “Poisoning in Europe Between 1996 and 2016: A Continental Assessment of the Most Affected Species and the Most Used Poisons,” published in the Journal of Raptor Research. A large team of raptor researchers amassed retrospective data on poisoning events across 22 European countries between 1996 and 2016. Carbofuran and aldicarb were the most common toxins reported and disproportionately affected scavenging raptors, especially in Northern ...

A University of Florida researcher has developed a groundbreaking open-source computer program that uses artificial intelligence to analyze videos of patients with Parkinson's disease and other movement disorders. The tool, called VisionMD, helps doctors more accurately monitor subtle motor changes, improving patient care and advancing clinical research. Diego Guarin, Ph.D., an assistant professor of applied physiology and kinesiology in UF’s College of Health and Human Performance, created the software to address the potential risk of inconsistency ...

Dr. Latifur Khan, professor of computer science at The University of Texas at Dallas, has been elected to the 2024 class of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) fellows. Khan is one of 471 scientists, engineers and innovators to be recognized across 24 disciplinary sections. The new fellows will be honored at a June 7 event in Washington, D.C. The AAAS elected Khan in the section on information, computing and communication for “distinguished contributions to the field of machine learning with applications to cybersecurity, social sciences ...

Dancing fluidly with another involves social coordination. This skill entails aligning movements with others while also processing dynamic sensory information, like sounds and visuals. In a new JNeurosci paper, Félix Bigand and Giacomo Novembre, from the Italian Institute of Technology, Rome, and colleagues report their findings on how the brain drives social coordination during dance.   The researchers recruited pairs of inexperienced dancers and recorded their brain activity, whole-body movements, and ...

A recent study has uncovered a potential breakthrough in treating osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH), a debilitating bone disease that causes severe pain and joint collapse. Researchers have discovered that exosomes derived from M2 macrophages-derived exosomes (M2-Exos) can significantly improve bone regeneration by modulating neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) and endothelial cell function. These tiny vesicles, packed with miR-93-5p, were shown to reduce harmful NETs formation and enhance ...

New DNA probes allow for efficient surveying of the hidden lives of squids and octopuses in the deep sea. This development by Kobe University provides an effective tool for marine ecological research and conservation efforts. Squids and octopuses eat and are eaten, and in between that they move around a lot. “Cephalopods play an important role in marine ecosystems, contributing to the distribution of energy and nutrients in the food web,” explains Kobe University marine ecologist WU Qianqian. And while for ecological research it is therefore essential to know about the distribution ...

Patients with depression who received the Moodivate app saw clinically meaningful reductions in their symptoms that were twice those achieved with standard-of-care therapy in a clinical trial conducted at 22 primary care practices in Charleston, South Carolina. App users were also 3 times more likely to achieve a clinically meaningful improvement in their depression and  2.3 times more likely to attain depression remission. Moodivate (available on both iOS and Android)  is a digital version of behavioral activation, a type of behavioral therapy that has proved effective against depression. Jennifer Dahne, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral ...

Ottawa, ON, April 14, 2025 – Individuals with an emergency department (ED) visit or hospitalization due to cannabis were at 23% and 72% greater risk of a new dementia diagnosis within five years compared to individuals with an ED visit or hospitalization for any other reason or the general population, according to a new study published in JAMA Neurology.  “Long-term and heavy cannabis use has been associated with memory problems in midlife along with changes in brain structure associated with dementia,” says Dr. Daniel Myran, a Canada Research Chair in Social ...

The immune system must be able to quickly attack invaders like viruses, while also ignoring harmless stimuli, or allergies can result. Immune cells are known to ignore or “tolerate” molecules found on the body’s own healthy cells, for instance, as well as nonthreatening substances from outside the body like food. How the system achieves the latter has been unclear.  Now, a new study led by researchers at NYU Langone Health has revealed that a special group of cells in the intestines tamp down the immune responses caused by exposure to food proteins. ...

About The Study: This study found that at current utilization and radiation dose levels, computed tomography examinations in 2023 were projected to result in approximately 103,000 future cancers over the course of the lifetime of exposed patients. If current practices persist, computed tomography-associated cancer could eventually account for 5% of all new cancer diagnoses annually.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Rebecca Smith-Bindman, MD, email rebecca.smith-bindman@ucsf.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2025.0505) Editor’s ...

About The Study: The findings of this cohort study suggest that the incidence of pancreatic adenocarcinoma has increased among all age groups, whereas that of colorectal adenocarcinoma has increased among younger age groups. Clinicians should be aware of this trend when evaluating younger patients with relevant symptoms. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Arvind J. Trindade, MD, email arvind.trindade@gmail.com. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.4682) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study of children ages 9 to 10, moderately preterm birth was associated with long-term cognitive problems independent of socioeconomic status, genetics, and other risk factors. These findings underscore the need for continued follow-up of all preterm children, with particular focus on those born before 34 weeks’ gestational age, because they may face greater developmental challenges over time. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Samson Nivins, PhD, email samson.nivins@ki.se. To ...

New York, NY [April 14, 2025]—A new multicenter study by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, in collaboration with the National Cancer Institute-funded Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) and colleagues around the world, has discovered that the genes we are born with—known as germline genetic variants—play a powerful, underappreciated role in how cancer develops and behaves. Published in the April 14 online issue of Cell [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2025.03.026], the study is the first to detail how millions of inherited genetic differences influence the activity of thousands of proteins within tumors. Drawing on data ...

The number of California teens who have been treated for self-harm has ballooned in recent years, with an especially concerning increase among multiracial girls, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley, published today (Monday, April 14) in JAMA Pediatrics. Using data from California emergency departments and inpatient care facilities from 2005 to 2021 — 231,232 reports in total — researchers examined both how the rate of annual nonfatal self-harm incidents has changed, as well as rate differences based on age, sex, and race and ethnicity. The study ...

Most cancer genome studies have focused on mutations in the tumor itself and how such gene variants allow a tumor to grow unchecked. A new study, led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, takes a deep dive into inherited cancer mutations measured in a healthy blood sample and reports how those mutations might take a toll on the body’s cells starting at birth, perhaps predisposing a person to develop cancers at various stages of life. The authors analyzed the inherited genomes of more than 1,000 cancer patients and determined how inherited mutations — ...

Popular CT Scans Could Account for 5% of All Cancer Cases A Year  Radiation from imaging could lead to lung, breast and other future cancers, with 10-fold increased risk for babies   CT scans may account for 5% of all cancers annually, according to a new study out of UC San Francisco that cautions against overusing and overdosing CTs.   The danger is greatest for infants, followed by children and adolescents. But adults also are at risk, since they are the most likely to get scans.   Nearly 103,000 cancers are predicted to result from the 93 million CTs that were ...