If you’re among the 1.5 billion people worldwide using TikTok, you may have come across exceptional “testimonials” like Nikola Tesla or Marie Curie delivering short science-related messages that have garnered millions of views. This is just one of many examples where AI-generated avatars are used to communicate science — a strategy that might also have its drawbacks. The generation of images and animations through artificial intelligence is a rapidly growing field, constantly improving in quality. Yet many avatars, though realistic, still present minor flaws — glitches, delays, inconsistent ...

Newly published research from UNC Greensboro biology professor Dr. Bryan McLean and colleagues shows that the masked shrew, a small, mole-like mammal found in the Appalachian Mountains, shrinks its body and braincase to conserve energy during winter months.     The study, published in the May 2025 issue of The American Naturalist, found that the masked shrew (Sorex cinereus) reduces its body mass by 13 percent in the colder months; the creature then grows larger in spring when conditions improve. In addition to a shrinking body, the team also found seasonal changes in the height of the creature’s ...

Babies and young children may breathe and absorb plasticizers called phthalates, flame retardants, and other harmful chemicals from their mattresses while they sleep, according to a pair of peer-reviewed studies published today from the University of Toronto in Environmental Science & Technology and Environmental Science & Technology Letters. These chemicals are linked to neurological and reproductive problems, asthma, hormone disruption, and cancer.     "Sleep is vital for brain development, ...

Hoboken, N.J., April 14, 2025 — Tightly connected communities tend to be more resilient when facing extreme events such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods or wildfires, says Jose Ramirez-Marquez, who develops metrics to analyze, quantify and ultimately improve performance of urban systems.  Ramirez-Marquez, associate professor and division director of Enterprise Science and Engineering at Stevens, who grew up in the earthquake-prone Mexico City knows this first-hand. “Whenever there's an earthquake, a city-wide alarm goes off and everybody leaves wherever they are and stays in the middle of the street — that’s a prevention phase,” he says. ...

Under embargo until 23:30 (UK), Monday April 14, 2025 An updated set of guidelines to improve transparency and clarity in the reporting of randomised controlled trials have been published today. The CONSORT (Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials) 2025 statement provides a minimum set of essential items that should be included when reporting the results of randomised trials. First published in 1996, the CONSORT guidelines saw additional updates in 2001 and 2010. Becoming the gold standard for reporting randomised trials, ...

Pediatric infectious diseases experts stress the importance of vaccination against measles, one of the most contagious viruses, which is once more spreading in the United States. In the article published in Pediatrics, they update pediatricians on this vaccine-preventable disease, which was previously declared non-endemic in the U.S. “The most effective way to prevent measles is vaccination,” said lead author Caitlin Naureckas Li, MD MHQS, infectious diseases specialist at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Northwestern University ...

    Images   A new collaboration between the University of Michigan and Stanford University aims to give stroke patients the ability to "speak" by detecting and interpreting brain signals, using the world's smallest computers linked up to the world's most biocompatible sensors.   The Marcus Foundation announced today a $29.7 million grant, led by Stanford, that would benefit victims of aphasic stroke, who are often left struggling to communicate. U-M will receive $19 million of the total grant.   According to the American Heart Association, stroke is the leading cause of disability in the ...

When it comes to managing weight loss and type 2 diabetes with medications, research shows that it’s out with the old and in with the new. Investigators from Mass General Brigham looked at claims data from nearly 2 million people between 2021 and 2023 and their findings highlight a shifting landscape for weight loss and glucose managing medications. Those changes include a sharp climb in the use of newly approved medications, especially tirzepatide, which is sold under the brand name Mounjaro for diabetes treatment and Zepbound for weight loss. The use of medications previously common in the treatment of type 2 diabetes, including metformin, sulfonylureas, and insulin, decreased. Results ...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (April 14, 2025) — Van Andel Institute has named renowned physician-scientist J. Timothy Greenamyre, M.D., Ph.D., as recipient of its 2025 Jay Van Andel Award for Outstanding Achievement in Parkinson’s Disease Research.   The award will be presented during Grand Challenges in Parkinson’s Disease, VAI’s flagship annual Parkinson’s disease symposium, Sept. 9–10, 2025. Greenamyre’s pioneering research into the interactions between genes and the environment has vastly improved our understanding of Parkinson’s development and progression. He has published more than 200 articles detailing ...

Embargoed for release until 5:00 p.m. ET on Monday 14 April 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 behalf of the organization they represent.    ----------------------------       1. ...

Is sauerkraut more than just a tangy topping? A new University of California, Davis, study published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology suggests that the fermented cabbage could help protect your gut, which is an essential part of overall health, supporting digestion and protecting against illness. Authors Maria Marco, professor with the Department of Food Science and Technology, and Lei Wei, a postdoctoral researcher in Marco’s lab, looked at what happens during fermentation — specifically, how the metabolites ...

Philadelphia, April 14, 2024 – Researchers from the Epilepsy Neurogenetics Initiative (ENGIN) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) have completed a comprehensive natural history study of SCN8A-related disorders, which represent a spectrum of neurological symptoms. The study, using retrospective clinical information analyzed through novel data analysis methods, revealed a range of seizure types and neurodevelopmental features, and identifies potential targets for future clinical trials. The findings were published online on April 14, 2025, in Neurology®, the medical journal ...

We’re living in a period where the gap between rich and poor is dramatic, and it’s continuing to widen. But inequality is nothing new. In a new study published in the journal PNAS, researchers compared house size distributions from more than 1,000 sites around the world, covering the last 10,000 years. They found that while inequality is widespread throughout human history, it’s not inevitable, nor is it expressed to the same degree at every place and time. “This paper is part of ...

LA JOLLA (April 18, 2025)—Industrial farming practices often deplete the soil of important nutrients and minerals, leaving farmers to rely on artificial fertilizers to support plant growth. In fact, fertilizer use has more than quadrupled since the 1960s, but this comes with serious consequences. Fertilizer production consumes massive amounts of energy, and its use pollutes the water, air, and land. Plant biologists at the Salk Institute are proposing a new solution to help kick this unsustainable fertilizer habit. In a new study, the researchers identified ...

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 ...