BOSTON - April 1, 2025 - Most people donning virtual reality (VR) goggles are seeking the thrill of being immersed in a fictitious video game world. But some are donning them for an entirely different experience: to help researchers identify those most at risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.  “We know that early detection of Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias can have a significant impact on the quality of life of the affected persons, through deployment of lifestyle changes and medications ...

A group of diatom species belonging to the Nitzschia genus, gave up on photosynthesis and now get their carbon straight from their environment, thanks to a bacterial gene picked up by an ancestor. Gregory Jedd of Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, Singapore, and colleagues report these findings in a new study published April 1st in the open-access journal PLOS Biology. Unlike most diatoms, which perform photosynthesis to generate carbon compounds, some members of the genus Nitzschia have no chlorophyll and instead ...

In mice, autism symptoms arise when a certain pair of competing nerve proteins falls out of equilibrium, according to a study published April 1st in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Dongdong Zhao of Wenzhou Medical University, China, Yun-wu Zhang of Xiamen University, China, and colleagues. Approximately 1% of the world population is considered to have Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), exhibiting a series of social and cognitive symptoms. Previous research has linked certain genetic factors to ASD, including many associated ...

Genomic changes in the infectious yeast Candida tropicalis may play a role in its resistance to antifungals, according to a study published on April 1st in the open-access journal, PLOS Biology by Guanghua Huang at Fudan University, China, and colleagues. These genomic changes can be brought on by a common antifungal, TBZ. The study demonstrates that the use of TBZ in agriculture may contribute to the increasing problem of antifungal resistance. C. tropicalis is one of the most common fungi to infect humans, ...

PHILADELPHIA – Public awareness of the link between drinking alcohol and an elevated risk of cancer has grown since last fall, with more than half of Americans now saying that regularly consuming alcohol increases your chances of later developing cancer, according to a survey by the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania. In the survey, conducted Jan. 30-Feb. 10, 2025, with over 1,700 U.S. adults, 56% say the regular consumption of alcohol increases your chances of later developing cancer, up from 40% in an Annenberg survey in September 2024. The percentage of those who say alcohol ...

Medical imaging experts are adept at solving common optical illusions, according to research from four UK universities, including the University of East Anglia. The correct analysis of medical images from scans, such as MRI, is critical for diagnosing cancer and many other conditions. A new study published today shows that people who do this professionally are also more accurate at judging the size of objects in common optical illusions. In other words, medical imaging experts also literally see better in everyday life! The research is also the ...

Pregnancy may offer some protection from developing Long COVID, found a new study led by Weill Cornell Medicine, University of Rochester Medical Center, University of Utah Health and Louisiana Public Health Institute. Previous research has mostly focused on non-pregnant adults affected by Long COVID— a condition lasting for months after a person recovers from SARS-CoV-2 infection. The study, published April 1 in Nature Communications, helps fill a critical gap about Long COVID in women infected with SARS-CoV-2 ...

Wheat is grown over more land area than any other food crop. Among pathogen-driven threats to wheat, fungi top the list, causing billions of dollars of losses each year and posing a serious challenge to food security worldwide. In an effort to combat this problem, a research team led by Prof. LIU Zhiyong from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with collaborators, has uncovered a novel immune mechanism by which tandem kinase proteins (TKPs) combat pathogen invasion in wheat. TKPs are a recently discovered class of disease resistance proteins in wheat and barley. Characterized by two or more tandemly arranged ...

Faculty representing three disciplines in the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science — computer science, mechanical and aerospace engineering, and civil and environmental engineering — have been elected to the rank of fellow by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. The AAAS is one of the world’s largest general scientific societies and publisher of the Science family of journals. UVA Engineering’s faculty are among 471 scientists and engineers named in the class of 2024, according to the AAAS.  Fellows are selected ...

A recent study from Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health reveals significant racial and sex disparities in drug overdose mortality rates. The research found that both Black men and Black women have been disproportionately impacted by overdose deaths, with their mortality rates rising sharply compared to their White counterparts. This study expands scientific understanding of how race, sex, and regional factors intersect to affect overdose outcomes. The study's findings are published ...

WASHINGTON, April 1, 2025 – With increased awareness about food sources and their environmental impacts, replacing animal-derived products in food and drugs is a significant research area. One common — but often overlooked — animal protein is gelatin, found everywhere from candy to plastic-free packaging. In Physics of Fluids, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the University of Ottawa present gum tragacanth as a plant-based alternative to gelatin for creating edible films. “Gelatin has ...

The ability to predict wildfires - such as those that recently devastated Los Angeles and Canada - is advancing rapidly with the help of ML–driven high-quality data.  A new paper, published today (Tuesday 1 April, 16:00 BST | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-58097-7) in Nature Communications, highlights how the collection and integration of higher-quality data can significantly improve the accuracy and reliability of wildfire predictions. The paper evaluates how ECMWF's new data-driven fire danger forecasting model, the Probability of Fire (PoF), performed in 2023 and in recent extreme events. ECMWF has been producing fire ...

Under the right conditions, duckweed essentially farms itself. Wastewater, ponds, puddles, swamps—you name it. If there’s enough sunlight and carbon dioxide, the aquatic plant can grow freely. But that’s not all that makes it intriguing. Packed inside duckweed’s tiny fronds is enormous potential as a soil enricher, a fuel source, protein-rich foods, and more. New findings at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) could help bring all that potential to life. CSHL Professor and HHMI Investigator Rob Martienssen and Computational Analyst Evan Ernst started working with duckweed over 15 years ago. They see their latest research as one of the most important ...

About The Study: Knowledge of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) disease and RSV vaccine eligibility was low in this cross-sectional study of hospitalized adults. Older adults and those with certain medical conditions were more likely to have received vaccine, suggesting appropriate prioritization, but sociodemographic differences in vaccine uptake occurred. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Diya Surie, MD, email dsurie@cdc.gov. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.2841) Editor’s ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study of overdose deaths, disparities in overdose mortality were evident, with Black men and Black women experiencing a pronounced and increasing burden of mortality compared with their white counterparts. Addressing these disparities will require a multipronged approach targeting the social, physical, economic, and policy risk environments. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Kechna Cadet, PhD, MPH, email kc3010@cumc.columbia.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.2728) Editor’s ...

San Francisco, California, United States - The Public Library of Science (PLOS) and the Society of China University Journals (CUJS) today announced a 3-year strategic partnership between the organizations to work together on topics and content related to open access, open science, scientific integrity and scientific evaluation. CUJS is an academic, national and non-profit social organization with more than 1,200 journal members. The organization conducts academic research and training programs in the editing and publishing of STM journals and promotes the development of STM ...

Nearly 40% of patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes imperil their health by stopping their medication within the first year, UVA Health diabetes experts note in a new paper highlighting a growing array of treatment options. The pragmatic new paper urges doctors to consider not just traditional diabetes medicines but emerging alternatives that patients may be more likely to stick with long-term. “Prescribing a medication or making lifestyle recommendations that a patient is not willing or able to follow for any reason is not likely to lead to improvements ...

“This work provides new opportunities for the development of the next generation of ChE inhibitors that specifically target AChE and BChE associated with AD pathology.” BUFFALO, NY — April 1, 2025 — A new research paper was published in Aging (Aging-US) on March 29, 2025, as the cover of Volume 17, Issue 3, titled “Differential senolytic inhibition of normal versus Aβ-associated cholinesterases: implications in aging and Alzheimer’s disease.” In this study, a research team from Dalhousie University, led by Sultan Darvesh, discovered that certain anti-aging ...

A research group led by Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan has uncovered a potential mechanism linking maternal inflammation to delayed neurodevelopment in infants. The research suggests the role of CD11c-positive microglia—immune cells in the brain crucial for myelination—during infant brain development. The results, published in Communications Biology, suggest new strategies to mitigate the long-term neurodevelopmental effects of maternal inflammation.  Inflammation during pregnancy occurs when the mother’s immune system becomes activated during pregnancy, typically due to an infection, autoimmune response, or environmental factors. ...

North America’s smallest falcon, the American Kestrel (Falco sparverius), has declined across the continent since the 1970s, yet the causes continue to stump raptor biologists. A new study published in the Journal of Raptor Research adds a piece to the puzzle with the discovery that in the Northeast, where declines are most alarming, fledglings demonstrate a relatively high survival rate. This paper, titled “Juvenile and Adult Survival Estimates of American Kestrels Throughout the Full Annual Cycle in Eastern North America,” is the first of its kind. No other study has assessed winter survival ...

Linoleic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid found in seed oils such as soybean and safflower oil, and animal products including pork and eggs, specifically enhances the growth of the hard-to-treat “triple negative” breast cancer subtype, according to a preclinical study led by Weill Cornell Medicine investigators. The discovery could lead to new dietary and pharmaceutical strategies against breast and other cancers. In the study, published March 14 in Science, the researchers found that linoleic acid can activate a major growth pathway in tumor cells by binding to a protein called FABP5. Comparing breast cancer subtypes, the team observed that this growth pathway activation ...

As of the end of 2023, nearly 40 million people worldwide were living with HIV, including approximately 1.2 million in the United States. In the same year, about 630,000 people globally died from AIDS-related illnesses. Although this is a significant decline from previous years, AIDS-related deaths remain a critical global health challenge. While antiretroviral therapy (ART) has improved the life expectancy of people with AIDS, a lack of effective diagnostics and disease management tools has hindered its global implementation. Only 59% of those in need have access to treatment, and about one in four people living with HIV are unaware of their status. Additionally, ...

Cardiac deaths increase significantly during compound heatwaves—heatwaves where temperatures are elevated both during the day and overnight—according to a new study in JACC, the flagship journal of the American College of Cardiology. The study also found that some types of heart disease are more sensitive to heatwaves than others and that different types of heatwaves may impact heart health in distinct, nonlinear ways. The research highlights the special risks of compound heatwaves ...

DALLAS, April 1, 2025 — A New York City-based physician scientist who explores ways to improve health by looking at the ways in which cells and molecules impact disease and an epidemiologist from Baltimore who has devoted her career to identifying ways to improve screening, diagnosis and patient care for people with diabetes are the most recent American Heart Association Merit Award recipients. Over the next five years, each researcher will receive a total of $1 million in funding from the Association, a global force changing the future of health for all. The American Heart Association’s Merit Award is one of ...

A study of the use of AI by a Russian-backed propaganda outlet shows how AI allows propagandists to increase their production capacity without any loss in persuasive power. In December 2023, journalists at the BBC and Clemson University’s Media Forensics Hub published an investigation revealing that the site DCWeekly.org was a Russian propaganda outlet, part of a broader network disseminating pro-Kremlin and anti-Ukrainian narratives. Morgan Wack and colleagues found that prior to September 20, 2023, much of the content on the site was simply lifted from other right-leaning outlets. After that date, however, the stories were generally rewritten by AI, allowing the site to use a broader ...