UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — As the frequency and intensity of heatwaves increase across the U.S., a similar but more striking phenomenon is occurring in American rivers. Analysis of data from nearly 1,500 sites in the contiguous United States between 1980 and 2022 revealed that heatwaves in rivers are accelerating faster than and lasting nearly twice as long air heatwaves, according to a new study by researchers at Penn State.   “Rivers are often thought of as safe and cool havens protected from extreme temperatures,” said Li ...

STRICTLY EMBARGOED UNTIL 8PM UK TIME (3PM EASTERN TIME) ON MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 22   Hidden in plain sight, dried fish are an overlooked yet vital nutrient-packed superfood helping to feed millions of people across Africa, a new study reveals. And new evidence quantifies for the first time the essential nutrients in sun-dried and smoked fish in Africa, suggesting they could play an important role in tackling malnutrition across the tropics – provided the right policies are in place, researchers argue. Dried fish are an affordable and readily available food across the tropics. Yet despite this prevalence, because they are often ...

Tune into American politics today, and you'll hear something far more sinister than simple disagreement. The language has escalated: political parties trash talk each other—blaming rival parties for policy failures or even for causing incidents with national implications. And reducing polarization and "partisan animosity"—the distrust and hatred of the other party—is remarkably difficult, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences evaluating past attempts. The research was led by the Polarization ...

To the point: Conifers use resin to protect themselves against pests. This resin contains diterpenes, which are defensive substances.  Some of these diterpenes originated over 300 million years ago, before conifers evolved. Other diterpenes developed independently in different conifer species much later, presumably to protect against bark beetles. This repeated evolution was only possible because enzymes that produce diterpenes had previously undergone changes that unlocked evolutionary pathways towards certain substances. This is based on a mechanism called “epistasis”, which allows new traits to evolve once preparatory ...

Endocannabinoids are similar to the cannabinoids present in cannabis, but they are found naturally in the body. Endocannabinoids—and cannabinoids—work through a signaling system that supports neurodevelopment, but whether manipulating this system prenatally has long-lasting effects remains unclear. In a new JNeurosci paper, researchers led by Ismael Galve-Roperh, from the Complutense University of Madrid, used mice to explore this unknown.  The researchers decreased expression of an endocannabinoid receptor in the prefrontal cortex of prenatal mice and assessed the impact of this manipulation on gene expression, ...

In a collaboration between Turun yliopisto and the University of Turku, researchers led by Birgitta Paranko and Lauri Nummenmaa explored the immediate effects of bullying on the brain.  As reported in their JNeurosci paper, the researchers measured neural and attentional responses while tweens (aged 11 to 14) and adults watched first-person videos of either people being bullied or more positive social interactions. For participants of all ages, bullying triggered distressful alarm states, activating social and emotional brain networks as well as autonomic threat response systems. Measuring eye-tracking responses and pupil sizes in a separate group of adults during video viewing supported ...

Australian researchers have revealed a clear relationship between stress and increased disease risk in koalas in South East Queensland and on the New South Wales North Coast. A study led by Dr Michaela Blyton at The University of Queensland measured and tracked the level of koala retrovirus (KoRV) in groups of captive and wild koalas. “We wanted to see what happened to their KoRV loads over time and how it related to chlamydial infection and levels of the stress hormones cortisol and corticosterone in their faeces,” Dr Blyton said. “Virus load likely weakens the immune system, so those ...

DALLAS, Sept. 22, 2025 — Daniel T. Lackland, Dr.P.H., FAHA, professor of epidemiology and neurology at the Medical University of South Carolina, will receive this year’s Population Research Prize at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2025. The meeting, to be held Nov. 7-10, 2025, in New Orleans, is a premier global exchange of the latest scientific advancements, research and evidence-based clinical practice updates in cardiovascular science. Dr. Lackland will be presented with the award during the Presidential Session on Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025. Dr. ...

-. The year 2024 broke several temperature records: it was the hottest ever recorded, and its summer was also the warmest to date. A study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the ”la Caixa” Foundation, has estimated that 62,775 heat-related deaths occurred in Europe between 1 June and 30 September of that year. These mortality figures are 23.6% higher than the approximately 50,800 estimated for the summer of 2023, and 8.1% lower than the nearly 67,900 estimated for the summer of 2022. These results have ...

About The Study: In this systematic review and meta-analysis, an increase in alcohol consumption per capita was associated with an increase in the suicide mortality rate at the population level and that the association was similar across sexes. As such, alcohol consumption per capita may be a useful target to consider within comprehensive national suicide prevention strategies. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Shannon Lange, PhD, email shannon.lange@camh.ca. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this ...

About The Study: The findings of this study underscore the need for routine and consistent screening, monitoring, and treatment of perinatal depression and anxiety. Women who received mental health services had faster reductions in depression over time, highlighting the potential impact for scalable and efficacious interventions during this critical period. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Nili Solomonov, PhD, email nis2051@med.cornell.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our ...

(Toronto, September 22, 2025) JMIR Publications, a leading open access publisher of digital health research, today announced the publication of a scientific news article that marks the formal launch of its "News & Perspectives" section. The article, "Research Implications of Increased Political Oversight in the US," was written by Scientific News Editor, Kayleigh-Ann Clegg, PhD, who will be coordinating the development of JMIR Publications’ digital health news service. Dr. Clegg's ...

Pea-sized brains grown in a lab have for the first time revealed the unique way neurons might misfire due to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, psychiatric ailments that affect millions of people worldwide but are difficult to diagnose because of the lack of understanding of their molecular basis.   The findings may eventually help doctors reduce human error when addressing those and other mental health disorders that currently can only be diagnosed with clinical judgement and treated with trial-and-error medication approaches.   Details about the insights appear today in APL Bioengineering.   “Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are ...

Despite being at war since February 2022, Ukraine has managed to maintain public services. A new study from Linköping University points to the collaboration between citizens and public authorities as a key factor in this. According to the researchers behind it, there are lessons to be learned for other countries should war or crisis come. “Everyone, right down to the family and the individual, makes crucial decisions in times of deep crisis. It’s important that all actors are mobilised, ...

Background and objectives While metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD) is associated with obesity, the cause of its rapidly rising prevalence is not well understood. In this study, we aimed to examine the association between arsenic exposure and MASLD in humans. Methods Urinary inorganic arsenic data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 2011–2020, were used. These were combined with death certificate data from the National Death Index of the National Center for Health Statistics to ascertain mortality rates. Weighted linear regression and chi-squared ...

New York, NY –September 22, 2025 – The Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation and an international consortium of leading IBD researchers, today announced the launch of the Global IBD Registry (GLIDE), a pioneering initiative designed to securely connect data from inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) registries around the world. GLIDE will establish an integrated global research platform, enabling international researchers to analyze patient data at an unprecedented global scale while upholding the necessary standards in privacy and data sovereignty. Through secure, ethical international collaboration, GLIDE will accelerate insights into complex and unresolved ...

DALLAS, Sept. 22, 2025 — Five students and five schools have been awarded special incentive prizes as part of a collaboration between the American Heart Association, devoted to changing the future to a world of healthier lives for all, and the National Football League (NFL) Foundation to encourage young people to learn Hands-Only cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Students who participated in the Association’s in-school programs, Kids Heart Challenge™ and American Heart Challenge™, during the 2024-25 school year and learned Hands Only CPR were eligible for incentive prize drawings ...

Access to respite services for family caregivers increases a palliative care patient’s probability of dying at home almost threefold, according to a McGill University-led study. Previous surveys suggest most Canadians with a serious illness would prefer to spend the end of their lives at home. In Quebec, fewer than one-in-10 palliative care patients die at home, a rate that has remained largely unchanged for two decades and lags behind the Canadian average of 15 per cent. Funded by Quebec’s health ministry as part of its action plan for equitable access to quality palliative and end-of-life care, the study set out to find which ...

Despite being one of the most familiar substances on Earth, water holds many secrets that scientists are still working to understand. When confined to extremely small spaces—such as within certain proteins, minerals, or artificial nanomaterials—water behaves in ways that are drastically different from its bulk liquid form. These confinement effects are critical for many natural and technological processes, including regulating the flow of ions through cell membranes and the properties of nanofluidic systems. One intriguing yet poorly understood state of ...

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Scientists analyzed the distribution of three potentially harmful tick species in Illinois, identifying regions of the state with higher numbers of these ticks and, therefore, at greater risk of infection with multiple tick-borne diseases. The study found that, of the three species tracked, the lone star tick, Amblyomma americanum, is most prevalent in southern Illinois; the black-legged tick or deer tick, Ixodes scapularis, is more common in northern and central Illinois; and the dog tick, Dermacentor variabilis, dominates the central and ...

GLENVIEW, IL— The American College of Chest Physicians (CHEST) has been recognized as a Power of Associations Silver Award winner by the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) for two of its successful initiatives. CHEST’s First 5 Minutes®: Cultural Humility modules earned the Power of Conscious Inclusion Award, and the CHEST Community Connections program received the Power of Community Support Award. The Power of Conscious Inclusion Award recognizes associations that advance equity and inclusion across workforce, governance, operations, ...

Ice can dissolve iron minerals more effectively than liquid water, according to a new study from Umeå University. The discovery could help explain why many Arctic rivers are now turning rusty orange as permafrost thaws in a warming climate. The study, recently published in the scientific journal PNAS, shows that ice at minus ten degrees Celsius releases more iron from common minerals than liquid water at four degrees Celsius. This challenges the long-held belief that frozen environments slow down chemical reactions. “It may sound counterintuitive, but ice is not a passive frozen block,” says ...

A study published today in Nature Structural & Molecular Biology is the first time researchers have shown evidence that a single drug, already licensed for medical use, can stabilise nearly all mutated versions of a human protein, regardless of where the mutation is in the sequence.  The researchers engineered seven thousand versions of the vasopressin V2 receptor (V2R), which is critical for normal kidney function, creating all possible mutated variants in the lab. Faulty mutations in V2R prevent kidney cells from responding to the hormone vasopressin, leading to the inability to concentrate urine and resulting ...

Diamonds from South Africa’s Voorspoed mine have revealed the first natural evidence of nickel-rich metallic alloys forming deep in Earth’s mantle, between 280–470 km. A new study reveals that these inclusions coexist with nickel-rich carbonates, capturing a rare snapshot of a “redox-freezing” reaction whereby oxidized melts infiltrate reduced mantle rock. The growing diamond trapped both reactants and products of a diamond-forming reaction. This finding not only confirms long-standing predictions about mantle redox conditions but also highlights how such ...

The artificial intelligence models that turn text into images are also useful for generating new materials. Over the last few years, generative materials models from companies like Google, Microsoft, and Meta have drawn on their training data to help researchers design tens of millions of new materials. But when it comes to designing materials with exotic quantum properties like superconductivity or unique magnetic states, those models struggle. That’s too bad, because humans could use the help. For example, after a decade of research into a class of materials that could revolutionize quantum computing, called quantum spin liquids, only a dozen material candidates have ...