The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on student performance is well known, but four years after the pandemic, scores in college classes are not returning to their pre-pandemic levels.  A University of Mississippi study might point to an answer.   In a study published in a special issue of the Educational Sciences journal, three Ole Miss researchers found that student performance scores started a downward trend following COVID-19. Dozens of studies have documented the pandemic’s negative impact on education, but the Ole Miss team discovered evidence of a deeper problem.  “We were a little puzzled at first because if learning ...

Garett Sansom, DrPH, and Lindsay Sansom, PhD, with the Texas A&M University School of Public Health, have been named principal investigator and co-principal investigator of a new, one-year effort funded by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Gulf Research Program to evaluate soil conditions in two northeast Houston neighborhoods and foster community engagement by local residents. Both researchers have extensive experience with similar projects in Houston. Recent examples include a study of lead and other heavy metals in the soil in Houston’s Greater Fifth Ward and a study of the effects ...

The University of Chicago Press is honored to share that several articles in Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies have won prizes from major organizations. These three articles join a long list of recent award-winners from the journal, which is the flagship publication of the Medieval Academy of America (MAA) and a major international forum for medieval studies research. Winner of the 2025 MAA Article Prize in Critical Race Studies Borderland Anxieties: Lisān al-Dīn ibn al-Khaṭīb (d. 1374) ...

ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, today named Andrew G. Barto and Richard S. Sutton as the recipients of the 2024 ACM A.M. Turing Award for developing the conceptual and algorithmic foundations of reinforcement learning. In a series of papers beginning in the 1980s, Barto and Sutton introduced the main ideas, constructed the mathematical foundations, and developed important algorithms for reinforcement learning—one of the most important approaches for creating intelligent systems. Barto is Professor Emeritus of Information and Computer Sciences at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Sutton is a Professor of Computer Science at ...

When a wildfire approaches a prison and an evacuation warning is issued, what are the health risks that incarcerated people face when officials decide to not evacuate? What happens if the evacuation warning turns into a mandate and there are no transportation options to securely move everyone, or there are no nearby facilities to go to?  These are some of the issues raised by two University of Colorado Department of Medicine faculty members — Katherine LeMasters, PhD, and Lawrence Haber, MD — in a correspondence titled, “The Hidden Crisis of Incarcerated Individuals During Wildfires,” which was recently ...

The Ecological Society of America is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2025 Katherine S. McCarter Graduate Student Policy Award (GSPA). Students in the 2025 cohort are engaged in advocacy with an interest in science policy. Awardees will travel to Washington, D.C., for policy, communication and career training followed by meetings with lawmakers on Capitol Hill. “Kudos to these ten outstanding graduate students and scientists in training,” said ESA President Stephanie Hampton. “Their dedication to science policy is essential for bridging research and decision-making. By engaging with policymakers, they will help ensure that ecological science ...

Research Highlights: Teenagers who slept less than 7.7 hours in a sleep lab were observed to be almost three times more likely to have elevated blood pressure than well-rested peers. Those who reported insomnia and slept less than 7.7 hours in a sleep lab were five times more likely to have stage 2 hypertension when compared with well-rested peers. The study did not find a notable link between elevated blood pressure or stage 2 hypertension risk among adolescents who reported insomnia but slept 7.7 hours or more. Note: The study featured in this news release is a research abstract. Abstracts presented at the American Heart Association’s scientific ...

Research Highlights: The prevalence of cardiovascular disease risk factors varies greatly among Asian American, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander (AANHPI) populations, according to an analysis of electronic health records for more than 700,000 adults in California and Hawaii. The 10-year predicted risk of a major cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack, stroke or heart failure, also varied among the different groups. These results highlight differential risks and raise awareness for the importance of identifying and managing cardiovascular disease risk factors in high-risk populations, the researchers noted. Note: The study ...

Research Highlights: Higher levels of the minerals copper and manganese in pregnant women were associated with lower blood pressure and a reduced risk of developing high blood pressure decades later, according to a long-term study of women in Massachusetts. Higher levels of vitamin B12 were also associated with lower blood pressure in midlife. Note: The study featured in this news release is a research abstract presenting at the American Heart Association’s Epidemiology, Prevention, Lifestyle and Metabolic Health Scientific Sessions 2025, and the full manuscript is simultaneously published in the American Heart Association’s peer-reviewed journal Hypertension. Embargoed ...

People who consume plant-based oil instead of butter may experience beneficial health effects and even have a lower risk of premature death, according to a new study by investigators from Mass General Brigham, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. The researchers examined diet and health data from 200,000 people followed for more than 30 years and found that higher intake of plant-based oils, especially soybean, canola, and olive oil, was associated with lower ...

About The Study: In this cohort study, higher intake of butter was associated with increased mortality, while higher plant-based oils intake was associated with lower mortality. Substituting butter with plant-based oils may confer substantial benefits for preventing premature deaths.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Dong D. Wang, MD, ScD, email dow471@mail.harvard.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2025.0205) Editor’s ...

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. -- Butterflies are beloved creatures that inspire art and play an important ecological role, but you might have noticed less of them brightening your day in recent years. According to new research featuring faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York, these cherished insects are disappearing at an alarming rate. A new study published in Science examines butterfly data in the United States, and the results are troubling. Looking across 76,000 surveys, the study revealed that butterfly abundance fell by 22% between 2000 and 2020. To put it starkly: for every five butterflies in the U.S. ...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Transposons, or “jumping genes” – DNA segments that can move from one part of the genome to another – are key to bacterial evolution and the development of antibiotic resistance. Cornell University researchers have discovered a new mechanism these genes use to survive and propagate in bacteria with linear DNA, with applications in biotechnology and drug development. In a paper under embargo in Science until 2pm ET on March 6, 2025, researchers show that transposons can target and insert themselves at the ends ...

Researchers studying British Labrador retrievers have identified multiple genes associated with canine obesity and shown that these genes are also associated with obesity in humans. The dog gene found to be most strongly associated with obesity in Labradors is called DENND1B. Humans also carry the DENND1B gene, and the researchers found that this gene is also linked with obesity in people.   DENND1B was found to directly affect a brain pathway responsible for regulating the energy balance in the body, called the leptin melanocortin pathway.   An additional four genes associated with canine obesity, ...

The microbiome shapes development of insulin-producing cells in infancy, leading to long-term changes in metabolism and diabetes risk, new research in mice has found. The results could ultimately help doctors reduce the risk of type 1 diabetes—or potentially even restore lost metabolic function in adulthood—by providing specific gut microbes that help the pancreas grow and heal. The findings are published in Science.   The critical window Mice that are exposed to broad-spectrum antibiotics in early life have worse metabolic health in the long term, the researchers found. If the mice received antibiotics during a 10-day window shortly after birth, they developed ...

Butterflies are disappearing in the United States. All kinds of them. With a speed scientists call alarming, and they are sounding an alarm. A sweeping new study published in Science for the first time tallies butterfly data from more than 76,000 surveys across the continental United States. The results: between 2000 and 2020, total butterfly abundance fell by 22% across the 554 species counted. That means that for every five individual butterflies within the contiguous U.S. in the year 2000, there were only four in 2020. “Action must be taken,” ...

  Dogs are a compelling model of human obesity, in part because they develop obesity due to similar environmental influences as people. In a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of Labrador retrievers, researchers have identified an obesity-related gene – DENND1B – that may also influence obesity in humans. These findings highlight the value of using non-traditional animal models to study complex diseases and highlight the gene’s potential as a target for future obesity research across species. Obesity is a ...

  Butterfly populations across the United States are in alarming decline, according to a new study, with total abundance falling by 22% in just 20 years. Such widespread and worrisome losses portend broader environmental threats and emphasize the urgent need for conservation action. “Our national-scale findings paint the most complete – and concerning – picture of the status of butterflies across the country in the early 21st century,” write the authors. The decline of biodiversity has been extensively documented worldwide. Among these losses, the decline of insects is particularly ...

A new genomic study reveals how Indigenous traditional farming practices have shaped the evolution of manioc – one of the world’s most important staple crops – for the better. The domestication of plants and the rise of agriculture were transformative events in human history. Today, a few staple crops provide most human calories, including manioc (cassava or yuca), a vital root crop that sustains nearly a billion people across the tropics. Although it ranks as the world’s seventh most significant crop, manioc is primarily cultivated on small farms. The plant’s ...

Scientists at YOKOHAMA National University, in collaboration with RIKEN and other institutions in Japan and Korea, have made an important discovery about how electrons move and behave in molecules. This discovery could potentially lead to advances in electronics, energy transfer, and chemical reactions. Published in the Journal, Science, their study reveals a new way to control the distribution of electrons in molecules using very fast phase-controlled pulses of light in the terahertz range. Atoms and molecules contain negatively charged electrons that usually stay in specific energy levels, like layers, ...

Embargoed until 14:00 US Eastern Time, Thursday 6 March 2025  Tropical forests in the Americas are struggling to keep pace with climate change  Tropical rainforests play a vital role in global climate regulation and biodiversity conservation. However, a major new study published in Science reveals that forests across the Americas are not adapting quickly enough to keep pace with climate change, raising concerns about their long-term resilience.  The research, led by Dr. Jesús Aguirre-Gutiérrez from the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute (ECI), involved over 100 scientists ...

Researchers from The University of Texas at Arlington and the University of California–San Francisco have used a new brain-mapping technique to identify memory-related brain cells vulnerable to protein buildup, a key factor in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, an incurable, progressive brain disorder that slowly destroys memory and thinking skills. In Texas, nearly half a million people live with Alzheimer’s disease, a form of dementia that costs the state approximately $24 billion in caregiver time, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services. Texas ranks fourth in the nation for Alzheimer’s cases ...

A recently launched Phase 1 clinical trial at Mass General Brigham is examining the safety and feasibility of a groundbreaking treatment approach for Parkinson’s disease in which a patient’s stem cells are reprogrammed to replace dopamine cells in the brain damaged by the disease. The first-of-its-kind trial of an autologous stem cell transplant, based on research and technologies invented and validated preclinically at McLean Hospital’s Neuroregeneration Research Institute (NRI), has enrolled and treated three patients at Brigham and Women’s ...

Rocky Mountain spotted fever is a bacterial infection spread by biting ticks to humans and dogs. Found on every continent except Antarctica, the infectious disease has been spreading since the early 2000s, most notably in Mexico and Brazil. Of the cases reported, more than half of infected people and dogs die. A paper led by the University of California, Davis, highlights one of the most effective but often missing solutions to surviving this preventable, deadly disease: awareness. Most fatal cases stem from delays in diagnosis and treatment. “The No. 1 thing that prevents human death from Rocky Mountain spotted fever is for everyone at high risk to know ...

The prestigious journal Advanced Materials recently published a groundbreaking study introducing a new method for monitoring molecular processes deep within tissue. Developed at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, the innovation is expected to accelerate key advancements in personalized medicine, cancer diagnosis, and early disease detection. The research was led by Prof. Hossam Haick, postdoctoral fellow Dr. Arnab Maity, and Ph.D. student Vivian Darsa Maidantchik from the Wolfson Faculty of Chemical Engineering at the Technion. The study also involved Dr. Dalit Barkan, research assistant Dr. Keren ...