TORONTO -- Integrating AI with advanced robotics to create self-driving labs (SDL) is a promising approach to tackling molecular discovery. A new SDL system, called LUMI-lab, combines large-scale molecular pretraining, active learning, and robotics, and has discovered that brominated lipids, not previously linked to mRNA delivery, enhance the efficiency of getting mRNA inside human cells. The study, led by researchers at the University of Toronto’s Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, was published today in Cell. LUMI-lab (Large-scale Unsupervised Modeling followed by Iterative experiments), supported by an AC Translation research grant from U of T’s ...

A new study has revealed how tiny imperfections and vibrations inside a promising quantum material could be used to control an unusual quantum effect, opening new possibilities for smaller, faster and more efficient energy-harvesting devices. The international team, led by Professor Dongchen Qi from the QUT School of Chemistry and Physics and Professor Xiao Renshaw Wang from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, studied the mechanism governing the so-called nonlinear Hall effect (NLHE). Unlike classical Hall effect, this quantum version allows alternating electrical signals, like those found in wireless or ambient ...

ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 24, 2026 – For the one in three (98 million) Americans living with prediabetes, a surprising fresh fruit pairing may hold promise for heart health. A new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association suggests that adding one avocado and a cup of mango to your daily routine may help support key markers of cardiovascular health. Adults with prediabetes who enjoyed this combination daily for eight weeks saw improvements in blood vessel function and diastolic ...

A clinical trial by researchers at Deakin University’s Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition (IPAN) in Melbourne, Australia, found that a daily serving of peanut butter significantly boosted muscle power in older adults. The findings were recently published in the international peer-reviewed Journal of Cachexia, Sarcopenia and Muscle (JCSM). The six-month study, known as the Capacity of Older Individuals after Nut Supplementation (COINS), was led by Dr. Sze-Yen Tan, associate professor and nutrition researcher, at Deakin University’s Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition. It involved 120 adults, ages 66 to 89, who were living independently in ...

“Here, we report profiles of circular RNAs annotated to mitochondrial chromosome, chrM, in young and old cohorts.” BUFFALO, NY — February 24, 2026 — A new research paper was published in Volume 18 of Aging-US on February 10, 2026, titled “Aging-associated mitochondrial circular RNAs.” Led by first author Hyejin Mun from the University of Oklahoma — with corresponding authors Je-Hyun Yoon from the University of Oklahoma and Young-Kook ...

A Dartmouth study challenges the conventional view that the amygdala—the two-sided structure deep in the brain involved in emotion, learning, and decision making—is simply the brain's primitive “fear center,” reflexively driving us to avoid the things we fear, from high places and tight spaces to spiders and large crowds. The researchers report in Nature Communications that the amygdala is far more complex, acting as a sophisticated arbiter to help the brain choose between competing strategies for learning and decision-making. “Historically, the amygdala ...

Initiative is one of multiple philanthropy-driven investments to equip the next generation with brain-healthy strategies. The University of Texas at Dallas has piloted the first-ever Brain Health Prize, a student competition to bring innovative ideas to improve brain health on campus. The winners were announced during a NextGen event kicking off BrainHealth Week 2026, which featured speakers Tessy Ojo, CBE, and Geoff Ling, MD, PhD, as well as a showcase of the top 20 student submissions. University of Texas System regent Christina Melton Crain, ESQ, awarded the inaugural prize. An Award with a Mandate The Brain Health Prize is a peer-to-peer ...

A key characteristic of modern human society is rapid urbanization, a process that can reshape natural environments and disrupt the habitats of many organisms. One widespread byproduct of urbanization is artificial light at night (ALAN), which has become one of the most pervasive human-made environmental disturbances. ALAN can affect animals by changing their physiology, behavior, and geographic distribution. In particular, it disrupts natural day–night cycles, circadian rhythms, predator–prey interactions, and reproduction across a wide range of species. Coastal ecosystems are especially vulnerable to artificial nighttime lighting and intense human activity. Many studies have shown ...

Understanding the connection between behavior and brain cell activity is a major goal of neuroscience. To make progress, neuroscientists often choose simple, transparent lab animals because it’s possible to see all their neurons fluoresce to indicate their electrical activity as the animals behave. But visibility isn’t enough. Precisely tracking each cell’s position and identity as the animals wiggle and warp during their complex movements is a huge challenge. In a new study in eLife, MIT neuroscientists debut three AI-infused tools to solve the problem. “In a live behaving animal, ...

Autophagy is indispensable for maintaining hepatocyte integrity, metabolic homeostasis, and survival. While several autophagy-related proteins have been studied in hepatic physiology, the specific role of Autophagy Related 14 (ATG14) in liver health has remained unclear. A new study published in eGastroenterology provides compelling in vivo evidence that ATG14 is a critical defender against hepatic injury, operating by suppressing multiple regulated cell death pathways.  ATG14 is indispensable for maintaining ...

New York, NY [February 24, 2026] — ChatGPT Health, a widely used consumer artificial intelligence (AI) tool that provides health guidance directly to the public—including advice about how urgently to seek medical care—may fail to direct users appropriately to emergency care in a significant number of serious cases, according to researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The study, fast-tracked in the February 23, 2026 online issue of Nature Medicine [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-026-04297-7], is the first independent safety evaluation of ...

Photos in the Quantum Engineering Lab at U-M Quantum sensors take sensitivity and accuracy to new levels, and even higher levels of precision are possible when quantum entanglement is used to connect them.  The University of Michigan is leading a $9 million project funded by the U.S. Office of Naval Research to develop methods for creating entangled networks of quantum sensors. Entanglement is promising for high-precision networking because it links particles through their quantum states, no matter the distance between them. Measuring ...

More than 350,000 chemicals are used worldwide, and many find their way into the ocean through plastic pollution. As plastics accumulate in coastal waters, they continuously leach bioactive additives that can interfere with the chemical cues marine animals rely on to find food, avoid predators, choose habitats and communicate. One such chemical, oleamide, is an industrial lubricant in plastics like polyethylene and polypropylene. As these plastics degrade, oleamide seeps into the water. But it’s not just industrial: oleamide is naturally produced by many organisms and influences sleep in mammals, acts as a pheromone in some marine species, and closely resembles ...

Night lights affect two marine crustaceans differently, helping explain which species will be found in which portion of Tokyo Bay, Japan, according to a study. Artificial light at night can affect the behavior, physiology, and ecological distribution of marine species. Daiki Sato sought to explore the effects of city lights on the ecosystem of Tokyo Bay, one of the world’s most intensely illuminated coastal regions. Sato specifically focused on two closely related nocturnal isopods, Ligia furcata and Ligia laticarpa. ...

Ribosomes are the components of cells that read RNA and build proteins. Without the ribosome, the chemistry of life would still be catalyzed by raw RNA. And yet the origin of the ribosome remains a mystery. In a Perspective, Michael Lynch and Andrew Ellington note that the ribosome, which creates all cellular proteins, is itself composed of multiple proteins. How, then, did the ribosome first come to be? The authors propose a proto-ribosome that began by assembling small molecules into useful products, such as short peptides. This proto-ribosome, the authors argue, was likely a viral parasite, which began by taking ...

American reports of individual well-being have remained relatively stable over decades, but confidence in the nation has sharply declined. James N. Druckman and colleagues analyzed long-term survey data from two National Science Foundation-supported infrastructure projects: the General Social Survey and the American National Election Studies. The analysis examined trends in economic satisfaction, health, happiness, satisfaction with democracy, affective polarization, political efficacy, and institutional confidence. The data showed that individual measures ...

Researchers have developed a tool for identifying children at risk of speech disorders, reducing unnecessary treatment for common speech errors that often resolve on their own.   The research, led by Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) in Melbourne and published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, identifies red flags to help guide speech therapy referrals. Additionally, the data confirms for the first time in more than two decades that speech errors are common and vary widely up to six years of age. For the study, 1179 participants aged 2-12 years were recruited from ...

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming healthcare and medical education. From enhancing diagnostic accuracy and clinical decision-making to enabling virtual simulations and personalized learning, AI technologies are becoming embedded in the daily practice of clinicians and trainees. Despite these benefits, concerns remain regarding ethical responsibility, data privacy, the loss of human autonomy, and potential job displacement. As AI continues to expand across medical systems worldwide, understanding how future physicians perceive and engage with these technologies is increasingly important. Attitudes ...

Industrial quality inspection plays a critical role in manufacturing, from ensuring the reliability of electronics and vehicles to preventing costly failures in aerospace and energy systems. Traditional vision-based inspection systems typically rely on Red, Green, Blue (RGB) cameras, which are fast and inexpensive but often miss defects related to geometry (scratches or dents), material structure, or heat dissipation. While additional sensors, such as thermal cameras or depth scanners, can reveal these hidden anomalies, effectively combining information from multiple sensors remains a major technical challenge. ...

A unique study imaging brain activity in children born with upper limb difference – for example, one hand – has shown the amazing ability of the brain to adapt to compensate and support their daily lives. The research, led by a team at the University of Cambridge and Durham University, reveals widespread changes in the brain as it devotes more resources to help the children adapt to the world around them. Our brains hold a map of the body in an area known as the somatosensory cortex, with different regions corresponding to different body parts. These maps are responsible for processing ...

Wastewater contains untapped resources that, if reclaimed, could power agriculture, global sanitation, and its own treatment to help us meet UN SDG goals, according to a review published today in Frontiers in Science.   Every year, we produce about 359 billion cubic meters of wastewater globally—enough to fill Lake Geneva four times over.   Half of global wastewater is discarded, with the rest expensively and ...

Animals don’t just see the world differently from one another, they experience time itself at dramatically different speeds. That is according to a new study that considered 237 species across the animal kingdom, and which revealed that how fast an animal lives and moves strongly predicts how quickly it can visually process the world around it. In research published in leading international journal Nature – Ecology & Evolution, scientists from Trinity College Dublin and the University of Galway show that species with fast-paced ecologies, such as flying animals and “pursuit predators”, which chase ...

The progressive rise in temperatures poses a growing threat to the staging of summer sporting events in Europe and, more specifically, to the Tour de France, due to the increasing risk of heat stress for athletes. This is one of the conclusions of a study published in Scientific Reports, which analysed climate data associated with more than 50 editions of the French race. The research was led by the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development (IRD) within the European project TipESM, in collaboration with institutions such as the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the Barcelona ...

For decades, scientists viewed the genome of a newly fertilised egg as a structural ‘blank slate’ – a disordered tangle of DNA waiting for the embryo to ‘wake up’ and start reading its own genetic instructions.  In research published today in Nature Genetics, Professor Juanma Vaquerizas and his team have found that a surprising level of structure is already in place. They’ve developed a breakthrough technology, called Pico-C, which enables scientists to see the 3D structure of the genome in unprecedented ...

Eating unhealthy foods early in life leave lasting brain and feeding changes but gut bacteria can help restore healthy eating, new University College Cork (UCC) research study finds today (Tuesday 24th February 10am) A high-fat, high-sugar diet during the early life period can cause long-lasting changes in how the brain regulates eating, even when the unhealthy diet is stopped and body weight is normalised, the researchers at APC Microbiome, a leading research institute, at UCC discovered. Children today are growing up in food environments saturated with high-fat, high-sugar options that are readily accessible and heavily promoted. ...