EMBARGOED FOR RELEASE UNTIL 4:00 P.M. ET, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2025 Highlights: Chronic insomnia—trouble sleeping at least three days a week for three months or more—could speed up brain aging. People with chronic insomnia were 40% more likely to develop dementia or mild cognitive issues than people without insomnia. Insomnia with perceived reduced sleep was associated with lower cognition comparable to being four years older. Better sleep isn’t just beauty rest—it might protect your brain health. MINNEAPOLIS — People with chronic insomnia may ...

Studies show that teacher turnover has a negative impact on students’ academic performance, but little is known about other ways that their departures affect student behavior. In a new study of New York City public schools, researchers found that teacher turnover is linked to higher rates of student suspensions and requests from teachers seeking disciplinary action, known as office disciplinary referrals (ODR). “Teacher turnover has generally been studied for its impact on student achievement, but there are a host of reasons to expect that turnover, which creates disruption and instability, would also lead to more disciplinary infractions and suspensions,” says lead author Luis ...

By Chris Woolston Aphids, grasshoppers and other bugs aren’t the only pests that can quickly wipe out a crop. Many harmful bacteria have evolved ways to bypass a plant’s defenses. A once-healthy tomato plant can quickly turn sick and blotchy, thanks to microscopic foes armed with an arsenal of tricks. In a recent study, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have identified a tool that helps the bacteria Pseudomonas syringae turn a plant’s fundamental biology against itself. The findings, recently published in the prestigious journal mBio, could eventually lead to new approaches to protecting crops, said co-author Barbara Kunkel, ...

Female treefrogs prefer a mate with an impressive call, but the crowded environments give unattractive males an edge, according to a new international study led by Assistant Professor Jessie Tanner of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. When choosing among only two males, female gray treefrogs pick the mate with faster and more regular calls. Faced with four or eight types of calls, however, their choices were inconsistent, according to the study recently published in the biological sciences journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. In the wild, frogs usually are choosing mates in noisy, crowded environments called choruses, with many males calling at the same ...

Key Takeaways Penn researchers built a light-based crystal “tunnel” that forces light to move one way, even around bumps, bends, and defects. By driving the crystal with circularly polarized light, the team created a protected topological channel that keeps light on course. The discovery points toward sturdier lasers, smarter optical chips, and future devices that could safeguard quantum information. Relaying a message from point A to B can be as simple as flashing a thumbs-up at a stranger in an intersection, signaling them to proceed—nonverbal, clear, and universally understood. ...

MINNEAPOLIS/ST. PAUL (09/10/2025) — New research from the University of Minnesota Medical School is providing important insights into how COVID-19 persists in cancer patients even long after testing positive. The findings were recently published in iScience. During a peak of COVID-19 in 2020, there was concern around cancer patients who had contracted COVID-19 and developed severe inflammatory reactions that looked similar to autoimmune conditions. To better understand this phenomenon, researchers studied three cancer patients ...

Tiny metal figurines from Sardinia's Nuragic civilization in around 1,000 BC reveal extensive ancient Mediterranean metal trading networks Article URL: http://plos.io/45QCTPq Article title: Multiproxy analysis unwraps origin and fabrication biographies of Sardinian figurines: On the trail of metal-driven interaction and mixing practices in the early first millennium BCE Author countries: Germany, Denmark, Italy Funding: Grant agreement 23–1869 to HV, MKH, GS. Augustinus Foundation funding the Metals & Giants project. https://augustinusfonden.dk/en The foundation played no role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation ...

Natural microfibers may degrade differently to synthetic materials under simulated sunlight exposure in freshwater and seawater conditions, with implications for how such pollutants affect aquatic life Article URL: http://plos.io/3HS46t5 Article title: Structural evolution of microfibers in seawater and freshwater under simulated sunlight: A small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering study Author countries: Italy, Austria Funding: This work was partially funded by the European Union – Next Generation EU, Project Code: ECS00000041, Project Title: Innovation, Digitalization and Sustainability for the Diffused Economy in Central Italy ...

Indian new mums report better postpartum wellbeing when their own mum acts as their primary support - while women whose mother-in-law is the primary caregiver instead report significantly lower overall wellness Article URL: https://plos.io/45Sz6RO Article title: Investigating the role of family members in postnatal care: Evidence from mother-caregiver dyads in India Author countries: U.S., India Funding: The author(s) received no specific funding for this work. END ...

Educational attainment and intelligence, and to a smaller extent parental education and father’s occupational class, are associated with midlife socioeconomic status, according to a new study published September 10, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Erik Lykke Mortensen of University of Copenhagen, Denmark. Socioeconomic status (SES)—a measure of individual differences in access to material and social resources—has long been linked with health, morbidity, and cognition. Previous studies ...

Northeastern and Midwestern residents tend to have higher physical, social, and financial—i.e., “traditional”—wellness, while Southern residents have higher “existential” wellness, involving a sense of purpose and community identity, per an analysis of survey data from more than 325,000 U.S. residents. David Samson of the University of Toronto, Canada, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS One on September 10, 2025. A growing body of research explores factors that may be linked with traditional and existential wellness. Many such factors, such as healthcare ...

In a three-year study involving  more than 5,000 residents of Israel before and after the mass traumatic events of October 7, 2023, those who watched extensive media coverage of the attacks were found to be more likely to develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Prof. Erez Shmueli and Prof. Dan Yamin of Tel Aviv University and Wizermed LTD,  in collaboration with colleagues from Tel Aviv University and Stanford University present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS Mental ...

Dogs reportedly became harder to train as the pandemic progressed, though this seemed to improve by the time it was ending, according to a study publishing September 10, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One by Courtney Sexton of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, U.S., Yuhuan Li of the University of Washington, U.S., and colleagues. Understanding dog behavior can help owners to improve their relationships with their pets and to monitor their health and welfare. To investigate general patterns of dog behavior, researchers analyzed data from a survey completed ...

The withdrawal of U.S. funding for tuberculosis could lead to up to 2.2 million additional deaths between 2025 and 2030 inclusive, per modelling study across 26 high-burden TB countries.   Article URL: https://plos.io/423TG0g Article Title: A deadly equation: The global toll of US TB funding cuts Author Countries: Switzerland, United States Funding: The authors received no specific funding for this work. END ...

An unusual therapy developed at The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) could change the way the world fights influenza, one of the deadliest infectious diseases. In a new study in Science Advances, researchers report that a cocktail of antibodies protected mice—including those with weakened immune systems—from nearly every strain of influenza tested, including avian and swine variants that pose pandemic threats. Unlike current FDA-approved flu treatments, which target viral enzymes and can quickly become useless as the virus mutates, this therapy did not allow viral escape, even after a month of repeated exposure in animals. That difference could prove crucial in future outbreaks, when ...

For many children, the transition from learning to read to reading to learn is a crucial and sometimes nerve-wracking milestone. Reading aloud in class is intended to foster fluency and confidence, but for many students, it may spark anxiety that can hinder literacy development well into adulthood. In response to this challenge, PhD student Lauren Wright led a team of researchers—including collaborators from the University of Chicago, University of Illinois Chicago, and University of Wisconsin–Madison—through an innovative study to explore how technology might assist children in learning contexts where anxiety can be a barrier. This work emerged from Assistant Professor ...

Maintaining an open airway is a critical priority in emergency medicine. Without the flow of oxygen, other emergency interventions can become ineffective at saving the patient’s life. However, creating this airway through endotracheal intubation is a difficult task for highly trained individuals and under the best of circumstances. In the field and in the ER, where seconds matter, emergency medical personnel face many unknowns and wildly challenging conditions which lower their chances of success.   But what if successful endotracheal intubation could be less reliant on ideal conditions and years of specialized training? In a paper published in the journal ...

Study has revealed new insights into Stone Age life and death, showing that stone tools were just as likely to be buried with women and children as with men. The discovery, from Zvejnieki cemetery in northern Latvia, one of the largest Stone Age burial sites in Europe, challenges the idea that stone tools were strictly associated with men. The site was used for more than 5,000 years, and contains over 330 graves, but until now, stone artefacts found in burials had not been studied, with stone tools at Zvejnieki and ...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, September 10, 2025 Contact: Gina DiGravio, 617-358-7838, ginad@bu.edu Protein Found in the Eye and Blood Significantly Associated with Cognition Scores May serve as a biomarker for the detection of mild cognitive impairment, early dementia (Boston)—Neurocognitive impairments are classified by pathological changes with potential for destruction of neural tissue. One change known to occur in neurodegenerative disorders is an accumulation of proteins causing pathological damage.   While prior reports have suggested a link between Slit Guidance Ligand 2 (SLIT2) protein levels and late-onset ...

Key takeaways: Hormones matter for the voice: Falling estrogen and progesterone during menopause can cause hoarseness, vocal fatigue and instability, with major impact on singers, teachers, actors and other voice professionals. An overlooked women’s health issue: Many women with vocal changes are dismissed or misdiagnosed, underscoring the need for stronger collaboration between gynecologists and voice specialists. Promising new solutions: From AI-powered voice biomarkers to hormone therapy and vocal fold injections, innovative approaches are emerging to detect and treat menopause-related ...

Artificial intelligence is changing how we shop online, but when it comes to selling products through livestreams, humans still have the edge. A new study from the UBC Sauder School of Business shows that AI-powered “digital streamers”—virtual salespeople who appear in livestreams to promote products—don’t perform as well as human streamers. In fact, they barely outperform having no streamer at all. “People assume that if businesses are using digital streamers, they must be doing well. But they aren’t, at least not in their current incarnation,” said UBC Sauder associate professor Dr. Yanwen Wang, a co-author ...

A quicker, cheaper MRI scan was just as accurate at diagnosing prostate cancer as the current 30-40 minute scan and should be rolled out to make MRI scans more accessible to men who need one, according to clinical trial results led by UCL, UCLH and the University of Birmingham. The PRIME trial, funded by the John Black Charitable Foundation and Prostate Cancer UK, and published in JAMA, confirms that a two-part MRI scan is just as effective at diagnosing prostate cancer, whilst cutting scan time to just 15-20 ...

Strict embargo: not for publication or external distribution until 10 September 2025 at 16:00 (London time), 10 September 2025 at 11:00 (US Eastern Time)  For centuries, astronomers have puzzled over the origins of one of the universe’s oldest and densest stellar systems, known as globular clusters. Now, a University of Surrey-led study published in Nature has finally solved the mystery using detailed simulations – while also uncovering a new class of object that could already be in our own galaxy.   Globular ...

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- A new study from MIT neuroscientists reveals how rare variants of a gene called ABCA7 may contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s in some of the people who carry it. Dysfunctional versions of the ABCA7 gene, which are found in a very small proportion of the population, contribute strongly to Alzheimer’s risk. In the new study, the researchers discovered that these mutations can disrupt the metabolism of lipids that play an important role in cell membranes.  This disruption makes neurons hyperexcitable and ...

About The Study: In this retrospective cohort study of pediatric in-hospital cardiac arrest in a large, national, administrative dataset, children of racial and ethnic minority groups receiving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) had higher odds of in-hospital mortality. In addition, the odds of in-hospital mortality among children receiving CPR were higher at hospitals with the highest proportion of Black patients. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Amanda J. O’Halloran, MD, MSHP, email ohallorana@chop.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this ...