A panel at the AAAS Annual Meeting organized by ASU's Arizona Water for All project is highlighting data showing that water insecurity is an expanding problem in high-income countries. Rural communities along the US-Mexico border, in Appalachia, and in Tribal nations are among those most affected, while urban areas show rising water quality violations and growing distrust of tap water.

Anne Stone, a Regents Professor at Arizona State University, is presenting research at the AAAS Annual Meeting showing how ancient DNA from tuberculosis specimens reveals the recurring ecological conditions that enable infectious diseases to jump species and spread globally. Her work traced multiple zoonotic spillovers from seals to pre-Columbian Americans, followed by near-complete strain replacement after European contact.

The Foundational Questions Institute awarded its 13th essay competition prize to two writers who independently argued that quantum biology has overlooked two promising experimental systems: viruses, which occupy the boundary between living and non-living, and human skin, a living interface between physics and biology. The $53,000 competition drew 97 eligible entries from six continents. Joint first prize of $15,000 each went to Connor Thompson of the University of British Columbia and Samuel Morriss, a physician in Melbourne, Australia.

Arizona State University researchers presented two technology-enabled interventions at the 2026 AAAS Annual Meeting targeting older adults who live alone with or at risk of cognitive decline. The I-PASS program uses wearable activity trackers and virtual coaching to increase physical activity - a known risk factor for Alzheimer's disease - among sedentary adults over 60. EPIC LA+ delivers six structured group Zoom sessions for people in early-stage dementia, with pilot data showing 100% retention and improvements in mood, communication, and care preparedness.

Researchers at Tokyo Metropolitan University studied 21 strains of Drosophila triauraria collected across Japan's latitudinal range and found that sensitivity to entering reproductive diapause varies smoothly with both day length and air temperature, rather than switching sharply between regional populations. Genetic sequencing using a monophyletic window approach identified differing expression of the timeless gene as a key factor in female diapause sensitivity, adding to evidence that circadian rhythm genes regulate seasonal dormancy in insects.

A three-part study of more than 100 kindergarten-age children found that five-year-olds default to treating snakes as different from other animals, and that negative language from parents or objectifying pronouns in storybooks reinforces that categorization. The research, published in Anthrozoös, also found that brief, positive educational exposure - showing snake behaviors and biological needs - was sufficient to shift children back toward treating snakes as animals like other animals, suggesting early attitudes are more malleable than they appear.

A Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center study in Genes and Development found that blocking a key protein forces chemo-resistant cancer cells into uncontrolled transcriptional activity that restores drug sensitivity. Separately, a $4 million National Cancer Institute trial is testing resilience-building tools for lymphoma survivors, while a new marine biomedicine partnership targets cancer-relevant compounds from ocean organisms and Superfund site environmental exposures.

A University of Utah study tracking actual web browsing behavior of 1,055 adults over four weeks found that only 13% visited even one low-credibility health website during the period, and such visits made up just 3% of all health-related browsing. But exposure was not evenly distributed: the top 10% of visitors accounted for more than three-quarters of all traffic to dubious health sites, with concentration notably higher among older adults and right-leaning individuals who navigated to these sites directly rather than through social media referrals.

The first national randomized trial of remote genetic services for childhood cancer survivors found that telehealth delivery, coordinated with primary care providers, raised genetic counseling and testing completion to 43% at six months - compared to 15% in usual care. Among those who completed testing in the telehealth group, 10% had actionable hereditary variants affecting surveillance and prevention decisions. Results were published in Lancet Regional Health - Americas.

A paper in the Lancet by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health argues that the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification's famine threshold - two deaths per 10,000 people per day - was calibrated to rural African settings and fails to detect mass starvation in other contexts. The Dutch Hunger Winter shows how child mortality can spike sevenfold without triggering the threshold. The authors call for context-specific standards and earlier indicators to shorten the lag between food crisis and humanitarian response.

Scientists have isolated a previously undescribed sulfate-reducing bacterium, Fundidesulfovibrio terrae, from paddy soil that can perform bidirectional extracellular electron transfer - pushing electrons out to and pulling electrons in from solid surfaces like electrodes and iron minerals. When supplied with electricity and carbon dioxide as its only carbon source, the bacterium converts the greenhouse gas into acetate via the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway, reaching concentrations above 11 millimolar. The findings appear in Energy and Environment Nexus.

Researchers at Penn State and the University of Minnesota Medical School found that chemically inverting a natural host-defense peptide - reversing both its backbone direction and its spatial handedness - produced a compound that was not only more stable against enzymatic degradation but significantly more potent against the bacteria that cause tuberculosis. The modified peptide also showed reduced toxicity to human cells, a combination the researchers did not anticipate.

A study mapping the full atmospheric nitrogen budget of China's Erhai Lake Basin found that the region emits more than 10,700 metric tons of reactive nitrogen annually while absorbing only a fraction back through deposition - creating a net annual surplus of over 8,200 metric tons. Agricultural sources, primarily livestock and fertilizer, account for more than 90% of ammonia emissions; vehicles account for nearly all nitrogen oxide output. The findings identify the basin as a significant regional exporter of nitrogen pollution.

A comprehensive review in Biochar X synthesizes current evidence showing that biochar - produced by heating biomass under low oxygen - can store carbon in soils for hundreds to thousands of years while also reducing nitrous oxide and methane emissions through changes in microbial chemistry. The authors identify a dual carbon sequestration mechanism and note that large-scale field studies show measurable benefits, but stress that feedstock type, pyrolysis temperature, and matching to specific soil conditions determine actual performance.

A study from Nara Institute of Science and Technology found that extracellular vesicles generated at cell-surface protrusions deliver active proteins and genome-editing enzymes dramatically more efficiently than the more commonly studied endosome-derived vesicles. Working without viral vectors, researchers loaded these protrusion-derived vesicles with Rac1 and the Cas12f CRISPR enzyme, achieving functional cargo delivery that significantly exceeded conventional vesicle performance on a per-protein basis.

The American Meteorological Society has issued a rapid response statement in reaction to the EPA's rescission of its 2009 Endangerment Finding, reaffirming that decades of scientific evidence from thousands of researchers across dozens of fields shows human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are harmful to people and ecosystems. The AMS states that the policy decision does not alter the underlying scientific conclusions, which have been validated by independent scientific institutions worldwide.

A Brazilian study tracking 4,280 adolescents and their guardians found that parental substance use raises the probability of adolescent use significantly - but parenting style substantially modifies that risk. Authoritative parenting, combining warmth with clear rules, reduced intergenerational transmission even in households where parents used alcohol, cigarettes, or marijuana. Parental abstinence remained the strongest single protective factor, with 89% of those adolescents reporting no substance use.

A research team at the University of Science and Technology of China has developed a palladium-catalyzed cascade cyclization method that assembles chiral nitrogen-bridged ring structures directly from simple, widely available starting materials. The approach achieves enantioselectivity up to 96% under mild conditions and demonstrates broad compatibility with different substrate variants, providing a faster and more flexible route to complex three-dimensional molecular scaffolds relevant to drug development.

A pilot study of 24 Cambodian, Filipino, and Latinx residents in Long Beach, California found that heightened immigration enforcement has produced widespread civic withdrawal - residents avoiding parks, government buildings, and city services. Even U.S. citizens report fear, stemming partly from concern for undocumented family members. The research identifies three barriers to civic engagement and recommends trauma-informed practices, community-based outreach, and collaborative design of city services.

A batch of new studies in American Meteorological Society journals documents a fourfold increase in tropical cyclones stalling near coastlines since 1982, links extratropical cyclones to a geographic southeastward drift in U.S. tornado activity, and finds that 23.8% of Northern Hemisphere grid cells have shown declining snow cover since 1980. Additional research examines how Hurricane Ida's extreme rainfall in the U.S. Northeast could become five times more likely by 2100.

New satellite-based research shows that Amazon regions where forest cover has dropped below 60% experience dry-season surface temperatures averaging 3 degrees Celsius higher than intact forest areas, with 25% less rainfall and 11 fewer rainy days annually. The findings, from a study covering the entire Brazilian Amazon, reinforce warnings that large-scale deforestation is pushing parts of the biome toward conditions characteristic of savanna.

A remote sensing framework developed by Brazilian researchers mapped frost damage across more than 700,000 hectares of corn in Parana state with 96% accuracy, finding that 70% of the second-harvest crop sustained losses during the severe 2021 frost event. The model, validated against insurance and government data, offers a faster alternative to field-by-field inspection for quantifying climate-driven agricultural losses.

Johns Hopkins researchers grew retinal tissue from fetal cells in the laboratory and observed the formation of the foveola - the tiny central retinal region responsible for half of human visual perception. They found that blue cone cells initially present in the foveola between weeks 10 and 12 of fetal development convert to red and green cones by week 14, driven first by retinoic acid suppression and then by thyroid hormone signaling. The findings, published in PNAS, challenge a 30-year-old model of how cone distribution is established.

A Penn State study of 71 non-trained consumers found that five organic acids widely used in food - lactic, malic, fumaric, tartaric, and citric - produce different sourness, puckering, and drying sensations even when tested at equal concentrations. Published in Food Quality and Preference, the work identifies three distinct consumer response patterns and finds that sour food preference is tied to dietary habits, not personality traits like risk-seeking.

At the AAAS Annual Meeting, Indigenous genomics expert Krystal Tsosie argued that the governance frameworks Indigenous peoples have used for generations - centered on accountability, consent, and long-term stewardship - offer practical models for the current wave of genomics expansion, AI infrastructure, and precision health data systems. She drew on uranium mining's multigenerational health consequences to illustrate what governance failures in science cost communities.