Tokyo, Japan –Did you know that we can track the journey of a drop of water through space and time? Water is made of hydrogen and oxygen, and sometimes these atoms are slightly heavier than usual. These heavier forms are called isotopes. As water evaporates or moves through the atmosphere, the amount of these isotopes changes in predictable ways. This can act as a fingerprint, allowing researchers to trace the movement of water at global scales. This information can then be used with hydrological modeling, allowing scientists to interpret extreme weather events, such as storms, flooding and droughts, ...

A research team has conducted a study to examine how shelterbelts influence bird species diversity and composition in an agricultural wetland landscape on the western coast of central Japan. They determined that shelterbelts, trees planted to protect the land from wind, in farmlands are not automatically beneficial for bird diversity. Their research is published in the Journal of Environmental Management on January 15, 2026. Many agri-environmental policies promote planting trees and hedgerows in farmland to enhance biodiversity. These woody features, called shelterbelts, are widely assumed to be beneficial. However, most of the evidence supporting their benefits comes from croplands ...

The dynamic analysis of lower limb biomechanics is crucial for understanding gait, posture, and load distribution, which are foundational for controlling assistive robots like exoskeletons and intelligent prostheses. Traditional methods, including invasive musculoskeletal measurements, while providing precise data, are costly, intrusive, and technically complex, limiting their widespread application. To overcome these limitations, noninvasive approaches, such as musculoskeletal multibody dynamics simulations (MMDS), have been proposed. These simulations combine data from noninvasive sensors like motion capture systems and force plates to ...

CLEVELAND—Case Western Reserve University researchers have made a significant breakthrough in understanding Barrett’s esophagus, a precancerous condition that dramatically increases the risk of developing esophageal adenocarcinoma, one of the fastest-spreading and deadliest forms of cancer. In a new study, they’ve discovered how inherited genetic abnormalities increase the chance of developing Barrett's esophagus by weakening the esophageal lining, making it more susceptible to harm caused by stomach bile acid. Barrett’s esophagus occurs when the normal lining of the food pipe (the tube connecting your mouth to your stomach) ...

WASHINGTON—The Endocrine Society is pleased to announce its Rare Endocrine Disease (RED) Fellows Series, a program designed to equip early career physicians with the knowledge and practical skills needed to improve outcomes for people living with rare endocrine diseases. The program was developed in partnership with the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) and addresses critical gaps in awareness, diagnosis and care of rare endocrine diseases. The program consists of two core components:   An ...

Researchers have significantly enhanced an artificial intelligence tool used to rapidly detect bacterial contamination in food by eliminating misclassifications of food debris that looks like bacteria. Current methods to detect contamination of foods such as leafy greens, meat and cheese, which typically involve cultivating bacteria, often require specialized expertise and are time consuming — taking several days to a week. Luyao Ma, an assistant professor at Oregon State University, and her collaborators from the University of California, Davis, Korea University and Florida State University, have developed a deep learning-based model for rapid detection and ...

Hunter-gatherers like the Hadza of Tanzania are famous for their egalitarianism. A resource redistribution experiment conducted with the Hadza suggests many tolerate inequality—as long as it benefits themselves. Duncan N.E. Stibbard-Hawkes, Kris M. Smith, and colleagues asked 117 Hadza adults to redistribute food resources between themselves and an unspecified campmate after receiving either advantageous or disadvantageous initial allocations. Unlike many previous redistribution experiments, participants ...

February 10, 2026 – Insilico Medicine (“Insilico”, 03696.HK), a clinical-stage biotechnology company driven by generative artificial intelligence (AI), China Medical System Holdings Limited (“CMS”, 867.HK/8A8.SG), an open-platform innovative company linking pharmaceutical innovation and commercialization with strong product lifecycle management capability, today announced a series of AI‑empowered drug discovery collaborations across multiple projects in the fields of central nervous system and autoimmune diseases. According to the collaboration agreement, the two ...

Labeling content as AI-generated does not make it less persuasive than human-authored or unlabeled content, according to a study. Isabel O. Gallegos and colleagues conducted a survey experiment with 1,601 Americans to test whether authorship labels affect the persuasiveness of AI-generated messages about public policies. Participants viewed an AI-generated message about one of four policy issues, including geoengineering, drug importation, college athlete salaries, and social media platform liability. Participants were randomly assigned to see the message labeled as created by an expert ...

Plastic pollution has become a major global environmental concern as modern societies rely increasingly on plastic products. Much of this plastic waste eventually reaches the ocean, with rivers acting as the main transport routes from urban, agricultural, and other landscapes, thereby affecting the lives of marine organisms. Over time, larger plastic items break down into smaller pieces known as microplastics (less than 5 millimeters) and mesoplastics (between 5 and 25 millimeters). These particles can spread ...

Real-time and early detection of minute changes in the functioning of the cardiovascular system is crucial for managing critically ill patients, such as newborns and older adults, and can significantly affect their outcomes. Heart rate variability (HRV) is the minute, yet normal, fluctuations between consecutive heartbeats, usually measured through the electrocardiogram (ECG). HRV is a well-established, quantitative, and noninvasive measure for assessing autonomic nervous system activity. However, despite its high value for patient monitoring ...

A study published in the journal PeerJ, conducted by a researcher from the Institute of Systematics, Evolution and Biodiversity (ISYEB) at the French National Museum of Natural History, in collaboration with a researcher from James Cook University in Australia, reveals that domestic animals are involved in the transport of an invasive flatworm species in France. Terrestrial flatworms (Platyhelminthes) are invasive species that primarily spread through the transport of plants, largely driven by human activities. However, one question remained unanswered: how do these very slow-moving animals manage to colonize ...

The increased size of, and lesser blood supply to, a key brain structure in patients with Long COVID tracks with known blood markers of Alzheimer’s disease and greater levels of dementia, a new study finds.  Led by NYU Langone Health researchers, the study concerns the choroid plexus (CP), a network of blood vessels lined by cells that produce cerebrospinal fluid, which cushions the brain and forms a protective barrier between the fluid and the bloodstream. The CP regulates immune system responses (inflammation) and waste clearance in the brain. Past studies show that the COVID-19 virus can damage the cells lining ...

When running a fever during infection, we often feel chills, which prompt us to take action to warm ourselves, such as turning on a heater or adding layers of clothing. Increased body temperature helps inhibit pathogen growth and boosts immune cell activity. A recent rat study by a Nagoya University team identified the neural mechanism underlying chills, a cold sensation that supports the body's response to infection. The findings were published in The Journal of Physiology. When mammals are infected, their immune system produces a pyrogenic ...

Benefits to society from coral reefs, including fisheries, tourism, coastal protection, pharmaceutical discovery and more, are estimated at about $9.8 trillion per year. For the first time, an international team led by Smithsonian researchers estimated the extent of coral bleaching worldwide during a global marine heatwave, finding that half of the world’s reefs experienced significant damage. Another heatwave began in 2023 and is ongoing. The analysis was published today in Nature Communications. It takes two partners to make a coral: a tiny animal related to a jellyfish that secretes the hard ...

Artificial intelligence could help doctors detect serious heart valve disease years earlier, potentially saving thousands of lives, a new study suggests. Researchers led by the University of Cambridge analysed heart sounds from nearly 1,800 patients using an AI algorithm trained to recognise valve disease, a condition that often goes undiagnosed until it becomes life-threatening. The AI correctly identified 98% of patients with severe aortic stenosis, the most common form of valve disease requiring surgery, and 94% of those with severe mitral regurgitation, where the heart valve doesn’t fully close and blood leaks backward across the valve. The technology, which works with ...

Our circadian clocks play a crucial role in our health and well-being, keeping our 24-hour biological cycles in sync with light and dark exposure. Disruptions in the rhythms of these clocks, as with jet lag and daylight saving time, can throw our daily functioning out of sync. University of California San Diego scientists are now getting closer to understanding how these clocks operate at their core. In the journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology, researchers based in UC San Diego’s Department of Molecular Biology (School of Biological Sciences) and Center for Circadian Biology, along with national ...

Oxidative stress is a direct consequence of an excess in the body of so-called “free radicals” – reactive, unstable molecules that contain oxygen. Free radicals are normal metabolic by-products and also help to relay signals in the body. In turn, oxidative stress (an overload of these molecules) can be caused by lifestyle, environmental and biological factors such as smoking, high alcohol consumption, poor diet, stress, pollution, radiation, industrial chemicals, and chronic inflammation. When this occurs, it creates an imbalance ...

Life on Earth started in the oceans. Sometime around 475 million years ago, plants began making their way from the water onto the land, and it took another 100 million years for the first animals with backbones to join them. But for tens of millions of years, these early land-dwelling creatures only ate their fellow animals, rather than grazing on greenery. In a new paper in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, scientists describe the 307-million-year-old fossil of one of the earliest known land vertebrates that evolved the ability to eat plants. “This is one of the oldest known four-legged animals to eat its veggies,” ...

A new study has shown that mindfulness helps patients to relax during an endoscopy, allowing doctors to carry out detailed examinations without the need for sedation or general anaesthesia. Researchers say mindfulness, combined with advanced endoscopy techniques and state-of-the-art digital technology, enables procedures to be done to a higher standard in awake patients than is currently possible under general anaesthesia or sedation. This means there is less chance of cancers being missed, with fewer associated complications, and less cost ...

10 February 2026 – London – The Blavatnik Family Foundation and The New York Academy of Sciences today announced the Finalists for the 2026 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the United Kingdom. The Awards recognise scientific advances by UK researchers across Life Sciences, Chemical Sciences, and Physical Sciences & Engineering.   On Tuesday, 24 February, Professor Deborah Prentice, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, will reveal the three 2026 Laureates at a gala dinner and awards ceremony in London. Now in its ninth year, each Blavatnik Awards Laureate will receive an unrestricted £100,000 (US$135,000) prize, while the remaining six Finalists ...

On the Great Plains of North America, bison were hunted for thousands of years before populations collapsed to near extinction due to overexploitation in the late 1800s. But long before then, bison hunters used various strategies and different types of sites, sometimes switching between sites. Now, researchers sought to understand why hunting stopped when bison continued to be present at the Bergstrom site in central Montana, where bison were hunted intermittently for around 700 years before the site fell into disuse. The results were published in Frontiers in Conservation Science. “We found that bison ...

Parents of children with medical complexity report that they rely on various medical devices for essential care of their kids at home, yet the processes of obtaining and using these devices are inadequate and often pose safety risks, according to a study from Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. Findings from interviews with parents were published in the journal Pediatrics. “Prior research has linked challenges with home device use to emergency ...

A research team from Nanjing University has developed an in-situ on-device electrochemical intercalation method to manipulate the structural and electronic properties of MoS2 thin flakes, resulting in a robust nonlinear Hall effect (NLHE) observable at room temperature. By intercalating cetyltrimethylammonium ions (CTA+) into the van der Waals (vdW) gap of MoS2, the inversion symmetry is broken and NLHE can be observed up to 300 K. This work provides a new approach for regulating NLHE and symmetry in 2D materials ...

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — They’re all around us: sensors and satellites, radars and drones. These tools form vast  remote sensing networks that collect data on the climate, the ground, the air, and the water. This information is immensely useful for research, conservation, and disaster preparedness. But, according to an interdisciplinary group of Earth science researchers in a paper led by Casey O’Hara of UC Santa Barbara, we’re only just scratching the surface of understanding just how beneficial Earth Science Information can be. “We’re trying to use the information we gather from all this instrumentation ...