A new study led by researchers from the University of Liverpool has found that spikes in blood sugar after meals may increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease. Whilst research has long suggested that hyperglycaemia, diagnosed type 2 diabetes mellitus and insulin resistance strongly relate to worse brain health, specifically increasing the risk of cognitive decline and dementias, the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. Using data from the UK Biobank, the team analysed genetic data from over 350000 individuals aged between 40 and 69 years of age. They focused on markers of how ...

Media increasingly portray being single as an expression of people’s lifestyle, self-determination and empowerment, with expressions such as self-partnership, solo living, sologamy and singlehood dominating the discourse. At the same time, more and more young adults are opting not to engage in a committed romantic relationship. A research team led by the University of Zurich (UZH) has now investigated how being single long-term affects people’s well-being. The researchers drew on data from more than 17,000 young people in Germany and the United Kingdom who had no prior relationship experience at the start of the study. Participants were surveyed annually from the ages of ...

Researchers have developed a way to 3D print custom micrometer-sized structures directly into the interior of living cells. As reported in Advanced Materials, the investigators used their method to print complex microstructures in shapes including barcodes, geometric patterns, and even a tiny elephant. The breakthrough involves injecting a cell with a bio-compatible light-sensitive material called photoresist and then treating the cell with a special laser that polymerizes the photoresist into an intracellular structure with submicron resolution. A cell treated with this method not only contains the newly ...

In research published in Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, investigators developed a brief, reliable, and valid screening tool to help identify individuals with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (a neuromuscular disorder) who are at increased risk of brain-related comorbidities, such as language disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and anxiety. The research team developed the questionnaire-based screening tool, called the BIND (Brain Involvement iN Dystrophinopathies) screener, by reviewing the medical literature and incorporating expert consensus, ...

Luohan Guo (Siraitia grosvenorii), or monkfruit, is a perennial vine in the gourd family that has substantial antioxidant levels and is native to China. New research published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture provides insights into the active compounds of Luohan Guo and their health-promoting properties. A key characteristic of Luohan Guo is its richness in secondary metabolites, particularly terpenoids, flavonoids, and amino acids. Investigators identified these within the peels and pulps of four Luohan Guo varieties and determined how these metabolites interact with antioxidant receptors and other targets involved in various pathways that ...

A study in Economic Inquiry reveals how changes in immigration attitudes in an area spread to other localities and highlights the role of media language and social networks in shaping political attitudes. The work draws on the Associates Press’ switch in 2013 from recommending the term “illegal immigrant” to outright banning it. The Associated Press is a collaboration of thousands of newspapers, and the ban was not politically motivated but instead came as part of a broader language policy change that prohibited labeling people. Different newspapers across the United States rely on Associated Press material to varying degrees, and researchers found that people ...

Complaints such as pain in the Achilles tendon, tennis elbow, swimmer’s shoulder and jumper’s knee are familiar to many young sportspeople, as well as to older individuals. These conditions are all caused by overloading of tendons and are generally very painful. “Tendons are fundamentally susceptible to overuse,” explains Jess Snedeker, a professor of orthopaedic biomechanics at ETH Zurich and Balgrist University Hospital in Zurich. “They must withstand powerful loads, with all the forces of our muscles being concentrated to the relatively thin tendons that transmit these forces ...

A new paper in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, published by Oxford University Press, finds that common medications used for flea and tick control in dogs and cats may pose a significant environmental risk for insects in the wild. Isoxazoline antiparasitic drugs are a new type of medication used by veterinarians globally to treat companion animals for flea and tick control. First launched in 2013 they became popular because they were the first orally-administered drugs that worked against both fleas and ticks for a month or more. Dogs and cats eliminate the drugs through defecation. The European Medicines Agency has highlighted ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio (Jan 14, 2026)—Women aged younger than 45 years who experience menopause are at a higher risk of coronary heart disease and stroke. However, despite such diabetes-related risk factors as increased fat and insulin resistance occurring during menopause, a new large-scale study found no independent relationship between age or type of menopause and the onset of diabetes. Study results are published online today in Menopause, the journal of The Menopause Society. Natural menopause and menopause with a surgical cause have been associated with a higher risk of alterations in glucose metabolism in postmenopause. That led many researchers to theorize that early ...

Researchers at Kumamoto University have discovered that a purely inorganic crystal grown from water solution can emit circularly polarized light, a special form of light whose “handedness” distinguishes left from right. The finding opens a new pathway toward robust optical materials for security printing, advanced displays, and photonic technologies, using simple inorganic chemistry rather than complex organic molecules. Circularly polarized luminescence (CPL) occurs when a light-emitting material preferentially emits either left-handed or right-handed circularly polarized light. Until now, most CPL materials ...

Researchers have developed a novel framework, termed PDJA (Perception–Decision Joint Attack), that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to address a long-standing challenge in the security of multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) systems: how to effectively disrupt coordinated agents under realistic threat models. The new method improves both attack effectiveness and cross-layer vulnerability exploitation, opening new opportunities for evaluating the robustness of AI-driven autonomous systems such as robotics, traffic control, and distributed decision-making platforms. What’s New? In recent years, adversarial ...

When the four-member crew of Axiom-2 launched into space in May 2023 their 10-day mission was chock full of experiments aimed at understanding human physiology. Results from some of those experiments, now online at Aging Cell, highlight spaceflight as a unique model for studying aging as well as cellular resilience. The research sets the stage for testing potential anti-aging interventions for those of us who have no plans to travel in space. Spaceflight exposes astronauts to a combination of environmental stressors such as microgravity, ionizing ...

Photothermal therapy, as an emerging cancer treatment method, has attracted significant attention due to its advantages such as minimal invasiveness, low toxicity, and strong spatiotemporal control. It overcomes the limitations of traditional therapies, which often involve large wounds and systemic toxicity. Recently, a study published in Biofunctional Materials reported the successful development of a novel nanomaterial. This material demonstrates excellent photothermal conversion efficiency and good biocompatibility, showing promising potential as a long-lasting and highly effective photothermal agent in experiments, thus offering new possibilities for precise tumor treatment. Cancer ...

A mouse scurries up to six chestnuts. Three look healthy. Three have exit holes where moth larvae ate the insides before they left. What does the mouse do?  For two years, Nagoya University researchers watched wood mice make these decisions on a forest floor. They measured the time they spent selecting nuts and found that about half the mice observed spent about five seconds sniffing and comparing chestnuts before they chose, potentially increasing their exposure to predators. The other half grabbed the nearest nut and ran in one to two seconds. The study, published in Scientific Reports, confirms that mice use smell to detect ...

Curtin University researchers have demonstrated a new way to uncover the ancient history of Australia’s landscapes, which could offer crucial insights into how our environment responds to geological processes and climate change and even where deposits of valuable minerals may be found.   The international team led by Curtin’s Timescales of Mineral Systems Group at the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, in cooperation with the University of Göttingen and the University of Cologne, studied tiny crystals of zircon found ...

Helping women to keep their blood pressure at normal levels could reduce their risk of experiencing pregnancy complications, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Bristol. The research is published in BMC Medicine today [14 January]. Fernanda Morales-Berstein, Research Associate at the University of Bristol and the study’s lead author, said: “Our findings suggest that higher maternal blood pressure increases the risk of multiple adverse pregnancy outcomes, including preterm delivery, giving birth to smaller babies, needing to have labour induced, gestational diabetes and the baby needing to be admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit.” Maria ...

The postoperative complications of medical tourism may be costing the NHS up to £20,000 per patient, suggest the findings of a rapid review of the available data, published in the open access journal BMJ Open.   But data on the use, frequency, and consequences for the NHS are incomplete and haphazard, making it currently impossible to fully understand the risks of opting for surgery overseas, warn the researchers.   The number of medical tourists has risen steadily over the past several decades, ...

Smartphone apps—particularly those based on psychological theories—are 3 times as effective as no/minimal support at helping people who smoke stub out their tobacco use long term, suggests a pooled data analysis of the available evidence, published in the online journal BMJ Evidence Based Medicine.   If high quality clinical trials can confirm lasting benefits and key features, these apps could become a cornerstone of global tobacco control efforts, suggest the researchers.   Smartphone ...

Female sex and higher education are significantly linked to the escalating prevalence of obesity and overweight in Africa, finds one of the largest and most detailed analyses of body weight trends in the region, published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health.   Women’s odds of obesity in Africa are 5 times greater than those of men’s, while obesity is 3 times more likely in those with tertiary level education than in those with lower levels, the findings indicate.   The global prevalence of overweight and obesity has more than doubled over the past 4 decades. In 2022, 2.5 billion adults ...

**Embargo: 23.30 [UK time] / 6.30pm [US ET] Tuesday 13th January 2026**   Peer-reviewed / Systematic Review + Meta-analysis / People Moderate-intensity physical activity, such as walking at a an average speed of 5 km/h (3 mph) for an extra five minutes a day is associated with a 10% reduction in all deaths in the majority of adults [1] (who accumulate around 17 minutes of moderate-intensity activity on average), and around 6% of all deaths in the least active adults [2] (those who are active at this intensity on average for around 2 minutes a day), according to a new study published in The Lancet.    The ...

For the first time, researchers have used machine learning – a type of artificial intelligence (AI) – to identify the most important drivers of cancer survival in nearly all the countries in the world. The study, which is published in the leading cancer journal Annals of Oncology [1] today (Wednesday), provides information on which improvements or policy changes can be made in each country that would have the greatest impact on improving cancer survival. By going to the online tool created by the researchers, anyone can find ...

New findings from the University of East London show that online risk-taking is widespread among young people, with behaviours such as digital piracy, accessing risky online spaces or engaging with harmful content having a high potential to lead to more serious offenses.  Interviews with convicted cybercriminals in the UK and Switzerland revealed a diverse cohort spanning a wide age range and offence types, from hacking and digital fraud to sexual offences carried out online. Nearly half (47%) reported engaging ...

About 20% of U.S. adults experience major depression in their lifetime. For most people, symptoms improve within a few treatment attempts, but up to one-third of patients have treatment-resistant depression, for which standard antidepressant medication or psychotherapy isn’t enough. Now, a study shows that a small, implanted device may provide substantial, long-lasting relief to people with the most severe treatment-resistant depression. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. ...

A recent publication in Nature Medicine describes a novel immunotherapy targeting pancreatic cancer that has shown promising results in a first in-human phase 1/2 trial. The TACTOPS trial, which investigated the safety and clinical effects of autologous T cell therapy targeting multiple tumor antigens, was a collaboration between researchers at Baylor College of Medicine, the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center, the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, Texas Children’s Hospital and Houston Methodist Hospital. “We wanted to ...

Marsupials are a group of mammals that encompass many of Australia's most iconic animals, unique because of their geographically isolated evolution. Despite their household names, their microbiomes remain under-researched.   "Understanding marsupial gut microbiomes advances our knowledge of host-microbiome evolution, helps explain adaptations to challenging diets like eucalyptus, and supports conservation efforts for threatened species through improved health management,” says Kate Bowerman, a microbiologist at the University of Queensland (UQ) and co-author ...