During a baby’s early months, the brain is developing rapidly. Billions of neural connections form, expand, and are pruned back, shaped by genetics, the environment, and timing. Though brain development continues throughout life, the early months are critical, particularly when it comes to interactions between a parent and child. What could scientists learn from high-quality brain function data during infancy? With a new $2.3 million, four-year grant from the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, part of the National ...

PULLMAN, Wash. — College students who binge drink may be acting on influences they brought from home, a new Washington State University-led study suggests. A recent survey shows that students who binge drink more than other students tend to have grown up in a home with more permissive attitudes toward drinking. Those students are also more likely to join Greek-affiliated organizations like fraternities or sororities. In a study published in the journal Behavioral Sciences, researchers surveyed parents and students about drinking attitudes ...

CHICAGO – Ultrasound can aid in treating complications from cosmetic filler injections, according to research being presented this week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). Cosmetic fillers are injectable substances used to improve the appearance of facial features by adding volume, smoothing wrinkles and enhancing contours. The most common cosmetic filler is hyaluronic acid. Cosmetic filler procedures have been growing in popularity. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, in 2024, there were more than ...

Human gene maps contain major blind spots because they were built largely from the DNA sequences of people with European ancestry, according to a study published today in Nature Communications.  Researchers uncovered thousands of missing transcripts (the RNA molecules that carry a gene’s instructions) in people from populations in Africa, Asia and the Americas, possibly including products of entirely new genes that scientists have yet to discover. Some of ...

Catalysts play a vital role in modern society, supporting processes from metallurgy to pharmaceutical production. To reduce environmental impact and maximize efficiency, science has pushed the boundaries between homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis toward single-atom catalysts. However, working with individual atoms poses enormous challenges: it is difficult to overcome their tendency to aggregate into clusters, especially at temperatures above cryogenic levels, and it is complex to arrange them precisely in specific chemical environments.   An international team of researchers from Istituto ...

Researchers at the Mark and Mary Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute (Stevens INI) at the Keck School of Medicine of USC have identified a previously unknown pattern of organization in one of the brain’s most important areas for learning and memory. The study, published in Nature Communications, reveals that the CA1 region of a mouse’s hippocampus, a structure vital for memory formation, spatial navigation, and emotions, has four distinct layers of specialized cell types. This discovery changes our understanding of how ...

Observations with the instrument SPHERE at ESO’s Very Large Telescope have produced an unprecedented gallery of “debris disks” in exoplanetary systems. Gaël Chauvin (Max Planck Institute for Astronomy), project scientist of SPHERE and co-author on the paper publishing the results, says: “This data set is an astronomical treasure. It provides exceptional insights into the properties of debris disks, and allows for deductions of smaller bodies like asteroids and comets in ...

URBANA, Ill. — Farmers plant or preserve riparian buffers for various reasons, such as improving water quality, controlling erosion, or maintaining hunting habitat. Now, a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign underscores the benefits of riparian buffers to terrestrial biodiversity, finding that for every 10% increase in forest cover, an additional species is present.  “We found raccoon and common snapping turtle DNA all over the place,” said senior study ...

December 3, 2025 – In-flight cardiac arrest is extremely rare, yet catastrophic, and responsible for up to 86% of all deaths in the air. A new comprehensive literature review highlights systemic and policy shortcomings of current aviation safety standards, calling for global alignment. Recommendations include regulated and mandated automated external defibrillators (AEDs) on board, standardized cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) protocols training, and integration of telemedicine. The article in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, published by Elsevier, aims to inform policy regulators, airlines, and international aviation ...

As demand for safe, low-cost and grid-scale storage keeps climbing, aqueous Zn–I2 batteries attract intense attention yet are dogged by polyiodide shuttling and sluggish iodine conversion. Now, researchers from Beijing University of Chemical Technology and Beijing Institute of Technology, led by Prof. Yi Zhao, present a catalytic cathode that finally tames these twin problems. Their three-dimensional carboxyl-carbon-nanotube-wrapped polyaniline (C-PANI) realises a direct I⁰/I⁻ redox, delivering ...

As electromagnetic (EM) pollution intensifies worldwide, developing high-performance EM wave absorbing materials (EWAMs) becomes critical. Researchers from Harbin Institute of Technology, led by Prof. Yunchen Du, have proposed a groundbreaking strategy to fabricate directional 3D macroporous carbon foams decorated with WC1-x nanoparticles via salting-out protein assemblies from egg white. This work pioneers a simple yet scalable route to construct anisotropic carbon-based EWAMs without relying on conventional unidirectional freezing ...

Tropical Australian study sets new standard for Indigenous-led research A new study highlights how Indigenous leadership, science and business can unite to protect coastal ecosystems while building long-term environmental and cultural knowledge. Published in Ocean & Coastal Management, the study found the 300 hectares of mangrove forest on the Barron River estuary around Cairns Airport – on the doorstep of the Great Barrier Reef – stores more than 2,000 tonnes of carbon annually, making ongoing care and monitoring of these and other coastal wetlands important for slowing climate change. The research was co-designed ...

Researchers have introduced a new blockchain-enabled framework that could significantly advance dynamic spectrum sharing (DSS) in future 6G wireless networks, addressing long-standing challenges in latency, security, and high-density spectrum coordination. Published in Blockchain, this work presents HierSpectrumChain, a hierarchical blockchain architecture that integrates smart-contract–driven Stackelberg auctions to coordinate spectrum access efficiently and securely among diverse wireless users. Dynamic spectrum sharing is essential for next-generation ...

In hydrogen production catalysts, water droplets must detach easily from the surface to prevent blockage by bubbles, allowing for faster hydrogen generation. In semiconductor manufacturing, the quality of the process is determined by how evenly water or liquid spreads on the surface, or how quickly it dries. However, directly observing how such water or liquid spreads and moves on a surface ('wettability') at the nanoscale has been technically almost impossible until now, forcing researchers to rely mostly on conjecture. KAIST announced on ...

For many of us, any kind of shopping is stressful enough. The anxiety, however, really kicks in when you must purchase something you’re going to share with another person. Such are the findings of a UC Riverside School of Business study published in the Journal of Marketing Research that compared consumer anxiety levels stemming from different shopping circumstances. Shopping for goods or services that you will share is significantly more stressful than shopping for yourself or for something to be given to another person, explained study co-author Margaret Campbell, an associate dean, professor, and chair of the school’s ...

As CO2 accumulates in crewed spacecraft, submarines and disaster shelters, life-support systems demand sorbents that combine high capacity, ultralow regeneration energy and compact form factors. Now, researchers from Guangxi University, led by Prof. Hui He, unveil micro/nano-reconfigurable robots (MNRM) that harvest sunlight to capture 6.19 mmol g-1 CO2 and release it at only 55 °C—while actively swimming to prevent overheating. In a sealed-mouse model the robots prolonged survival by 54.61 %, offering a self-powered route to carbon-metabolism ...

Long-term antidepressant use in Australia has risen steadily over the past decade, with the largest increase seen in young people aged 10-24, where rates have more than doubled. The finding is from a new study undertaken by University of South Australia researchers, who analysed dispensing data from the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS) covering more than 300,000 antidepressant users between 2014 and 2023. The most comprehensive study of its kind, published in the Pharmacaoepidemiology and Drug Safety Journal, reveals that 45% of young people on antidepressants are staying on ...

HONOLULU, Dec. 2, 2025 — Some music is for grooving: It evokes spontaneous dancing, like head bopping, jumping, or arm swinging. Other music is for swaying, or for crying, or for slow dancing. Music makes people move, but whether musicians intentionally induce specific movements with their compositions, such as vertical bouncing or horizontal swaying, or what musical features would contribute to these distinctions, is more complex. Shimpei Ikegami, an associate professor at Showa Women’s University, sought to understand how musicians express intended bodily movement ...

HONOLULU, Dec. 2, 2025 — Wildlife poaching remains a major conservation concern. Technological advancements have enabled webs of acoustic sensors to be deployed throughout rainforests, creating the possibility of real-time alerts to the sounds of gun-based poaching. But the belly of the rainforest is loud, and sorting through a constant influx of sound data is computationally demanding. Detectors can distinguish a loud bang from the whistles, chirps, and rasps of birds and bugs. However, they often conflate the sounds of branches cracking, trees falling, or water dripping ...

An updated Cochrane review has found that calcium supplementation has no effect on pre-eclampsia, challenging long-held assumptions about the role of calcium in preventing hypertensive disorders in pregnancy. Researchers from Stellenbosch University have found strong evidence from large trials that calcium supplementation during pregnancy does not reduce the risk of pre-eclampsia. Pre-eclampsia is a life-threatening condition that can affect women in the second half of their pregnancy. It can be fatal or cause lifelong complications for both mother and baby. Pre-eclampsia is characterised by new onset high blood pressure with end-organ injury. The only ...

HOUSTON – (Dec. 2, 2025) – Tracking how genes switch on and off in the brain is essential for understanding many neurological diseases, yet the tools to monitor this activity are often invasive or unable to capture subtler changes over time. One emerging alternative is to use engineered serum markers ⎯ small proteins produced by targeted brain cells that can travel into the bloodstream, where they can be measured with a simple blood test. Referred to as released markers of activity, or RMAs, ...

About one third of lung transplant recipients have a genetic variant that makes them more likely to develop chronic lung allograft dysfunction (CLAD), the primary cause of mortality after lung transplantation. However, it is unclear why some lung transplant recipients progress to CLAD while others do not. A study led by UCLA Health found that the cause could be a variant in the C3 gene, which makes it harder for the body to regulate the complement system, the part of the immune system that helps the body recognize and clear infections and debris, such as those occurring in the transplanted lung.    “Lung transplantation has the poorest long-term survival ...

Atmospheric dust plays an important role in the way Earth absorbs and reflects sunlight, impacting the global climate, cloud formation, and precipitation. Much of this dust comes from the continuous reshaping of Earth’s surface through the erosion of rocks and sediments, and understanding how this process has shaped landscapes can help us decipher our planet’s history – and its future. Although an ephemeral phenomenon by nature, dust emissions through ...

Creating a safe, gender-specific, supportive environment—one that is free of body shaming and idealised female forms, for example—is key to minimising female athletes’ future risks of injury and protecting their health, emphasises the Female/woman/girl Athlete Injury pRevention (FAIR) Consensus Statement—the first of its kind—published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.   Women and girls have increasingly been taking part in sports, which has led to a concomitant rise in their risk of injury. But how best to minimise this risk has been hampered by a lack of comprehensive and practical gender-specific evidence.   In a bid ...

Overreliance on generative AI risks eroding new and future doctors’ critical thinking skills, while potentially reinforcing existing data bias and inequity, warns an editorial published in the online journal BMJ Evidence Based Medicine.   GenAI tools are already being widely used amid few institutional policies and regulatory guidance, point out the authors, who urge medical educators to exercise vigilance and adjust curricula and training to mitigate the technology’s pitfalls.   The use of AI is now used in a vast array of different tasks, but along with its burgeoning potential comes an increasing risk of overreliance on it and a host of potential issues ...