Peer reviewed – Experimental study – Human DNA Scientists at the University of East Anglia and Oxford Biodynamics have developed a high accuracy blood test to diagnose Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, also known as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS). The debilitating long-term illness affects millions worldwide - including over 400,000 sufferers in the UK - but is poorly understood and has long lacked reliable diagnostic tools. With 96 per cent accuracy, the test offers new hope for those living with the condition - which is often ...

Calorie labelling, which became law in April 2022 in England, is associated with only a small (2%) average reduction in the energy content of food that is available away from home, finds research published in the open access journal BMJ Public Health.   And these changes are primarily due to swapping in slightly lower calorie items, rather than reformulating existing ones, with no changes observed in continuously available items. The impact on population health is likely to be “moderate to limited,” conclude the researchers.   Eating at restaurants, fast food outlets, and ordering takeaways, collectively known as out-of-home food outlets, is common and associated with ...

The strong opioid painkiller, tramadol, is not that effective at easing chronic pain for which it’s widely prescribed, finds a pooled data analysis of the available research, published online in BMJ Evidence Based Medicine.   And it likely increases the risk of serious side effects, including heart disease, the findings indicate, prompting the researchers to conclude that the potential harms of tramadol probably outweigh its benefits, and that its use should be minimised.   Tramadol is a dual action opioid widely prescribed for the treatment of moderate ...

Exercise snacks—intentional short bursts of physical activity—may be an effective way of boosting the cardiorespiratory fitness of physically inactive adults, finds a synthesis of the available research, published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.   Adherence to exercise snacking throughout the day was high, the findings indicate, and this approach could counter perceived lack of time and low motivation—frequently cited barriers to fulfilling the recommended weekly quota of physical activity for health—say the researchers.   Globally, ...

Whole genome sequencing offered to breast cancer patients is likely to identify unique genetic features that could either guide immediate treatment or help match patients to clinical trials for over 15,000 women a year, say scientists at the University of Cambridge. In 2022, 2.3 million women were diagnosed with breast cancer worldwide and there were 670,000 related deaths. Despite significant progress in recent years, it remains challenging to accurately identify the best treatments for individual patients and to predict cases with poorer prognosis. Whole genome sequencing ...

Women who have Caesarean births at an advanced stage of labour are about eight times more likely to develop scars in the womb which are known to increase the likelihood of premature births in future pregnancies, UCL researchers have found. The study, published in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, looked at how the stage of labour when the operation is performed affects where the scar forms and how well it heals. More than 40 per cent of all births in high-income countries including England are now by Caesarean. As labour progresses, ...

(Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday 8 September 2025) The growing use of GLP-1 receptor agonists may affect the interpretation of oncological FDG PET-CT scans, new research presented today at the 38th Annual Congress of the European Association of Nuclear Medicine (EANM'25) has revealed.1 GLP-1 receptor agonists are now widely prescribed for individuals with type 2 diabetes and weight loss, with a 700% increase in usage reported in the United States between 2019 and 2023.² These medications alter glucose metabolism, gastric motility and sympathetic tone, which may lead to unique uptake patterns on PET-CT. Previous case reports have shown increased FDG uptake in skeletal ...

LA JOLLA, CA— Cellular membrane proteins play many important roles throughout the body, including transporting substances in and out of the cell, transmitting signals, speeding up reactions and helping neighboring cells stick together. When they malfunction, it can cause serious diseases including cancer, making them attractive drug targets. But understanding how membrane proteins behave and function can be challenging because their position within the cell’s lipid membrane—a tightly-packed double layer of fat-like molecules—makes them difficult to study. Now, Scripps Research ...

WASHINGTON — In 2023, Panama experienced one of the worst droughts in its recorded history, and it severely depleted water available to the Panama Canal, so much that it decreased shipping by 30%. A new study projected that those historic water lows could become the new norm if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise. “If we mitigate emissions and we choose one of the lower emissions pathways, then it really keeps this system pretty stable,” said Samuel Muñoz, lead author of the a new study and a researcher studying  hydrologic and climatic variability at Northeastern University. “But if we don't, then these low water levels that ...

A new one-step, water- acid- and alkali-free method for extracting high-purity lithium from spodumene ore has the potential to transform critical metal processing and enhance renewable energy supply chains. This study is set to be published in Science Advances Oct. 3, 2025. As the demand for lithium continues to rise, particularly for use in electric cars, smartphones and power storage, current extraction methods are struggling to keep pace. Extracting lithium from salty water is a lengthy process, and traditional methods that use heat and chemicals ...

Nashville, TN – COMBINEDBrain, a leader in advancing translational neuroscience research, and the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), one of the nation's premier academic health centers, are excited to announce a strategic partnership to establish a cutting-edge biorepository for pediatric central nervous system (CNS) tissue and biofluids. This collaborative effort, led by MUSC’s Dr. Ramin Eskandari and COMBINEDBrain’s Dr. Anna Pfalzer, aims to accelerate the development of treatments for neurological diseases and significantly aid drug companies in biomarker discovery and therapeutic development. The biorepository will house ...

Public water systems in the U.S. were far less likely to report suspiciously rounded lead levels after the Flint, Michigan water crisis drew national outrage and federal scrutiny, according to new research led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst.  The study, published as the first article in the latest issue of American Economic Review: Insights, introduces new statistical methods to distinguish between natural rounding and potential “threshold manipulation” in reported figures. “Existing ...

National security officials are "overwhelmingly overconfident," which hinders their ability to accurately assess uncertainty, according to new research by a Dartmouth government professor. When they thought statements had a 90% chance of being true, the statements were only true about 60% of the time, according to the study.  The findings are published in the Texas National Security Review. About 1,900 national security officials from more than 40 NATO allies and partners were surveyed on the uncertainty of current and future states of the world, and delivered a total of 60,000 assessments. ...

The Second World Congress on Targeting Extracellular Vesicles (EVs) is scheduled for 15–16 October 2025 in Valencia, Spain. This landmark event, co-organized by the World Mitochondria Society and the International Society of Microbiota, will spotlight the rapidly evolving science where mitochondrial biology and microbiome research intersect via extracellular vesicles.  Under the theme “Bridging Two Frontiers: Mitochondria & Microbiota”, this edition aims to accelerate scientific discovery and clinical translation by bringing together world leaders in EV biology, mitochondrial medicine, microbiota research, and biotechnology. Extracellular ...

A University of Arizona research team will receive nearly $2.7 million from the NIH's Common Fund Venture Program to advance next-generation imaging technologies that allow deeper, clearer views inside the body without the need for invasive procedures. The U of A team, led by Florian Willomitzer in the James C. Wyant College of Optical Sciences and Dr. Clara Curiel-Lewandrowski in the U of A Comprehensive Cancer Center, is one of only four groups nationwide to receive funding ...

URBANA, Ill. – The U.S. has traditionally been an agricultural powerhouse with a healthy trade surplus. But global dynamics are changing due to a confluence of political and economic factors. U.S. agricultural imports now exceed exports, and the trade deficit is projected to worsen in the coming years. In a new study, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Texas Tech University discuss recent developments affecting the U.S. trade in row crops such as corn, soybeans, wheat, and cotton. “For most of ...

A team of scientists has found that biochar made from an aggressive invasive plant can protect rice from two modern pollutants that threaten global food security: nanoplastics and cadmium. The study, published in Biochar, reveals how biochar biofilters derived from Mikania micrantha, an invasive vine spreading across Asia, can reduce the combined toxicity of these contaminants by regulating plant metabolism and strengthening rice’s natural defense systems. Nanoplastics, the tiny fragments of degraded plastics, and cadmium, a persistent heavy metal, frequently coexist in agricultural ...

Rice University has named 10 graduate students as recipients of the 2025-26 Chevron Energy Graduate Fellowships, a program created through a partnership between the Rice Sustainability Institute and Chevron. Each fellow receives a $10,000 award to support research advancing scalable energy innovations that reduce emissions, accelerate low-carbon technologies and improve the reliability and efficiency of current and future energy systems. The fellowship program, launched last year, reflects a shared commitment ...

Researchers have unveiled a surprising new way that soil microbes can use sunlight energy — even after the lights go out. A team from Kunming University of Science and Technology and the University of Massachusetts Amherst has developed a “bio-photovoltage soil-microbe battery” that can capture, store, and release solar energy to power the breakdown of antibiotic pollutants in the dark. The study, published in Environmental and Biogeochemical Processes, shows that common soil bacteria known as Bacillus megaterium can partner with iron minerals to form a living biofilm that behaves like a rechargeable geochemical capacitor. When exposed to light, the iron-bacteria film ...

A new study published in Science Advances about centuries-old horse and donkey bones, unearthed in Jamestown, Virginia, is rewriting the story of how these animals first arrived in North America. While written records from the earliest English explorers show that horses were among the animals brought to Virginia, the new zooarchaeological analysis of animal remains found at Jamestown is the first to show that colonists also brought donkeys to the New World. The study also reveals a dark ending to these equids in the colony: The horses and donkeys were likely butchered and eaten during Jamestown’s infamous winter of starvation. “There ...

MIAMI (Oct. 7, 2025) – As drones become increasingly common in U.S. skies – delivering packages, inspecting bridges, even monitoring crops – the danger of cyberattacks has grown too. A drone hijacked by hackers could suddenly veer off course, speed up, stall in midair, or crash. Once compromised, the machine is useless, often left as little more than expensive junk. Florida International University researchers have found a way to fight back. At the IEEE International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, FIU computer scientists unveiled SHIELD, a defensive system that can detect and neutralize ...

From viral videos to debates over new products, ideas move faster than ever in today’s digital age. Mehmet Aktas, an associate professor of data science and analytics, is leading National Science Foundation-funded research that looks into how those ideas spread, evolve, and shape communities. Funded through a collaborative NSF grant, Aktas is working with colleagues from Georgia State University and Georgia Gwinnett College to explore new ways of modeling information diffusion. Aktas’s project studies how information flows within networks of people. Traditional approaches treat communication like a chain of one-to-one interactions, ...

As renewable energy technologies advance, researchers aim to make solar power more efficient, affordable, and durable. Scientists from Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Lithuania, in collaboration with international partners, have achieved one of the highest efficiencies ever reported for fully inorganic perovskite solar cells. They have also demonstrated for the first time that these cells can operate stably for hundreds of hours, approaching the reliability of commercial silicon solar cells. “Perovskite solar cells are one of the fastest-growing solar technologies in the world – they can be lightweight, thin-film, and flexible, and most importantly, they are ...

Researchers led by Aurore Perrault at Concordia University, Canada and Valeria Kebets at McGill University, Canada, have used a complex data-driven analysis to uncover relationships among multiple aspects of sleep and individual variation in health, cognition, and lifestyle. Published on October 7th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, the study reveals five sleep-biopsychosocial profiles and their associated patterns of functional connectivity among brain-regions. Most studies of sleep focus on a single aspect, such as duration, and examine how it relates to a ...

NORMAN, Okla. – Marmar Moussa, an assistant professor in the School of Computer Science and Stephenson School of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Oklahoma, has received a distinguished U.S. National Science Foundation CAREER award to develop advanced computational tools that could transform how scientists study disease at the cellular level, particularly in cancer and tissue remodeling. Moussa will lead a five-year project to create advanced algorithms that combine molecular profiling ...