Moths are under threat from increasing light pollution: streetlights and other artificial light sources in cities and populated areas disrupt the orientation of these nocturnal insects, which reduces their chances of mating. Scientists have been studying the effects of streetlights on moths for years but remain largely in the dark about the underlying mechanisms. The Lightstar project aims to provide new insights. “We want to create a more detailed database on how light pollution affects the ...

The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI), the Consortium of Organizations for Strong Motion Observation Systems (COSMOS) and SSA are pleased to announce that Eduardo Miranda of Stanford University is the recipient of the 2026 Bruce Bolt Medal. Miranda was recognized for his contributions in developing new ground motion models and intensity measures, refining damping modification factors, and improving methods for assessing seismic demands on structures and nonstructural components. His work has shaped seismic design provisions, and he has emphasized the use of strong-motion ...

Dr. George Coukos, a physician-scientist and international authority on tumor immunology and cellular immunotherapy, is joining Weill Cornell Medicine on Feb. 1 to lead the new Ludwig Laboratory for Cell Therapy. He previously was founding director of the Ludwig Lausanne Branch in Switzerland. The Ludwig Laboratory for Cell Therapy will be housed within the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center. It will build on Dr. Coukos’s scientific achievements as director of Lausanne Branch, among them a bench-to-bedside research program for the development, production and clinical evaluation of cellular immunotherapies ...

Physical Chemistry applies the principles and concepts of physics to understand the basics of chemistry and explain how and why transformations of matter take place on a molecular level. One of the branches of this field focusses on understanding how molecules change in the course of a chemical reaction or process. Understanding the interactions of chiral molecules with water is crucial, given the central role that water plays in chemical and biological processes. Chiral molecules are those that, despite comprising the same atoms, cannot ...

The loss of social connectedness as people age increases the odds of cognitive-related disorders and can worsen health outcomes in older populations. But is there a direct relationship between social behavior and cognition? Subhadeep Dutta Gupta, Peter Rapp, and colleagues, from the National Institute on Aging, developed a rat model to probe social cognition in the aging brain.   As presented in their eNeuro paper, the researchers used 169 young and aged male rats to discover that while older ...

New in JNeurosci, Mary Schneider and Alexander Converse, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, led an interdisciplinary study to explore how prenatal alcohol and stress exposure affect rhesus monkey offspring in adulthood.  Pregnant rhesus monkeys either drank moderate amounts of alcohol, experienced mild stress, or both. The researchers later assessed changes to the brain’s dopamine system and alcohol drinking in adult offspring. Prenatal stress and alcohol influenced the dopamine ...

A prevention strategy developed by Canadian researchers can reduce the risk of the most common and deadly form of ovarian cancer by nearly 80 per cent, according to a new study published today in JAMA Network Open by researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC).  The strategy, known as opportunistic salpingectomy (OS), involves proactively removing a person’s fallopian tubes when they are already undergoing a routine ...

GLENCOE AND LISLE, ILL. (Feb. 2, 2026)— The Chicago Botanic Garden and The Morton Arboretum are pledging to safeguard threatened tree and plant species across continents as part of Reverse the Red Day, held annually worldwide on Feb. 7 to celebrate conservation success.  Reverse the Red is a global coalition of partners working to halt extinctions and reverse declines shown on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, and to recover species. Botanical gardens and arboreta play a critical role in collaborative and cross-sector plant conservation efforts locally and globally. At a time when government ...

The idea Improvements in public health have allowed humankind to survive to older ages than ever before, but, for many people, these added golden years are not spent in good health. Aging is a natural part of life, but it is associated with a greatly increased incidence of most chronic diseases, including various cancers, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s disease. The laboratory of Kris Burkewitz, assistant professor of cell and developmental biology, wants to figure out if there is a way to break the links between the aging process and disease so that we can stay healthy longer, allowing ...

Toronto, ON, February 2, 2026 — A new study suggests that people born more recently are being diagnosed with psychotic disorders (e.g., schizophrenia) more often and at younger ages compared with people born earlier.   The study included over 12 million individuals who were born between 1960 and 2005 and followed them for new diagnoses of a psychotic disorder between 1993 and 2023. Over the study, 152,587 individuals were diagnosed with a psychotic disorder. Researchers from ICES, North York General, The Ottawa Hospital, and Bruyère Health Research Institute found that the rate of new diagnoses of psychotic disorders ...

About The Study: In 2021-2023, most U.S. adults with uncontrolled blood pressure (BP) were not taking antihypertensive medication. Approximately two-thirds of U.S. adults with uncontrolled BP who were not taking antihypertensive medication had systolic BP and diastolic BP within 10 mm Hg of the 2025 AHA/ACCBP goal, indicating that many could potentially achieve BP control with initiation of antihypertensive medication and lifestyle modification. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding ...

About The Study: Existing evidence demonstrates that opportunistic salpingectomy (removal of the fallopian tubes during unrelated pelvic or abdominal surgery) is significantly associated with a lower risk of developing tubo-ovarian carcinoma. Clinicians should include this prevention intervention in preoperative counseling of eligible women. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Maria Kyrgiou, MD, PhD, email m.kyrgiou@imperial.ac.uk. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jama.2025.24510) Editor’s Note: Please ...

About The Study: Rural regions have benefited from immigration policies that direct international-born physicians to underserved areas; the Conrad 30 waiver enabled thousands of J-1 visa holders to remain in the U.S. in exchange for rural service, caring for approximately 44 million patients. H1-B visas are additional vehicles for immigrant clinicians.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Manav Midha, BA, email manav.midha@icahn.mssm.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media ...

About The Study: The data from this study support the potential benefit of oral semaglutide in reducing heart failure events in people with type 2 diabetes and heart failure.  Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Rodica Pop-Busui, MD, PhD, email busui@ohsu.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2025.7774) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and ...

HERSHEY, Pa. — Traditional stroke rehabilitation therapy focuses on restoring strength and movement to the more impaired side of the body, but a new randomized clinical trial has revealed that targeted therapy for the less impaired arm significantly improved movement and control for stroke survivors. The trial, led by researchers from Penn State and the University of Southern California (USC), compared the new approach to the standard best-practice therapy currently in use. The team said the findings, published today (Feb. 2) in JAMA Neurology, ...

Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality Earplugs were found more effective than pink noise for protecting sleep quality   PHILADELPHIA—Pink noise—often used to promote sleep—may reduce restorative REM sleep and interfere with sleep recovery. In contrast, earplugs were found to be significantly more effective in protecting sleep against traffic noise, according to new study published in the journal Sleep from the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine.   The findings challenge ...

About The Study: In this cross-sectional study, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) app use varied widely among participants, with up to half of adolescents having some use and a small subset engaging in heavy use. Future research must address individual differences in GenAI use to determine impacts on development. Corresponding Author: To contact the corresponding author, Anne J. Maheux, PhD, email amaheux@unc.edu. To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/ (doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.56631) Editor’s Note: Please see the article for additional information, including ...

Babies as young as two months old are able to categorise distinct objects in their brains – much earlier than previously thought – according to new research from neuroscientists in Trinity College Dublin.  The research, which combined brain imaging with artificial intelligence models, enriches our understanding of what babies are thinking and how they learn in the earliest months of life. The study has been just published in the journal Nature Neuroscience by a team from Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience (TCIN) and the ...

Tsukuba, Japan—The underwater dolphin kick is a swimming technique in which propulsion is generated solely through the undulatory motion of the lower limbs, increasing swimmers' speed by moving the body in a wavelike pattern similar to fish or marine mammals. However, because the human body is not naturally adapted to such undulatory movements, swimmers must master advanced motor skills to improve performance in this technique. This study analyzed time-series data of joint movements during underwater dolphin kick to examine differences in swimmer performance levels. Using conducting kinematic synergy analysis, the researchers identified two ...

Polaritons—hybrid light-matter particles—allow light to be squeezed into deep subwavelength scales, holding great promise for ultra-compact photonic devices. By structuring materials into periodic crystals, known as polaritonic crystals (PoCs), researchers can engineer exotic optical modes called Bloch modes for enhanced light control. However, once fabricated, these crystals and their Bloch modes are fixed, lacking the dynamic tunability required for adaptive optical devices. While graphene supports highly tunable plasmon polaritons, their performance is limited by substantial optical ...

SAN ANTONIO — February 2, 2026 — Southwest Research Institute’s (SwRI) Board of Directors has named Dr. Ben Thacker, P.E., chief operating officer (COO). Thacker previously served as the vice president of SwRI’s Mechanical Engineering Division. In his new role, he directs the operations of the Institute’s technical divisions and administers SwRI’s internal research program in addition to other resources and programs. Thacker also joins the Institute’s executive team, which includes President and CEO Adam Hamilton, P.E., Vice President - Finance and CFO Beth Rafferty and ...

On October 28th, Korea University’s College of Medicine (Dean Pyun Sung-Bom) and Yale University hosted a joint forum with the topic of 'Basic and Clinical Neuroscience' at lecture room 320, main building.   This joint forum was a part of the 120th anniversary celebration of Korea University. Following the last year’s theme of medical informatics, this year’s theme was neuroscience. The purpose of this forum was to realize the direction of joint research between the two universities and further enhancing their global cooperation system.   The ...

Wetlands make up only about six percent of the land area but contain about 30 percent of the terrestrial organic carbon pool. Therefore, CO2 emissions from wetlands are central to the global climate balance. In Denmark, the plan is to flood 140,000 hectares of low-lying land such as bogs and meadows as part of the Green Tripartite Agreement. Flooding such areas will slow down the decomposition of organic material in the soil and keep the CO2 in the soil rather than allowing it to be released to the atmosphere and contribute to the greenhouse effect. At least, that has been the rationale until now. However, a new study from the University of Copenhagen, published in Nature ...

Bats, critical reservoirs of viruses with significant cross-species spillover risks, have long been understudied in the Indochina Peninsula. A study led by researchers from Beijing University of Chemical Technology, the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, and their partners has unveiled the region's bat virome diversity, offering key insights into the origins of porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) and critical surveillance priorities. From 2020 to 2024, the team analyzed 659 samples from 197 bats across 16 species using next-generation sequencing (NGS). They identified 137 viral strains across 27 families, including 40 novel species. Rhinolophidae bats from ...

A Hiroshima University-led project has secured a $1.8 million grant from the Gates Foundation to develop a way to store bull semen using simple refrigeration instead of costly liquid nitrogen, a shift that could remove a major barrier to modern dairy cattle breeding that has long excluded farmers in low-resource regions. If successful, the technology is expected to deliver far-reaching benefits on food security and livelihoods in local communities. The project, headed by Professor Masayuki Shimada of Hiroshima University’s Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Life, received the grant in October 2025, marking the second time his laboratory has secured ...