New research indicates that psychosocial factors—which influence how a person perceives, interprets, and reacts to their surroundings—do not affect an individual’s risk of developing cancer. The findings are published by Wiley online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. For the study, investigators examined data from the Psychosocial Factors and Cancer (PSY-CA) consortium, an international research collaboration funded by the Dutch Cancer Society that analyzes information from prospective studies to assess whether psychosocial factors—such as perceived social support, loss of a loved one, relationship ...

ATLANTA, March 23, 2026 — Fast fashion is an inexpensive way to dress rapidly growing kids. But preliminary research has found that the fabric in some of these items contains an unwanted, toxic ingredient: lead. After testing several shirts from different retailers, undergraduate researchers found that all samples exceeded U.S. federal regulatory lead limits. They also estimate that even briefly chewing these fabrics (which young kids tend to do) could expose children to dangerous lead levels. The researchers will present their results at the spring meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS). ACS Spring ...

The first study of US and UK military veterans who volunteered to fight in Ukraine reveals extreme combat exposure including drone warfare and trench fighting, with high rates of PTSD, moral injury, and alcohol misuse. Most struggled to access mental health care in Ukraine or after returning home.

Researchers at the University of St Andrews used drones to film sperm whales headbutting one another in the Azores and Balearic Islands - the first scientific documentation of a behavior that 19th-century whalers described and that inspired Herman Melville's Moby Dick. Surprisingly, it was sub-adults, not large males, engaging in the collisions.

Researchers from ETH Zurich and the University of Tasmania have found that the limiting factor in plant water uptake is not the plant's own physiology but the physics of water movement through soil pores. The finding, published in Science, explains why breeding programs aimed at making drought-resistant crops through increased cellular solute concentrations have consistently failed.

The PSY-CA consortium analyzed data from 421,799 individuals and found that psychosocial factors like stress, bereavement, neuroticism, and social isolation are not associated with increased cancer risk. Small associations with lung cancer largely disappeared after adjusting for smoking and other behavioral risk factors.

By sequencing individual cells from a freshwater sample, scientists at the Earlham Institute and University of Oxford discovered three potentially new species of the protist Bodo, each hosting a distinct bacterial endosymbiont. The work reveals biodiversity invisible to conventional genomic methods.

New mathematical modeling and experiments from the University of Bath demonstrate that groups change their collective opinion more quickly when opponents are encouraged to adopt a neutral stance rather than being directly persuaded to switch sides. The effect was confirmed in both locust swarms and human voting games.

Across four low- and middle-income countries, 57% of seriously injured patients failed to reach care within the critical first hour. Patients transported by ambulance arrived more slowly than those using private vehicles, revealing that investing in ambulance fleets alone will not fix pre-hospital emergency care.

A new national surveillance system using clinical data from electronic health records identifies pediatric sepsis more accurately than billing codes. Applied to 3.9 million hospitalizations, it estimates over 18,000 annual cases with 10% in-hospital mortality.

A new JAMA study using clinical data from electronic health records estimates that sepsis occurs in 1.3% of US pediatric hospitalizations, with 10% mortality - translating to more than 18,000 cases and 1,800 deaths annually. The approach proved more accurate than traditional billing codes.

Interviews with clinicians reveal that decisions to offer venovenous ECMO for severe respiratory failure rely heavily on individual judgment rather than objective guidelines, raising concerns about inconsistent and potentially inequitable allocation of a scarce resource.

Researchers at Hawaii Pacific University tested asphalt pavement made with recycled fishing nets and residential plastic waste on an Oahu road for 11 months. Microplastic shedding was comparable to standard polymer-modified asphalt, and tire wear dominated the polymer signal in road dust.

The BESS trial, the largest randomized study of surfactant for bronchiolitis, found no reduction in ventilator time for 232 critically ill babies across 15 UK hospitals - closing the door on a hypothesis that had persisted for years.

In cardiac arrest survivors, neurofilament light chain levels at 48 hours correlated with long-term cognitive outcomes on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, while the standard biomarker neuron-specific enolase did not - suggesting a more reliable tool for early prognosis.

University of Phoenix researchers reviewed the scholarly literature on generative AI tools in academia, finding that ChatGPT and similar tools are reshaping doctoral research workflows while raising unresolved questions about transparency and original analysis.

A systematic review of nine randomized controlled trials finds that indocyanine green fluorescence angiography reduces anastomotic leaks by 40% in colorectal surgery. The complication, which can cause sepsis and death, affects up to one in four patients after bowel operations.

For over two centuries, textbooks have described Harold's exhausting forced march from Yorkshire to Hastings before the Norman Conquest. New research from the University of East Anglia shows this never happened. Harold kept his fleet and moved his army by sea.

Physicists have directly visualized compact molecular orbitals in the kagome metal Ni3In, confirming a theory linking flat electronic bands to quantum critical behavior. The work, published in Nature Physics, could inform the search for high-temperature superconductors.

In a trial spanning 77 hospitals and over 21,000 patients, an AI clinical decision support system that analyzes brain scans and recommends treatments reduced new vascular events by 27% at one year compared with standard care. Published in The BMJ.

A Tufts University team built a hybrid AI system that merges pattern recognition with symbolic logic. In robot block-stacking tests, it hit 95% accuracy versus 34% for standard models, trained in 34 minutes instead of a day and a half, and consumed a fraction of the energy.

Among youth transitioning out of foster care, those who reported adequate emotional support had significantly lower odds of incarceration, according to research in Social Work Research -- suggesting that who listens matters more than how many people are around.

When 600 participants were randomly sorted into arbitrary teams, they judged pro-team statements as more credible -- not because of what they knew, but because of what they wanted to believe, according to a study in Psychological Science.

A new biochar-carbon nanotube-iron carbide composite achieved over 90% removal of enrofloxacin and amoxicillin from water under low-frequency ultrasound, outperforming conventional materials by 15-fold while using substantially less energy.

With 45% of flowering plants at risk of extinction and the fragrance market heading toward $100 billion by 2034, researchers argue in BioScience that the industry must move past sustainability branding and directly finance plant conservation.